Bruce Campbell Got Stoned For The First Time While Filming “The Evil Dead”

Bruce Campbell is probably best known playing Ashley “Ash” J. Williams in the 1981 cult (stoner) classic b-film The Evil Dead. Directed by his friend Sam Raimi on a threadbare budget of $350,000 dollars over several years, the film, along with its 1987 sequel Evil Dead II are considered to have essentially spawned the “horror-comedy” genre. The sequels kept on rolling, and while they may not hold a torch to the first two films, they are still very much of the same spirit and have developed a cult following.

Still successfully acting today, notably in his own Starz series Ash.vs Evil Dead, Bruce Campbell sat down with Conan O’Brien and divulged that when they were working on The Evil Dead, he got stoned. Really stoned.

In an effort to channel Jack Nicholson’s famously intoxicated performance in Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider, and having never smoked marijuana before, Bruce and the other actors thought it would be a great idea to get high before filming a scene.

Unfortunately, the effect was not the desired one, and the scene ended up having to be re-shot. However, according to Campbell, the actors continued to smoke marijuana throughout the shoot, as “it was what our characters would have done.” Bravo.

Watch Bruce and Conan chop it up here, and be sure to catch the season two premiere of Ash vs Evil Dead on October 2nd.