Almost any ’80s or ’90s kid who grew up watching sci-fi, fantasy, or horror fare can associate the name Bruce Campbell with at least one iconic role. From Ash Williams of the Evil Dead franchise to the “King of Thieves,” Autolycus, in the Xena and Hercules television shows that were extremely popular at the time, Campbell left a lasting impression on audiences that persists to this day.

Having appeared as acerbic playboy Sam Axe in 111 episodes — and a spinoff movie — for sunny spy-actioner Burn Notice, and having recently hosted Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, Campbell has found a number of iconic roles through a career spanning 40 years.

Now, returning to lend his voice to The Last Kids on Earth, an animated post-apocalyptic Netflix series from Atomic Cartoons, the veteran actor finds himself working with the world’s most recognizable streaming giant. And as a fan, I was delighted that Campbell took a few moments out of his day to discuss his past, present, and future credits with me — as well as his social media presence and his love of the great outdoors.

Nick Morine: I really want to kick this off by saying thank you very much for your time today Bruce, I really appreciate it.

Bruce Campbell: Well, it’s not like I’m goin’ anywhere, so. We can still do interviews, it’s the one thing they can’t quite take away from us yet.

NM: Don’t say it! You never know. On that note, I was wondering how you’re weathering quarantine — how you’re getting through it.

BC: I live in rural Oregon, and nobody can find me anyway. So it kinda doesn’t matter. We go into town once a week anyway, and there’s a lot of back roads I can go out and get lost on. Very thankful for my electric mountain bike to get me the hell outta here.

NM: I grew up in a very rural area myself so I can relate to the back-road riding.

BC: Yeah!

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NM: I’ll pivot a bit. You’re set to return in the upcoming season of ‘The Last Kids on Earth’ from Atomic Cartoons for Netflix. Can you tell me a bit more about your role in the series, and your experience in lending your voice to it thus far?

BC: The experience has been fine, but as far as telling you more about me or the show — you know, they strangle us with information. Better than first season? Amazing? Let’s go with that.

But the experience is always good. I do voice work because — I’m not getting blood thrown in my face. Very rational process. And what appeals to me is that I have never really officially worked for Netflix before, and I’m like ‘Okay, they seem to be owning the world. So let’s see what Netflix is like.’ So that was a reason.

Actors also ask the question: ‘Who else is in it?’ That’s how I tend to judge a lot of projects these days. You hear certain names attached to certain projects, and you go: ‘Pass!’ You can just tell. And in this case — not a bad cast!

NM: I know there’s a lot of stars involved as well, Mark Hamill voices a character.

BC: Right.

NM: When you see names of that caliber, of course, it resonates.

BC: It doesn’t hurt, you know? I’ve done lots of crappy low-budget stuff so it’s nice to do kinda mainstream stuff. And honestly, from my perspective [laugh] kids never stop watching cartoons. So it’s good. You’re always on the air.

NM: Right — and some of us never stop watching even when we’re 36!

BC: That’s right, exactly.

NM: The general plot for ‘The Last Kids on Earth’ presents a fun yet spooky apocalyptic scenario, not unlike some of your past film and television work. Given that the showrunners have described themselves as ‘huge ‘Evil Dead’ fans,’ do you think your casting helps to cement that feel even further?

BC: Oh, it doesn’t hurt. The post-apocalyptic world… I guess I’m semi-familiar with it. The trick is to try not to keep playing yourself all the time. I like snarky characters too, so I think they wrote a good, fun character. And that’s really half the battle.

And here we have Chef, voiced by @GroovyBruce! #thelastkidsonearth ???? pic.twitter.com/DfdqBWBx4C — The Last Kids on Earth (@lastkidsonearth) April 15, 2020

NM: How have audiences reacted so far? Both to the show as a whole and to your inclusion in the cast?

BC: Honestly, to tell you the truth, I don’t know. It’s not on my personal radar.

NM: What can fans expect from Season 2 that might be a little different from Season 1?

BC: You know television — it’s more of the same! You like Season 1? You’ll like Season 2. It really is the truth. Again, I can’t tell you because they’d kill me. They don’t tell me anything — they tell me to say these words, and then they put it together in their puzzle. So I’m a little restricted on information, unfortunately — you have as much as I do, by the way. Probably more, you’ve said it more succinctly.

