From King Lear to King Fear: the Robert Englund interview

In the 1980’s, wedged between anti-heroes like Jack Nicholson’s “Jack Torrance” of THE SHINING and Anthony Hopkins’ “Hannibal Lecter” of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, there emerged a trend of movie monsters and bad guys crafted to be celebrated by an audience that would normally be booing them. An innovator in this formula, and the most successful of these characters has got to be Robert Englund’s “Freddy Krueger” from A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984). Wes Craven imbued Krueger with magic tricks and one-liners that were clear markers to seduce an audience into taboo and titillating adoration of this frightening character. And Englund’s larger-than-life personality, frenetic energy and acting acumen drove the effect over the top. The rules of the game were changed forever. We still identified with the victims, but we were there, in the theater, to watch Freddy dispatch them in more and more outrageous ways. Robert Englund has been a beloved figure in the genre since even before he first donned Freddy’s notorious grubby sweater. Englund dropped in to let Mad Monster put hand in grisly glove discussing his work and passions in a sort of Shock-spearean monster class:

MAD MONSTER: You know you’re considered a legend in our genre with a reputation for a great appreciation for your fans.

ROBERT ENGLUND: I am what you could call a “utility actor”. There are lots of phrases people might use to describe me like, “character actor”. Basically, I am the kind of actor you want in your cast if you’re making an ensemble movie or ensemble theatre company. I’m not being humble, I just know I can contribute on that level. But for a while I had been typecast as a Southerner, a sidekick, a best friend and kind of a geeky guy. By the time I had my double-genre success with V and the original Nightmare on Elm Street, I was fortunate to establish two sets of cross-over fans from science fiction and horror. Even a bit of fantasy fandom because the original Nightmare strayed into that territory with those dream sequences. I recognized this fact between accepting awards for V and doing publicity for Nightmare on Elm Street. I felt this ground swell of fan-boys. Back then it was a narrower vortex of fans. My presence sort of expanded exponentially to their brothers and sisters and their dorm mates. And as cable expanded, more and more international fans ended up watching me on Sky channel, Showtime or Cinemax and new generations caught up with movies I’d made over the years. In the gap of time between 93 and 2003 the cumulative video, DVD and cable home-viewing phenomenon kept all of my films alive. 15 or 20 years ago those movies were viable and looked very good, and they’ve held up until today, so I got a 2nd generation of fans. Now, after Freddy Vs. Jason in 2003 I am on my 3rd generation of fans. 

MM: So, even a great actor needs the planets to align in order to become an icon.

ROBERT ENGLUND: I do acknowledge the iconic status. But I want people to understand that although my performance and Wes Craven’s genius, along with all the other fantastic directors and actors I worked with, contributed to my success, it’s also this happy accident that there are 8 Nightmare films, a TV series and media like DVDs, pay per view and digital downloads that bring me into people’s living rooms. I have benefited from that immensely. When I go to shows to sign autographs or when I am recognized in a restaurant or on a plane, it’s often a 45 year-old guy who saw me in the original Nightmare movie when he was living in a dorm in Jersey. Or an eight-year-old boy who has just discovered the double bill of Nightmare parts 3 and 4. Those films aren’t as violent as SAW or other horror films being made today. It’s common for an eight-year-old boy to have a right of passage during a sleepover watching Nightmare 3 and 4 with Patricia Arquette running around in all her nubile beauty. And the special effects still look pretty good on a television. I feel I have been bequeathed, through this accident of technological growth, a bonus generation of fans. Something that didn’t happen for early movie stars of the 1940’s who were huge but never had the benefit of TV exposure. They weren’t rediscovered until 1960’s hippie kids encountered them on late night reruns and film noir. In the 60’s when we all got stoned and were being cool going to the commune and hitchhiking down to Mexico, one of our greatest Hollywood icons was Humphrey Bogart. We would watch all of his great black & white movies like Casablanca. Bogart was rediscovered in the late 60’s by an entire generation. I can’t tell you how many nineteen-year-old girls had a poster above their beds of Bogie smoking a cigarette. That’s the strange kind of cultural leapfrog that can happen and I’ve been very lucky that it has been a constant leapfrog for me since V debuted in 1982.

