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Acererak has a legendary action to cast any of his at-will spells (any spell he has prepared of level 3 or lower). One of the spells in that list is
Animate Dead,
which normally has a casting time of 1 minute. Can he use that legendary action to cast it, accelerating its casting speed to "1 legendary action" instead of "1 minute", in the same way "1 action" is accelerated to "1 legendary action" normally?
TL;DR: NPCs do not have to follow the rules for PCs. They follow the rules on their statistic blocks. (Also, PCs should not hope to be able to do everything an NPC can). So yes, he can cast the longest-casting spell using his legendary action.
And we are not talking about any tavern brawl NPC. This is Acererak, arguably
The Most Famous Lick(sic) Ever in All D&D History ™!!!!!!!
(Drool, Larlock. You'll never be this cool)
It is a Legendary Foe, a BBEG in all his splendor. He was the floating skull that sucked the soul of your grandpa's paladin back in the 1980's.
So yes, he can cast in a single legendary action if the adventure says he does.
Too bad he can't use a Gibson as his focus.
Animate Dead would still take 1 minute to cast, he can just cast it as many times per long rest that he wants instead of having a limited number of 3rd level slots.
The Legendary action allows him to cast one of his At Will spells. It doesn't say anything about changing the cast time. So it would act the same way as if it were his turn and he decided to cast Raise Dead (Cast time 1 minute).