NM: I appreciate that, that’s a high compliment. Normally I’m attacked for being too verbose.

[shared laughter]

NM: You’re no stranger to voice work, and of course this is another one of those projects. As an actor, what are the unique challenges posed when charged with providing a voice to an animated character — and I know you kind of went over one [such challenge] just now — as opposed to live-action?

BC: Animation is kind of a moving target. I worked on ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,’ and they bring you back in to do stuff differently. Instead of giving you a complex — thinking that you suck, you know — you start to realize that they’ve added a waterfall behind you. So you’ve gotta do it differently, you’ve got to do it louder. Or you’re now being chased to the edge of a precipice, so you’ve gotta act a little more like you’re on the edge of a precipice. It’s more of that sorta thing, it evolves as they put it together.

But it’s really fun. I’m trying something new, a comedy album I’m gonna put out later this year, that I did with my buddy Ted Raimi. It’s called ‘The Lost Recordings.’

NM: I can tell you that I’m definitely looking forward to that!

BC: The host, Lames Jipton, presents the lost recordings. Volume 1, Hollywood. Lames Jipton, the noted scholar, has gained access to a lot of outtakes from classic, golden-era movies. And so we’re gonna get a behind-the-scenes peek at well-known movies that you [the audience] didn’t know ended this way.

NM: Pretty creative take — did you have a timeline for that?

BC: Just before the end of the year. Maybe fall? I’m adding all the sound effects, and we’re doing it like a radio play. These are recordings, anywhere from Sean Connery from ‘Zardoz’…

NM: [laughter] Wow.

BC: … to JFK. JFK has an ad hoc meeting with John Wayne in the Oval Office that didn’t end well. You know, crap like that. Just recordings that have never been made available before, but through the National Archives and the executive branch, and all the major studios… Lames Jipton has been able to gather up a never-before-heard collection.

So, we’ll see. I could fall right off a cliff. But audio is great, you know. We listened to a group called Firesign Theatre — me and Sam Raimi in our formative years in high school. We did the morning announcements in high school. We just love radio plays!

Sam listened to ‘The Shadow.’ [impersonation: ‘The Shadow knows!’] You know, those old radio plays.

NM: Absolutely.

BC: And nowadays it’s so clean and cool, the stuff that you can do with technology. Just with the audio, how good it can all sound now. It’s even more fun. And the sound editing process is much more fun to do, using different microphones and different EQs, making sound in different rooms. I just love all that crap. So we’ll see — it’s coming out! [chuckle]

NM: Well, I can tell you one thing. With the mention of ‘Zardoz,’ it’s actually a good thing you’re producing a radio play here Bruce, ‘cuz nobody needs to see that outfit again.

BC: I’ll tell ya! This is ‘Zardoz,’ I saw it in the theater for God’s sake! So I get to make fun of it.

NM: Probably the trippiest Sean Connery thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

BC: Oh, well! It was very clearly Sean Connery going: [impersonation: ‘Listen, I’m not doing this f*cking James Bond sh*t anymore, okay?’] So it was him taking his toupee off, running around without a shirt, you know — being weird.

Coming soon, to a County near you… pic.twitter.com/GL2GbqSt6Z — Bruce Campbell (@GroovyBruce) April 1, 2020

NM: But it worked! And obviously it’s great fodder for what you wanna do in terms of creating a radio play.

Speaking a little bit more about social media and self-isolation, I noted your April Fools’ joke on Twitter and the subsequent apology.

BC: Hahaha, yeah! Some people got pissed, like, ‘You f*cker!’ Yeah.

NM: [laughter] And that’s exactly it!

BC: Well they backlash sometimes, like ‘Dude!’ Because graphics guys can make things look pretty real these days. [chuckle] So, I thought it was fun. I did a ‘Dr. Who’ one a few years ago, too, that was pretty good. That’s the new Dr. Who.

NM: It’s funny, I was just gonna move into that. Do you think that moving away from those ‘Doctor Who’ mock-ups of the past to something that’s more plausible is maybe what caused such a sour reaction?

