Bruce Campbell On Reviving His Signature Role For TV In Ash Vs. The Evil Dead

Cult icon Bruce Campbell has discussed returning to the role on which he made his name in upcoming TV series ‘Ash Vs The Evil Dead,’ a small-screen spin-off of the ‘Evil Dead’ trilogy.

Whilst Campbell has built a pretty hefty CV out of TV roles, B-movies and cameo appearances in the films of his old friend Sam Raimi (spot him in all three original ‘Spider-Man’ films, for instance), he remains most recognised for his breakthrough turn as the square-jawed, dim-witted hero with the chainsaw hand in Raimi’s tongue-in-cheek horror series.

After rumours of a direct sequel to 1992’s ‘Army of Darkness’ earlier in 2014, many fans were pleasantly surprised when it was revealed that Ash’s story would instead be continued in a ten-part series on US network Starz, with Sam Raimi expected to direct at least the first episode, as well as co-writing the series with his brother Ivan (with whom he previously collaborated on ‘Army of Darkness’ and ‘Drag Me To Hell’).

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Campbell has now discussed the matter for the first time in an interview with Entertainment Weekly (quotes via Dread Central), and the larger-than-life actor seems to hint at a slightly more serious approach to Ash's latest altercation with the Deadites than we may have anticipated.

"Ash has survivor’s guilt… You could have a [field day] with his PTSD. He’s a war vet. He doesn’t want to talk about it, and he’ll lie about that stump on his hand to impress the ladies.

"That’s what I look forward to playing – a guy with horrible flaws. In ‘Army of Darkness’ he can’t memorize three words, and he’s responsible for the death of a hundred people – this is your lead character!”

Campbell also explains what motivated the decision to bring Ash back on TV rather than the big screen:

“We realized if we made another movie, frankly, it would probably be too expensive, but in the format of a TV show, we could give people exactly what they wanted and expand the character and story even more.

"And we never burned Evil Dead as a franchise out – it’s not like we did 13 of these movies. So we felt like, what the heck, let’s give it a try.”

It seems most likely that ‘Ash Vs The Evil Dead’ will follow on from the US ending of ‘Army of Darkness,’ in which Ash successfully returned from the dark ages to his own time - as opposed to the ending on the original UK release, which saw him accidentally sleep too long and awaken in a post-apocalyptic future.

However, it remains unknown if the TV series will be in any way related to 2013’s ‘Evil Dead’ reboot from director Fede Alvarez, for which a sequel is still thought to be a possibility.

No broadcast dates have been announced yet, but ‘Ash Vs The Evil Dead’ is expected to air at some point in 2015.

If you can’t wait that long for your small screen Bruce Campbell fix, he will be seen this December in the Christmas episode of ‘The Librarians’ - as Santa Claus, no less.

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Picture Credit: DeLaurentis Entertainment Group, WENN