MM: Is it true that you never actually read a complete script for Nightmare on Elm Street before you auditioned for the film? 

ROBERT ENGLUND: I think I read a breakdown that was given to me by the casting director Annette Benson who had cast me before and had screen tested me for National Lampoon’s Class Reunion. I think the reason Wes explained the story to me was because I hadn’t read the whole script. I remember Wes telling me his ideas for it and some background on it and how it would work. So, I think I would have only read a treatment at that time. It seems to me that back in 1983 or 84 I didn’t have the pull to be sent the whole script, so it was likely I  just received scenes pages or a general breakdown. I loved it when Wes described the story at the interview. I was hooked. 

MM: What initially attracted you to Nightmare on Elm Street?

ROBERT ENGLUND: My original attraction to the project was pretty basic. It was the only project that fit into my schedule at the time. I was doing V and I had a small window of opportunity during hiatus where I could take other offers. Nightmare on Elm Street was one of them. The other thing that attracted me to it was that back then we thought of Wes Craven a differently. Today journalists sort of qualify Wes by saying, “Bogeyman” Wes Craven or “Horror Meister” Wes Craven. Back then we thought of Wes as more of a David Lynch talent, especially actors and his fans from Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes. So my primary intrigue and curiosity was to work with Wes Craven.

MM: After you wrapped the film did you have any clues about what it might become? 

ROBERT ENGLUND: I do remember at one point we were doing some 2nd unit work at the old DesiLu Studios in the heart of Hollywood. Johnny Depp, Heather Langenkamp, Amanda Wyss and Nick Corri. They were just the most beautiful, nice, wonderful young kids and we were at this fantastic old studio working right next to a brilliant French theatrical troupe using the sound stage next door. They were due to be the stars of the 1984 Los Angeles Arts Festival in conjunction with the Olympics. They were called Le Théâtre du Soleil. They were intrigued with our stunts and makeup effects. David Miller, who did my makeup, had done Thriller, so the French kids were going ga-ga about that. I also remember toward the end of filming I came in to help out with Heather on a 2nd unit sequence, a little bit of a chase scene on an empty portion of the sound stage. I think Sean Cunningham, the creator of Friday the 13th and friend of Wes was there too. Sean came in to help because Wes was doing some 1st unit shooting that day. I remember Heather in her pajamas and me on the cold concrete floor with dirt sprinkled over it. We were creating this little chase sequence with crazy hand-held close ups. I remember thinking at that moment, we were onto something special. But I never thought it was going to be a hit. I thought it would be kind of a cool cult, art horror film. 

MM: Obviously after the film was released it blew up, didn’t it?

ROBERT ENGLUND: No, it didn’t. It blew up in London, but here in the States it didn’t have what we call “a wide release”. It opened in New York first. In fact, I went to New York to do publicity for V. I was signing autographs with William Shatner at the Old Roosevelt Hotel on Madison Avenue when I realized Nightmare was already a cult hit on the East Coast. I don’t think it had been released yet on the West Coast, maybe just a screening or a very limited release. In my book I write about how New York gave me my first inkling when my line of V fans morphed into black leather-clad Ramones and  punk rock Goth girls. I wasn’t there as Freddy Krueger, I was there as Robert Englund, star of V, for all the hungry Sci-Fi fans who had no original science fiction programming on network TV at that time. So my line transformed into this other breed of fan.  A little bit rock & roll, a little bit Goth, a little bit cooler. You know, closet horror fans. That was my first indication that Nightmare was taking off. I also got a photo from Bob Shaye at New Line who showed me how big it was in London. I’m not sure if I did any publicity for the first film in London. I might not have gotten out there until the second film. I went back to London every year thereafter, though. I loved it. I am an Anglophile. I was trained at the American branch of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts with an entire English tutorial staff and faculty. Whenever they wanted anyone to do publicity, I would raise my hand. I’d spend all my per diem on West End plays and drink my way through the Irish pubs in Mayfair. I recognized how big Nightmare was there because I recall doing a lot of big magazine articles and covers. 

MM: You mention that you’re a classically trained actor. Who would have guessed your career would span such a wide field?

