Let’s discuss actors/actresses who either deplore their breakout role and do everything they can to distance theirself from it, and actors/acresses who have embraced their breakout role.
For example:
[ul]
[li]It’s rumored that Johnny Depp will end an interview on the spot and walk out if the interviewer says the words Twenty One Jump Street.[/li][li]Ditto Kim Fields and anyone who says “Tootie” or The Facts of Life.[/li][li]Tina Louise has spent her whole career (such as it is) trying to distance herself from Gilligan’s Island.[/li][/ul]
OTOH:
[ul]
[li]Barry Williams has embraced the fact that he is and will always be Greg Brady, and is more than happy to talk about it or re-visit it.[/li][li]Jamie Lee Curtis, AFAIK, has always been equally forthcoming about her role in Halloween.[/li][/ul]
Campbell’s breakout role, and I use that phrase extremely loosely came in the Army of Darkness movies, none of which I have seen. And if they were his breakout role’s, howcome he seemingly is in has-been status now?
It’s not so much that he’s a has-been. He freely admits that his career pretty much has been as a B-movie actor. It’s even part of the title of his autobiography, If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor. Also in the book, he does not shy away from discussing the Evil Dead movies, so I don’t think he’d fit well in this category.
What you might be confused by is his dislike for the character – he makes no secret that he hates Ash. Doesn’t shy away from talking about the movies though.
Point 1) It’s the Evil Dead movies. Army of Darkness is just the third.
Point 2) Bruce Campbell is certainly not trying to distance himself from the Evil Dead trilogy - if he were he wouldn’t do comentary for the Evil Dead DVDs.
Point 3) Campbell is anything but washed up. He’s got a slightly niched carreer, but he’s working steadily - as are Sam and Ted Raimi. The 3 of them usually together. They’re best buddies.
Point 4 (Or maybe 2a)) Campbell’s only Evil Dead annoyance is people asking him when there’ll be an Evil Dead 4. He’s gone on record as saying that he and Sam would LOVE to do it - but Army of Darkness kinda…tanked, and it’s just not an economically sound idea to make EDIV/AoDII.
Saradon will discuss it in interviews, as will most of the rest of the cast.
The actor who played Rocky, on the other hand, has, well, not been seen since. He refused Behind the Music, and plenty of other requests about Rocky. Bad career move, methinks.
Also, didn’t Mark Walberg get pissed off at an interviewer who dared say the word “funky” to him (à la Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch)?
I’m afraid that I am contributing to a hijack, but I recommend the Evil Dead DVDs, not only because they are great films, but because of Bruce Campbell’s commentaries, especially his and Sam Raimi’s commentary of Evil Dead 2.
The problem with Peter Hinwood, who played Rocky in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, is not that he considers it a cheesy role in a medicre movie. That sort of attitude is common among actors who had an early, popular role that they are now slightly embarrassed by because they don’t think their acting was very good then. The problem is apparently that Hinwood considers what he did back then to be downright evil. He’s now long out of the acting business and thoroughly ashamed of what he did, morally ashamed and not just artistically embarrassed.
I’ve never heard anything about that, but at the end of “Rock Star” there’s an outtake of one of the concert scenes where Walberg walks out on stage and someone starts playing “Good Vibrations” (or whatever that song of his was). IIRC he started laughing.