When Bruce Campbell announced in March that he had been diagnosed with cancer, the outpouring of support from fans took even the Royal Oak-born cult actor and “Evil Dead” star by surprise.
But he wouldn’t be Bruce Campbell if he didn’t have a campy line to share to describe the experience.
“If I knew how much free publicity I was going to get,” the actor says by phone, “I would have gotten cancer a long time ago!”
The 67-year-old obviously still has a way with a joke, even when his situation is no laughing matter.
Campbell has been diagnosed with a “treatable” but not “curable” form of cancer, he says, but he’s keeping the specific details of his condition close to his chest.
But he’s not letting his cancer battle slow him down, and he’s hitting the road on an old-school promotional tour for his new movie, “Ernie & Emma.” He’s returning to his old stomping grounds at Detroit’s Redford Theatre on Friday, where he’ll show the comic drama to an audience of faithful fans.
Campbell wrote, directed, produced and stars in the bittersweet tale about an Oregon pear salesman (Campbell) who goes on the road to scatter the ashes of his recently deceased wife, following the detailed instructions she leaves him upon her death.
The entirely indie production is the most grassroots, DIY-style project Campbell has embarked upon since he starred in his pal Sam Raimi’s “The Evil Dead” back in 1981. That movie — as well as its follow-ups, 1987’s “Evil Dead II” and 1992’s “Army of Darkness” — solidified Campbell as a cult favorite, a grinning, winking outsider to traditional movie stardom.
“Ernie & Emma” comes along at an interesting point in his life, and Campbell made the film using everything he’s learned in four decades of being in the entertainment business — the good, the bad and everything in between.
“I had to be around 40-plus years on film sets to know what I did not want to do anymore,” he says, “and to know more of what I did want to do.”
Finding ‘Ernie’
Campbell started writing “Ernie & Emma” several years ago, partially as a way to take the reins on his own career.
He originally planned to set the story in his hometown and to tell the story of an ad salesman, partially based on his father, who was an ad guy in Detroit from the 1950s through the 1980s.
But since he and his wife of 35 years, Ida, were financing the project themselves, they decided to set it in Oregon, where they have lived since 1998. As a bonus, Oregon has a healthy film incentive program, which would kick back to him 20% of the film’s production cost.
“So I adapted it,” Campbell says, “and he became the pear guy.”
(One pointed Metro Detroit reference remains, an offhand mention of “Maple and Telegraph,” which Campbell calls the epicenter of his childhood.)
“Ernie & Emma” is a decidedly adult tale, not in the sense that it’s filled with sex and violence — of which it has neither — but because it’s about mature themes of love, loss and regret.
“Tell me an adult story that applies to me at my current age. It’s not me trying to woo a 35-year-old woman. It’s not a Hallmark situation. It’s a lot more personal,” says Campbell, who has also authored several books, including a pair of memoirs, a collection of essays and several works of fiction.
“You don’t see a lot of stories about a pear salesman. He’s the Willy Loman of pear sales. He’s a guy who’s been around long enough to have regrets and failures. And it’s about his inability to deal with the fact that his wife died,” says Campbell. “To me, that’s who you want to throw the problems on, is someone who can’t handle it.”
Also, Campbell says he unabashedly wrote the movie to give himself a big, juicy starring role.
“Nobody’s writing the fat parts for me right now,” he says. “So I mean, the impetus was, ‘well, my fingers are not broken. Sit down, write it. You want your single-tier monologues? Go out and f—ing write it.'”
So he wrote it. Meanwhile, having spent decades making movies and TV shows — Campbell has racked up nearly 200 acting credits across movies, TV and voice work — he knew what he didn’t want to deal with at this stage in his career.
“It was a recent experience with a TV show that I went, ‘this is stupid. I’m not doing this anymore.’ Because it’s killing me,” he says. “There were a couple of professional work experiences where I went, ‘you know what? I’m good.'”
He notes long hours on sets and working with inexperienced directors as part of the problem, particularly a recent Peacock series he did.
“I worked on the TV show ‘Hysteria!’ that, you know, it ran for one season. But man, they would take 14 days to do an episode. That’s twice what ‘Hercules’ was,” he says, referring to “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys,” the Kevin Sorbo-starring series on which Campbell had a recurring part.
“There’s no discipline in shooting whatsoever. No rhythm and no speed, there’s no pace. We went over time every single day on that show,” he says.
And that was the straw that broke his back.
“I can’t do it anymore. I’m not that patient anymore. Some actors are really good about it, but I’m like, no, these should be hiring journeymen directors to get us out of here,” he says. “The inefficiencies were too much.”
So Campbell — who previously directed 2005’s sci-fi tale “Man with the Screaming Brain” — took those lessons and ran a tight ship when making “Ernie & Emma.”
He shot 10-hour days, working from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. The movie co-stars Cerina Vincent (“Cabin Fever”), whom Campbell knew from the Comic-Con circuit, as well as Ted Raimi, Emma Raimi, and various friends from Oregon.
“I blew my movie dog whistle,” Campbell says. “Anybody I’ve worked with, anybody that was friends, anybody that was a pal.”
He says the movie was “like crawling back into the womb,” and in the credits he dedicates “Ernie & Emma” to his old crew of filmmaking friends he had growing up in Metro Detroit, including Sam Raimi, the late Scott Spiegel and more.
“All the Detroit boys, it was very important to include them, because that was all stepping stones to getting here, and that’s all very meaningful,” he says.