ROBERT ENGLUND: It’s so strange because, if you count my professional student work, I did a solid five years of Shakespeare. Not a lot of starring roles. I did star in Comedy of Errors and I understudied Iago in Othello. I played a lot of clowns in Shakespeare and I had supporting roles in Merchant of Venice and Romeo and Juliet. I have done Molliere, George Bernard Shaw, Checkov and some restoration comedy. But before that I was sort of an avant garde actor. We go through changes as we age, so I’m graying now and I have a strong gray beard. I’m sort of evolving into something reminiscent of Trevor Howard, Klaus Kinski and Vincent Price, looks-wise. What’s great is that I have the cache. I bring the baggage of Horror. Horror movies have been very good to me and Wes Craven taught me to respect the genre. I have aged into these wonderful leading roles. I am playing fathers, doctors, scientists, psychiatrists and divorced husbands. I am playing wonderful older roles within the genre, which are a lot of fun. I just did a fantasy film in December called Kantemir that’s sort of Twilight Zone, a little bit romantic, and was a great amount of fun.

MM: Were there elements of your classical training that you brought to your performance as Freddy?

ROBERT ENGLUND: The technique I used with Freddy was definitely something I learned from my theatre training. It involved the confidence to physicalize him differently from the way that I would normally move or walk, because Freddy occupies the imagination and the subconscious of his potential victim who is dreaming of him. Freddy is an imaginary rumor or legend dwelling in the landscape of the mind’s imagination. So I “danced” Freddy a little bit, just slightly. There is a bit of choreographer Bob Fosse and a tiny bit of Jimmy Cagney in the way I channeled Freddy’s physicality and it was a more theatrical movement than I would use in a normal behavioral film performance. I obviously changed my voice and I was hidden under all that makeup. I also had to live up to my surroundings, so I had to move and pose a bit knowing, in my mind’s eye, the frame I was in, because the frame around me often was abstract and exaggerated and of a fantasy, nightmare design.

MM: Your Freddy Krueger oozes charisma. We love to hate him. Were there choices you made to turn him into a likeable anti-hero?

ROBERT ENGLUND: I didn’t want to make him likeable but I felt that Freddy enjoyed his work and there is a subtle “beauty and the beast” sexual component to him. Freddy’s nemesis is always a beautiful young girl and the beautiful young girl always wins. Wes Craven has maintained that Freddy is the “bastard father of us all” on a symbolic level. For the boys and the girls, Freddy’s the future. The ugly older generation’s legacy of corruption, perversion and everything else that has been left to a younger generation. A rite of passage, if you will, that no one ever warns kids about or teaches them about. Especially contemporary weak parents. There is sexuality there. You know? Stepfather as rapist. Stepfather as a violator of the girl, the woman warrior, Nancy or whoever. Freddy enjoys his work so that dynamic is in the performance. It is a subtext I would use a little bit. It was very easy to use it, as the girls were beautiful. Part of it is that Freddy knows everybody’s secrets. He is in their head. He is playing mind games with them. He knows what their desires and fantasies are and he is manipulating them. Most importantly, he is manipulating their fears. So I think there is a sort of evil-stepfather-rapist, somewhat sexual threat to Freddy. It’s not the thing that is up front, though. The thing that’s up front is Freddy playing a mind game with his victim’s particular fear.

MM: Is it true that in the original script Freddy was a child molester and that they toned down this element after the notorious McMartin child abuse trial in Los Angeles.

ROBERT ENGLUND: I don’t think they ever said anything other than the fact that he was a child killer. But I think it is definitely implied that other things went on there. I think the less that is said about it makes it so much richer. I never thought of him as a pedophile. I think he could recognize the sexuality of his second-generation victims, the teenage kids of the parents who burned him alive. I think there is a sexual threat there. He was a child killer and that is different than a pedophile. The Maliciousness and damage of Freddy’s psyche means he is unable to see the future. I think he kills beauty. I think he punishes beauty and youth. I don’t think he fucks it. He comes back to haunt the second generation of victims in their dreams because dreams are Freudian and rife with sexual imagery. I think that is where the sexual threat comes in. I never saw him as a child molester with his original victims. For whatever reason, he killed those first kids out of his own torment. In a way, ending the future.  Or out of some jealousy or imagined wrong dealt him at the school that he worked at in the boiler room. I think it is very straightforward. After he was burned alive, there’s a sort of  frontier justice. Freddy’s reign of terror is a reign of terror in the realm of rumor, legend, myth, campfire talk and imagination. He dwells in that subconscious imagination, rife with sexual imagery.

