Evil Dead Star Takes a Chainsaw to the Hollywood Playbook [WATCH]

Bruce Campbell is stepping away from Hollywood’s traditional studio machinery with “Ernie & Emma,” an independent film that places him in control as writer, director, producer, and star.

The project follows an early studio experience that he says left him deeply dissatisfied.

“The first studio film I ever did, I got kicked out of the lead,” Campbell told Fox News Digital.

“The movie was re-edited, retitled and never came out. So, the taste in my mouth from studios is very sour.”

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That experience remained with the “Evil Dead” star as he continued navigating Hollywood.

Campbell said he had wanted for years to make a project without studio executives controlling the production.

“It was time to be unbridled in my life,” Campbell said. With “Ernie & Emma,” he returned to an approach he had experienced at the beginning of his career.

Campbell said “The Evil Dead” was the only other movie he had made entirely free from the studio system.

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He remembered enjoying that independence early in his career and had long wanted to work that way again.

His wife and longtime partner, Ida Gearon, ultimately encouraged him to stop discussing the idea and make the movie.

Together, Campbell and Gearon created the project independently, with Campbell handling several of its central creative roles.

The decision carries additional significance after Campbell disclosed his cancer diagnosis in March.

Speaking earlier this month on “The Adam Carolla Show” podcast, he said doctors had given him an estimated five years to live, but he remains focused on treatment and continuing his work.

For Campbell, controlling “Ernie & Emma” meant accepting the realities that come with financing an artistic project.

“Creative freedom is absolutely everything,” he said.

“If you consider yourself an artiste, or you’re in the arts, the only way that artists have to deal with people, outside of themselves, is to go look for money.”

His comments reflected the tension he sees between artistic control and relying on others to fund production.

“Ernie & Emma” also represents a dramatic shift from the horror and action work that established Campbell as a genre icon.

Instead, the movie centers on grief, love and the possibility of beginning again after loss.

Campbell plays Ernie Tyler, a pear salesman from a small town whose wife, Emma, dies. Emma leaves him a detailed set of instructions for scattering her ashes, leading Ernie on a road trip through Pear Valley, Oregon.

Campbell and Gearon filmed the entire movie in southern Oregon, using their home state as the setting. Gearon, a longtime costume designer, urged him to keep the production close to home so he could sleep in his own bed and have lunch at the house.

“And so, I did, and it was a very bizarre experience, but I’ll never go back now,” Campbell said.

The unusual arrangement also gave the couple a shared focus throughout the production.

“Best part of working with my wife was that, for once, we didn’t argue,” Campbell said.

“We argue a lot, and when we made the movie we never argued once because we had a singular goal, singular vision.”

After more than three decades together, Campbell said his relationship with Gearon has developed into something beyond romance.

He described her as dependable and emphasized the depth of his trust in her.

“Boy, my wife, she is rock solid. She’s a good human being from A to Z. I trust her,” Campbell said.

The couple recently reflected on the length and nature of their relationship.

“The other day we said to each other, we’ve been together so long we’re actually family now,” Campbell said.

Campbell is now bringing “Ernie & Emma” directly to audiences through a nationwide screening tour at Alamo Drafthouse locations.

The tour follows earlier screenings at independent theaters that sold out, extending the independent path Campbell chose for the film from its production to its presentation.

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