The Evil Dead franchise lives on with the upcoming sequel Evil Dead Rise, but don’t place any bets on Ash Williams ever returning to rev up the chainsaw once again. Campbell is still involved with the series as he’ll be serving as a producer on the new movie, but he’s previously made it clear he won’t be appearing as Ash. In a new interview with Collider, the 63-year-old explained why.

“I’m done playing Ash, so that determines a lot of where we go with the franchise without that character, but there are more stories hatever the cliched phrase is, I left it all on table. I’ve got nothing else to give. The three seasons [of Ash vs. Evil Dead] were the longest seasons of my life. If you saw the emails pleading with various directors that were like, ‘Hey, my knee’s not working right. Be careful about tomorrow. Let’s have the stunt guy nearby. Hey, I can’t run anymore.’ It just was an endless physical struggle.”

Filming Ash Vs. Evil Dead was a bit exhausting for Bruce Campbell, but he’s still happy for the opportunity. This gave him a chance to come full-circle with his career by applying all of his acting knowledge to the character that first made him famous. Because they knew that the end was coming, the ending of Ash vs. Evil Dead was also written as a way to conclude Ash’s story, and Campbell feels very satisfied putting a bow on his run in the role at this point.

“I’m really glad we did it because we saw Ash’s home, we went into his bedroom, we met his girlfriends, we met his daughter that we never knew he had and that he never knew he had, and we met his father, played by the great Lee Majors. I feel we really pushed all the buttons and he fulfilled his destiny written in that ancient book. He was the guy destined to defeat evil in the past, present and future, and he took off with a hot robot chick at the end to go kick in the future. What else do you need? We knew the ratings were bad. We knew, going into the last season, that we had to have an end because we didn’t think Starz was gonna re-up us and we were right. So, thank God we did that.”

We might never see Bruce Campbell back in character as Ash, at least not in live-action form, but he’s not quite done with the horror genre just yet. He stars in the new holiday horror movie Black Friday as a store manager fighting for his life when monsters attack on Thanksgiving night. Even when he’s not Ash, Campbell always entertains and the movie is definitely worth a watch for any fan.

Campbell also made his debut as an aging rock star alongside Peter Gallagher as a former rock duo getting back together during the holiday season fo rthe Hallmark Christmas movie One December Night. The actor can also be seen in a cameo for a mystery role in the upcoming Marvel sequel Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. You can read the full interview with the groovy one at Collider.