MM: I’ve heard that there was always a prequel idea floating around about Freddy, pre-immolation?

ROBERT ENGLUND: I wrote a script for part three, which exploited the concept of Tina from the original movie (Amanda Wyss) having an older sister who thought something was fishy about the strange and violent death of her kid sister. It was set several years in the future and she was studying microfilm and putting together a case against Freddy Kruger existing in a spirit realm. A lot of the movie that I wrote took place as a prequel with Freddy’s backstory being unearthed. That was my investment in that. I also heard that director John McNaughton (Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer) had a prequel script that he wanted to direct. I never had a chance to read it, but I heard it was a wonderful script. Something like Nightmare on Elm Street: The First Kills or Nightmare on Elm Street: First Blood. Apparently it was almost like a documentary of Freddy before he is disfigured and burned and it would end with him burning. Much like the Tobe Hooper pilot to the television series and much like some of the stuff that they did in the remake with Jackie Earl Haley. So there was a script that was knocking around for years and I had heard about it. I always thought that would have been a challenge. But now I’m too old. I mean, ten years ago I could have played a man in his late forties, which is probably how old Freddy is. Let’s say mid to late forties. So, ten years ago I could have still played that and I think it would have been a real challenge. Maybe I would have shaved my hair real short in sort of a crew cut. One of the things I have always used in my mind’s eye is Lee Harvey Oswald who assassinated JFK. I always thought that’s the way Freddy should look. If you observe the way I look in Nightmare part six: Freddy’s Dead, you’ll see I look a little like Oswald. I chose to have red hair because I liked the idea of how red hair and my green eyes would echo the sweater in those flashback sequences. In a close up you would get a color-coded echo of the signature red and green striped sweater. That’s a technique actors use sometimes in their mind’s eye to answer questions like, who is he? What does he look like.

MM: It’s been suggested that you auditioned for Star Wars.

ROBERT ENGLUND: The Internet is so full of shit and so full of mis-quotes. I have corrected this a number of times. I was up for Apocalypse Now. I was up for the part of the surfer. I was 165 Pounds of solid Muscle and long blonde hair like William Katt and I had a little scruffy beard. I wanted to play the cook but I was a little too young. I came in wearing a pair of skin-tight, faded green Levis. I had an old military shirt on with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of military boots. After the casting guys looked at me they said, “you might want to go across the hall because they’re casting something you might be right for”. I went across the hall and they looked me over for the part of Han Solo. I was too young to play Solo, so I left, went across the street to the Formosa, had a drink and headed home. Staying with me at the time was my good buddy Mark Hamill. He was on my couch watching the Mary Tyler Moore show. I told him all about the casting for Star Wars. He got on the phone with his agent and the next thing I know he was playing Luke Skywalker. Mark stayed with us when he got back from shooting in London so I heard all of the Star Wars tales. Mark actually took me to Thanksgiving one year at the old ILM studio, which was over in the valley. I went with he and David Irving who was Amy Irving’s brother. Amy Irving was with Steven Spielberg at the time. So we spent Thanksgiving day at ILM and Mark brought them turkey and stuff because they were all working. I saw them doing lots of the motion-control work on the miniatures and all that was very fresh with me. I heard about Mark having a crush on Carrie Fisher and stories about Alec Guinness teasing everybody. I heard what it was like on location in Tunisia. I’m also friends with Jason Joiner who is one of the world’s top Star Wars collectors and a close friend of Gary Kurtz. I do have a lot of Star Wars lore in the back of my brain. So, while I did go in briefly to be looked at for the part of Han Solo, I was originally casting for Apocalypse Now.

MM: We could petition to get you in the new Star Wars movie being directed by J.J. Abrams.

ROBERT ENGLUND: That would be fun. You never know where you’re going to show up again. We will see if J.J. makes it a little dark. I think it’s time for Star Wars to go dark. After that fucking Jar Jar Binks, I’m outta there!

MM: You have also had the opportunity to direct.