BC: Haha, I don’t know. I don’t know. Either way — anything’s fair game on April 1, that’s all I have to say.

But the funny thing is… ‘The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.,’ I’d love to go back! I sent the tweet to Carlton Cuse, the guy who created the show, and I think he got a good chuckle out of it. I said, ‘Hey, if you ever want to strap the gun belt back on, gimme a holler.’

NM: I think a lot of your fans would absolutely love that — and for the record, I thought it was a really funny joke. I guess some people just don’t have a sense of humor. If they’re following you already, you’d think they’d get the joke, but maybe not.

BC: You’d think, but that’s alright.

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There’s a lot going on out there, but beards gotta grow and this driveway ain’t gonna blade itself! pic.twitter.com/ulVpjCaBiR — Bruce Campbell (@GroovyBruce) March 29, 2020

NM: A bit of a course change here. Saw on your Twitter feed, noticed that you’re sporting a little bit of facial hair recently. Are you thinking of rockin’ a beard for a rumored ‘My Name is Bruce’ sequel or?

BC: Hahaha! No, the ‘My Name is Bruce’ sequel that I hope we can do — ‘Bruce vs. Frankenstein’ — no, he’s Mr. Clean-Shaven for that. I’m just gettin’ my Corona beard on. It’s a lot easier to not shave.

NM: It’s very true — and cheaper!

BC: I’m actually gonna surprise people, I have a surprise audition I’m gonna post later, hopefully, later in the week. With the beard. I’m gonna use it to my advantage as an actor.

Funny thing is, I’ve only had maybe one beard in my life. Like, after we filmed ‘Evil Dead,’ I was crazy and went back home and lived on the floor of the bedroom in my house. Living conditions shooting the movie had been so sort-of gritty that I thought: ‘Naw, I’ll just sleep on the floor! And I won’t shave! That’s it!’

So it’s been a while since I’ve had an actual beard. So, one — it’s always fun to see what color it is. And then the other thing is — ‘What does it look like?’

It’s good. A ship captain is in the future. There’s a look going on.

NM: It’s a bad-a** look, you know? Keep it, see how it goes.

BC: Actors get to age. Actresses don’t.

NM: True.

BC: Let’s see Charlize Theron grow a beard! Then — then you’d have something.

NM: Haha! Yeah, you know, there might be a few comments on Twitter about that. But of course, they go nuts over everything nowadays. I call ’em the Twitterati.

BC: Yeah.

NM: Nowadays — I see you’re a very, very busy man, you’ve got your hand in a lot of different projects right now — what are you doing to unwind during these stressful times?

BC: Literally, I bought a new electric mountain bike. In order to get up and down these hills you gotta have some juice, you know? I’ve always loved riding regular bicycles — and I’m not like a gearhead, there’s no spandex anywhere on my body — but I just like to get out.

I can still get some sun, I can be gone all day and see one car go past. You know, a buncha yahoos out in the back woods — you wouldn’t want to stop and talk to ’em anyways. And I swim almost every day.

NM: Well it’s good to keep active, I wish I could say the same.

BC: You’ve gotta! Use it or lose it, man! This is the thing, you know, when they say ‘shelter-in-place’ — yeah! But, get the hell outside for a walk. I mean you get to walk Fido, you get to go out and get groceries… put your face in the sun.

And open your windows at home for God’s sake! Everyone, I think, gets this sense of being closed in. Open your windows, Jesus.

NM: As my mother would say: ‘Blow the stink off ya!’

BC: [shared laughter] There ya go.

NM: Anyways Bruce, I really appreciate your time today. I can’t wait to see the next season of ‘The Last Kids on Earth’ and see your work there.

BC: Yeah! Let’s see what happens. Hopefully, the sequestered kids will enjoy it. I’m sure there will be strange parallels. I just hope they enjoy it. That’s first and foremost.

NM: In that sense, I don’t think it will deviate from your existing body of work. You’ve been very prolific, you’ve been very successful, and of course, you still have a very large fanbase that’s invested. So I’m sure it’ll be a success.

BC: Yeah! Alright sir!

NM: Thank you very much Bruce, it’s been a pleasure.

BC: Okay man. Be good. Thanks. Ciao.