1428 Elm
Fansided

Bruce Campbell interview: Cooking with Chef in The Last Kids on Earth

By Susan Leighton

LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 24: Actor Bruce Campbell attends SAG-AFTRA Foundation's Conversations with "Ash Vs. Evil Dead" at SAG Foundation Actors Center on October 24, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Vincent Sandoval/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 24: Actor Bruce Campbell attends SAG-AFTRA Foundation's Conversations with "Ash Vs. Evil Dead" at SAG Foundation Actors Center on October 24, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Vincent Sandoval/Getty Images) /
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Bruce Campbell
BURBANK, CA – OCTOBER 23: Actor Bruce Campbell attends a signing session for his book “Hail To The Chin” at Dark Delicacies Bookstore on October 23, 2017 in Burbank, California. (Photo by Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images) /

Focusing on the Craft

1428 Elm: Your role of Chef has some fun bits and there is dialogue that will definitely remind viewers of Ash in a sense particularly with the one-liners. Is it challenging for you to create a character when it is just you in a booth reading your lines and no one to play off of?

BC: Nah, because acting is fakey, fake, fake from the get-go, anyway. So, a lot of times even on a film set, you’re not looking at the actual actors. If they wanted them to get off the clock and they send them home, you’re talking to either the script supervisor who is sitting there looking at a notebook or you’re looking at a mark on a wall.

So, its actually okay. I love the isolation of it. Its very insulated. You can go into your own little world and you don’t hear anything. These studios are very quiet and it lets you get into your own head. There are very few distractions.

On a film set, there is somebody always swinging something within your eyeline or doing something. A guy’s picking his nose on the other side of the camera, lots of distractions.

In the case of doing voice over work, it’s great. You really get to focus. There’s not too much chatter. It’s just you and the director who you’re patching in over the phone with.

Bruce Campbell
Photo: The Last Kids on Earth.. Courtesy Netflix /

Pulling Back the Curtain

1428 Elm: We remember when we last talked to you about the show, you said that you just received your sides and not much information. It reminds us of the cold read process where you have to hope your interpretation is the correct vision for the character.

BC: Yeah, I only know the scenes that I’m in. I couldn’t tell you the plot or the story anymore than the Netflix description or the paragraph they send out. I just got pages with “Campbell” on them.

1428 Elm: For those beginning actors that might have to navigate a situation like that, how do they prepare?

BC: That’s what the director is for because when you’re doing your work, you can say to him, is this the big battle, is this the climax? Where does this fall? All you have to do is understand which piece of the puzzle you are and where you fall in it.

Then you’re good. You’ll do a take and then most directors will say something like, “You know there’s a waterfall behind you, so you should probably be a little bigger.” Most notes that I get for cartoon work is just go bigger.

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