Bruce Campbell, a Comic-Con favorite for his role as Ash in the "Evil Dead" movies and Starz show, was at Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore Thursday to sign his new book, "Hail to the Chin."
As Ash, Bruce Campbell has been fighting off deadites for decades with a chainsaw hand and a smart-alecky attitude. At conventions he comes across as the coolest of the cool cult heroes paying reverence to no one and to nothing.
So it may come as a bit of a surprise to discover in his first book "If Chins Could Kill" and his latest book "Hail to the Chin," that what may define him most is that he's a hard-working actor with an old school sense of professionalism and respect for the craft even if you are working in B movies.
"But there is that ridiculous, inescapable difference between the persona and the actual person and hopefully if anything that’s what books can do is round out that image a little bit," Campbell said. "I just like wearing dumb outfits and going to conventions and this stuff gives me the excuse to do that. For some reason I do pretend like I don’t take any of it seriously and there’s a lot of it that I don’t take seriously but I actually do take the craft seriously. Like being a good bricklayer. I think you should take pride if you are a craftsman, you should take pride in being a good craftsman so I guess I do take that seriously. There is always going to be a difference between the onscreen schmo and the guy who runs around on his property."
It's been 15 years since his first book and Campbell decided that enough had happened in his life to merit a second one.
"The industry has changed a lot," Campbell said. "The B movies that I have championed for a long time seem to be very prevalent now in that all the A movies are B movies. If you are bitten by a radioactive spider that’s a 1950s B movie. So I feel vindicated now. Hollywood has just caught up with my visionary thinking."
Campbell’s books contain entertaining anecdotes as well as with insights into how the industry works.
For all of you "Ash Vs. Evil Dead" fans, this book will have to satisfy your need for a Campbell fix because the premiere of the show's third season has been postponed from this month to February.
I will have a podcast with Campbell's full interview — including an interesting revelation about an unlikely inspiration for how he played Ash — will be up on the Cinema Junkie Podcast on Friday.
