But Campbell doesn't see himself as your typical action hero, not by a long shot. We asked if he had any interest in the Quake or Doom pitches that were going around, and he said definitely not.
"I gotta be honest with you, those [kind of roles] bore me to tears," Campbell says. "I'm not interested in that sort of thing. The reason I like the Evil Dead movies is that the character isn't just a monosyllabic hero, he does a lot of stupid things, and he doesn't always get it right. He's sort of a braggart and an idiot.
"I don't like playing those boring, one-line good guys, that whole Schwarzenegger thing, I'm just bored to tears."
So does he prefer the sarcastic joker to the muscle-bound hitman?
"I prefer anything!" he says. "Anything but that standard, 'Come on! Get down! Let's go! Now! Duck! Run!' I mean who cares? I can do that crap in my sleep. I've turned down a number of lead roles in order to play bad guys because the lead roles were so poorly written and so uninteresting that the bad guys were the only things worth watching."
Campbell wouldn't give us any spoilers about the finale, although he hinted, "You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wonder why. I don't know, hopefully it will be a very satisfying wrap-up to the series."
Fans will also get to see him reprise his popular role of Autolycus, the King of Thieves, who has crossed paths with Hercules and Xena on more than one occasion, one more time.
"And I was in one of the last eight episodes," he says. "It was the last one that they shot actually, so I've been able to have a little period at the end of Hercules there," he says. "It's been a really good experience."
According to Campbell, the finale was shot last May, and the final episode that was actually filmed was wrapped up in July. The shows are being put together right now and will air in November, though Campbell tells fans, "Be sure they check those local listings!"
"It's a new show that's going to companion with another half-hour show that will take the place of the old Hercules timeslot," says Campbell. "It's through Universal and it will be syndicated and I'll be playing the title character."
Campbell describes the new series as "a kind of a 1700s swashbuckler, Zorro, fun, fast sort of half-hour romp." He plays Jack Styles, a swashbuckling secret agent, whom Campbell describes as, "a bold, dashing hero who works for the Queen and infiltrates the wacky world of pirates in Jamaica, during the height of the pirates."
Working together with Styles is a character named Emilia, but no one has been cast in that role yet, as far as Campbell knows. "This is so new," says Campbell. "I just found out about this last week, so you know as much as I do."
He read one script a while ago, but that was before it was revamped to a half-hour format. "It was originally an hour," he says, "but they decided to do two half-hour time slots in a bold and daring move!"
Why bold and daring?
"Well because normally you don't see half-hour shows being that one camera film style, normally half-hour comedies are done in sitcom style and this is done with the hour-long format, sort of X-Files style, meaning one camera, not the multiple camera deal."
While Campbell doesn't think there will be as many fantasy elements in the show as there were in Hercules, he does promise the same mix of action and laughs. "I think it will be tongue-in-cheek, just under or over the top, probably. Definitely comedy."
"As many stunts as the insurance company will allow!" he says. "I always do more than the average actor, but there's always a point where you have to go well look, this is too dangerous. I've had things blow up in front of me and behind me and around me. I've been strung up in the air. Ironically probably some of the stupidest stuff I did when I was in high school, dragging from behind cars as they speed down the road," and stuff like that.
He's referring to when he and the now-famous director Sam Raimi used to shoot homemade movies for fun. "We used to make a bunch of Super-8 movies, myself and Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert. And now Raimi's working with Kevin Costner." Go figure.
But while stunts are in, directing some episodes -- as he did for Xena and Hercules -- is out. "As a director, you need a lot of preparation, and I won't be able to direct because I'll be shooting, so I'll have to let that one go," he says.
Shooting on Jack of All Trades begins in November, down in New Zealand, meaning Campbell will be living down under for about six months out of the years, though he doesn't mind.
"Herc and Xena are shot down there so I'm used to working in New Zealand," he says. "It's a nice place to work because it's so far from Hollywood." Does he like to be away from Hollywood? "You bet! As far away as I can, and I can't think of a place further away!"
But Campbell also realizes that this could be a long-term commitment. "If they exercise their contract, I'm stuck for five years, but you know, there are worst scenarios. I've done it for five years, so what's another five years?"
"I have a book coming out in the spring of 2000, with St. Martin's Press. It's called currently -- and this is just a working title -- Confessions of a B-Movie Actor."
Is that how Campbell sees himself, as a B-Movie actor? After all, it's not the most flattering epithet.
"Yeah, I kind of have a clear-eyed vision of myself, and I don't have a problem with it either," he says. "I make no apologies.
Campbell's book will be a behind the scenes look at what Hollywood is really like, from the point of view of someone who has worked with success -- but never reached super-stardom -- for a couple decades in the entertainment industry.
"I'm interested in putting this book out because it shows the other 98% of Hollywood," he says. "You only get to see about 2% on television, but there's another 98% of people out there who are struggling and trying to make it and crashing and burning and failing and not being successful, so I think there's a good story in there somewhere."
Campbell will tell the story of his career to this point, the failures as well as the successes, and all of the tribulations along the way.
"I'll be telling it like it is and whoever's involved in the story, they'll be portrayed in a realistic way," he says.
"I'm playing the voice of a Jake Logan, he's sort of the head fighter pilot," says Campbell. "The gamers have the ability to have him sell out to the big corporation or he can become a freedom fighter. So we kind of have to record two versions.
"The guy is written kind of edgy and sarcastic, which is always fun to do, so the trick is to make him sort of an edgy guy but someone the players don't mind being with," he says. "He can't be too obnoxious, so we try to ride that line. Because I think that the kids and adults who are going to it this, I think they like these games because they are irreverent, you get to blow the crap out of stuff, so there's a certain kind of mindset that goes with that."
This isn't Campbell's first venture into gaming, either. "I've actually done about three others but this is probably the most substantial because it's obviously the most advanced game by leaps and bounds," he says. Nor will today's session be the last at NovaLogic.
"We have one more session to do, because as you do these things everything evolves, the programmers are still working and they discover new things, you have to do new lines," he says. "We've done three days worth of recording now and we have one final session that we'll do way near the end because they clean up things that they've discovered. They find a glitch or we fill some gaps or clarify something, that's the time to do it."
But Campbell's actually had no part in his most famous 'appearance' in a videogame -- if you remember Duke Nukem 3D, the main character was always knocking off one-liners borrowed from Sam Raimi movies like Army of Darkness, stuff like, "Hail to the king, baby." Needless to say, Campbell's no fan of Duke Nukem.
"I think it's a rip-off, and I think they should have done two things," he says. "One, they should have been original, and if they didn't do that, they should have at least hired me." Well, is Campbell available for a sequel? "No, too late," he says, laughing.
Campbell's not the gamer in his family, though. "My son is, I let him do all the talking for me," he says. "So I have a demo [of Tachyon] now that I'm going to show him and he'll tell me if the game sucks or not."
So what if his son says the game sucks?
"Then I'll have to ground him."
"Probably, 'Give me some sugar, baby!' because I've gotten emails from people who've tried to use that in bars and got their face slapped." That's not something he's tried himself, though. "Only in the movies, baby," he laughs. "Because it always works in the movies! And actually back in the 1300s you could get away with cheesy lines. Not anymore."
And that's pretty much it for Bruce Campbell right now -- no other film projects are on the horizon, but he's happy with what's on his plate right now: "A book and a new series, and the game from NovaLogic," he says. "That's going to keep me pretty darn busy.
And these Evil Dead rumors, the ones that just won't die?
"The book and the series will keep me busy for now," he reiterates. "That and the NovaLogic game*
In other words, NO!
--Jason Bates
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