Evil Dead's Bruce Campbell reveals what it'd take to get him to play Ash again

Evil Dead's Bruce Campbell appears to have shot down the possibility of ever playing Ash Williams again – a live-action Ash, that is.

In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, the actor, who first played horror icon Ash in Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead back in 1981, admitted that while he wouldn't want to reprise the role in a live-action capacity, he'd be keen to fight off some more deadites from the safety of a recording booth. 

"We are developing an animated version, like a series," he said. "I'll do that. I'll do Ash's voice all day long, because my voice hasn't aged as much as I have."

After The Evil Dead, Campbell appeared as Ash in its sequels Evil Dead II (1987) and Army of Darkness (1992), as well as the TV series Ash vs Evil Dead. He's previously voiced him in video games Evil Dead: Hail to the King, Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick, Evil Dead: Regeneration, and Evil Dead: The Game.

While he hasn't played the zany, one-armed character onscreen since 2018, he did have a cameo in Lee Cronin's Evil Dead Rise in 2023. You don't see him, but he's the unnamed priest who you can hear whispering incantations on the records that unleash the demons into the protagonists' high-rise apartment.

"We're out of the cabin, Sam [Raimi] doesn't have to direct, I don't have to star as Ash," Campbell added, noting the two future movies that in the works from filmmakers Sébastien Vaniček (Infested) and Francis Galluppi (The Last Stop in Yuma County). "The trick is to take the elements that people like, which is innocent people being tortured by a malicious entity, and it's people who have no skills to stop it."

For more, check out our list of the best horror movies of all time, or our guide to the most exciting upcoming horror movies heading our way.