ROBERT ENGLUND: I love directing. I would probably spend a lot more time in the theatre if I were more disciplined when it comes to directing. The problem is, people always want me to direct horror movies. I do love horror movies, but it’s not what I’m best at. With a horror movie, I end up giving myself an ulcer worrying about special effects as opposed to a movie like Tender Mercy’ s, the Robert Duvall movie about Country music. That is much more up my alley. That’s the type of film I would like to direct. That probably won’t happen because people think I am exclusively horror. That’s typecasting perpetrated by people who want to make their lives easier by not doing their research. The only job I ever lost was a directing job – because of Freddy. There was a romantic comedy I wanted to direct. I actually recommended the young actress Helen Hunt for the lead, as I was a big fan of hers and she had just received an Oscar nomination. Rank Films said that they didn’t want me because I had never done comedy. What they didn’t realize is that all I did in my early years in the theatre, even in television, was comedy. I did comedy almost exclusively in the theatre and it’s strange to me that people don’t see that. Especially with the way I look. It’s a little shocking, but that’s the only time I have ever had any Freddy-conflicts that I know of with anything that I really cared about. 

MM: On Killer Pad, which you directed,  you worked with some mutual friends of Mad Monster, Mark Richardson and Nick Principe. They said if you ever lost your temper they’d come running because when you yelled, the Freddy voice came out. They’re such Fanboys they loved to hear Freddy yelling at them.

ROBERT ENGLUND: (Laughs) Well, I was hoarse because I was using my voice from 6 in the morning to 10 o’clock at night. The hoarser I get the more I sound like Freddy. Yeah, sometimes you lose your temper. I also hurt my foot and was nursing a bad ankle on that movie, which was awkward. I have just finished my 75th film, Kantemir, and before that I did Sanitarium with John Glover and Malcolm McDowell. People loose their temper on a film set. You try not to but it always happens. Especially for me with a stunt or a special effect. Once I was hanging upside down in San Antonio in a Shriner’s lodge above a marble floor and I knew a better way to shoot what they were trying to get. Sometimes you just have to bite your tongue.

MM: What would you say is your favorite horror movie of the last decade?

ROBERT ENGLUND: I think my favorite is Guillermo Del Toros’ The Devil’s Backbone. I think it’s a great film. I liked the first SAW film. I thought there was stuff in that I haven’t seen before. I also Loved 28 Days Later. I felt it was really extraordinary stuff.

MM: Which classic horror monster do you identify with most?

ROBERT ENGLUND: I am actually sitting here talking to you and looking at a couple of busts I bought in France of a muscular, hulk-like Frankenstein. Also a very old Karloff wind-up tin toy and a Karloff portrait by the famous photographer Joseph Carche. I am a huge fan of Karloff and his portrayal of Frankenstein’s monster. I love the movie Bride of Frankenstein. I think it is a great film. I love Sisters, the Brian De Palma film. I love Margot Kidders’ work in that, but especially William Finlay’s performance. I think Finlay passed away recently. He was such a brilliant, underrated actor and I do love his portrayal of the mad scientist in Sisters who separates the Siamese twin sisters and fucks them. I love his work in the The Fury and he is the Phantom of the Paradise. In terms of pure creation, I love Stan Winston’s creature in the original Alien. It scared the bejesus out of me. It’s just a great conceptual design. Another performance, which really scared me on an acting level, was Angela Bettis’ work on May. She seduced me, pulled me in and rocked my world. Lucky McKee’s work was so strong on that film too. An interesting seduction into a climatic ending. I think you always have to acknowledge Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs, because at the end of the 20th century he certainly elevated horror film acting, with the help of Jonathan Demme, to a new level. He raised the bar for a lot of people. Today I’m so sick, that every serial killer is played on television by a male model who whispers his lines. It’s really easy to predict who is going to be the bad guy. It’s always the handsome guy with the long eyelashes that’s whispering. They think that’s avoiding cliché? I’m ready to see the return of the character actor, twitching and drooling, playing the bad guys again. I’m getting bored seeing these pretty boy, metro-sexual serial killers. Give me some character actors twitching! That’s what the contract says. It says, “acting”. I want to see somebody out there acting again.

Full Robert Englund Interview Transcribed Raw

Firstly, thank you for taking the time to do this interview you are a true legend of the genre and one of the greatest things about you is you have such a great appreciation of your fans, you are very humble.