Shopping the film
After the 27-day shoot wrapped, Kaye Davis (“Evil Dead II”) edited “Ernie & Emma” over the course of four or five months, and the film was completed in September 2025.
Now, Campbell is taking it on the road, “ninja style,” he says.
He’s old friends with Alamo Drafthouse co-founder Tim League, and he made a deal with League to bring “Ernie & Emma” to various Drafthouse locations around the country.
The Redford Theatre showing is a part of that tour. While not in the Drafthouse lineup, the theater holds special significance to Campbell, as it was where “The Evil Dead” premiered back in 1981, kicking off the ride that Campbell has been on ever since.
“That’s the mothership. That’s the one that matters the most,” he says. “I would never not do the Redford, especially with a movie this personal. I’ll be there even if I’m throwing up blood.”
The Redford’s event coordinator, Linda Sites, said Campbell reached out about booking the movie in January and she quickly slotted it onto the calendar. “It was an immediate yes,” she says.
Campbell has returned to the Redford many times over the years, and even has a seat dedicated in his name in the third row of the nearly 100-year-old theater.
The Redford showing of “Ernie & Emma” has already sold close to 800 tickets, Sites says, and she expects another 100 at the door, and a lively evening to follow. Campbell will introduce the film and will participate in a Q&A afterward.
“I think people like that he’s a hometown star that has never forgotten his roots,” Sites says.
The end goal for the “Ernie & Emma” tour, Campbell says, is to gain some momentum for the movie before he eventually shops it to a streaming service.
“We’re trying to prime the pump, because if you go to a streamer right now, they’ll give you $12 for it. But if we can go to a streamer and say, ‘we’ve been in 30 markets theatrically,’ right? Now you’ve got to actually give us something for the rights. You wanna build value,” he says.
That could include taking the movie overseas, he says.
“My movie could lay an egg here in the States, but then it might be France’s favorite darling, so I’ve got to play that out, too, because the sensibilities of the movie are actually very European,” he says. “It’s a very simple story. Nothing blows up. It talks about infidelity and things like that, and personal problems. So I’m very curious to see how it’s going to play out.”
‘Managing’ cancer
That the film deals so explicitly with death and aging and coming to grips with the hardships of life dovetails with Campbell’s other major ongoing life happening, which is his cancer diagnosis.
Campbell is cagey when talking about the details, but he says his diagnosis came quickly, and he got the news weeks, not months, before he made his March 2 announcement.
He made it public because he wanted to be the one controlling the narrative, he says, and if he had to cancel appearances because of it, he wanted fans to understand why.
“I felt it was for me to get ahead of the communication. Let it be my words, not somebody else’s words, and I’ll update people as they need to be updated,” he says. “I wasn’t doing it for sympathy; I was just doing it to communicate. Because if you’ve got to cancel stuff, people start going, ‘what the f— is Campbell’s problem?’
“But it’s not like I’m the only guy who’s ever had cancer, and everybody who’s had cancer has to go through the same horses–t. It’s no big deal,” he says.
He kept his tour commitments with the film, but had to drop a couple of appearances at conventions as a result.
“You go to a convention, I’m shaking 500 hands, and in a compromised immune state, it’s probably not a great idea. So that’s pretty much why I’m bagging that out,” he says. “And I have to check on my stamina these days. Can you sit in a chair for six hours and sign s–t hunched over a table? In the old days I could last for days, but you know, I’m getting my sea legs back.”
Campbell says he chose to keep the specifics of his cancer private because he doesn’t want to deal with the wave of advice that comes with the territory.
“Everyone’s got ideas of treatment, so I’d rather not even get into that, because I don’t need the suggestions,” he says. “‘Oh sure, you’ve got this? Oh you’ve got to go to this clinic in Houston!’ I’m just not interested.”
But he says the reaction to his announcement from fans and the film community was extremely touching.
“I’m not a robot. So yeah, it was all very impactful,” he says. “The love did come in, the love continues to come in. The things I’ve done in my life, I have been granted many fans and people who appreciate my work. There’s a lot of love; it was very sweet. People are very, very, very, very kind.”
As far as his current condition, “I’m managing,” Campbell says. “That’s the word I’m gonna use. I’m managing my situation, and I’m gonna live my life as close to what is normal as I can for as long as I can. It’s just that simple.”
Health aside, Campbell says “Ernie & Emma” is his current focus, and will continue to be until he gets it over the finish line.
“The old Bruce, he would have had multiple irons in the fire, but the new Bruce doesn’t like the overlap. The new Bruce likes to concentrate on one thing,” he says. “I’ve restricted all other forms of work and income to pretty much shepherd this movie through to the bitter, bitter end, which means going all the way through the tour.”
Will he make another movie after “Ernie & Emma?” That depends on how this one does, he says. And it’s not entirely up to him.
“My wife will let me do this again, as long as we fill the kitty again,” he says. “She’s fine with it, but if no money comes back in, we’re done.”
Campbell says he’s reached the point in his career where it’s “very likely” he won’t work on somebody else’s film set ever again. “That’s entirely possible,” he says.
But the ride has been fulfilling, he says. And while he’s not ready to let go, he has no regrets over what happens from here.
“You know, if I punch out tomorrow,” Campbell says, “I’m good.”
agraham@detroitnews.com
‘Ernie & Emma’ with special guest Bruce Campbell
8 p.m. Friday
Redford Theatre, 17360 Lahser Road, Detroit
Tickets $25
redfordtheatre.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Bruce Campbell, cult hero, has a great joke about his cancer diagnosis
Reporting by Adam Graham, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