Well, you know it’s interesting. I am what you would call a “utility actor”.  There are lots of phrases which other people might describe me as, you know, “character actor”, “utility actor” but basically I am the kind of actor if you were doing an ensemble movie company or an ensemble theatre company you would want me as one of the twenty and I’m not that humble you know I just know I can contribute on that level but I have been typecast as a Southerner I have been typecast as a sidekick a best friend I was typecast as kind of a geeky guy there for a while. By the time I had my double genre success of V the mini series and then the series V and alongside that the original Nightmare on Elm Street I was sort of fortunate enough to get two cross over sets of fans the science fiction and the horror and even a little bit of the fantasy element because the original Nightmare certainly strayed into that territory with the dream sequences.

 I kind of recognized it between accepting awards for V and being on the road a little bit doing the publicity for V and the original Nightmare on Elm street. I felt this ground swell a kind of Jungle Drums as it were of Fan boys and back then it was a little narrower a vortex of fans more Heavy metal and Ramones and Speed Metal Rock and Roll Guys and Goth Girls and it sort of expanded exponentially to their brothers and sisters their kid brothers and sisters their dormitory room mates and now fortunately for me and this is completely an accident with technology and the amount of films I have done I came of age as a celebrity simultaneously with MTV.  I was one of the original guest hosts on that and with Video and the original pay per view TV and then cable television dvds Blu-rays.  As the cable expanded more and more fans internationally would end up watching me on Sky channel or Showtime or Cinemax and new generations caught up with the movies the old ones and the new ones as they had been made over a period of  twenty years. So that period of time from 84-94 and then again with Freddy Vs. Jason in 2003 in that gap of time from 93-2003 the acumlitve video, dvd and cable phenomenon kept all of those films alive and obviously 15-20 years ago those movies were very viable they looked great still, most of them looked very good and held up so I got a second generation of fans and now after Freddy Vs. Jason in 2003 I am on actually a third generation of fans.  So I do acknowledge the iconic status but I want people to understand that although my performance and Wes Cravens genius and all the other fantastic directors and actor I worked with all contributed to the success it’s also this happy accident that there are eight feature films a television series and simultaneously the improvement of video box sets dvds pay per view cable downloads which all bring me into people’s living rooms. So I have benefited from that immensely and when I go to shows to sign autographs or when I am recognized in a restaurant or on a plane it can often be a 45 year old guy who saw me in the original movie when he was living in a dormitory in Jersey. Or it’s an eight  year boy who has just discovered and loves the double bill of parts 3 and 4 and those films aren’t too violent they are not as violent as the saw films or some of the films being made today. So for an eight year old boy to have a right of passage on a sleepover watching Nightmare on Elm Street 3 and 4 as a double bill with Patricia Arquette running around all nubile in her beauty and the special effects which still look pretty good on a television.

 So I have been bequeathed through this accident of technological growth a bonus generation of fans something that didn’t really happen for instance to stars of the 40’s who were huge and didn’t make the transition into television and weren’t really rediscovered until the hippies and the 60’s kids discovered them on late night reruns and rediscovered film noir and Humphrey Bogart. People forget that in the 60’s when we all got stoned and everything and when we were all being cool going to the commune and buying hashish in Afghanistan before there was a war there and hitch hiking down to Mexico one of our great icons was Humphrey Bogart we would watch all the great film Noirs the black and white movies and Casablanca he had been rediscovered in the late sixties by an entire generation. I can’t tell you how many nineteen year old girls I slept with who had a poster above their beds of Humphrey Bogart smoking a cigarette. That’s that strange kind of hopscotch, that leapfrog that can happen and I’ve been very lucky that it has been kind of a constant Leapfrog since V came out in 1982.

Is it true that you never actually read a full script for Nightmare before you went into the audition; I was wondering what it was that captured you to the piece?

 I’m not 100% confident in my memory here I don’t think I read the entire script I think I read a breakdown that was given to me by the casting director Annette Benson who had cast me before and a few weeks previously had screen tested me for National Lampoons Class Reunion and I think the reason Wes explained to me the story was because I hadn’t read it. I remember Wes telling me his ideas for it and some background on it and how it would work. So I think I would have only read a treatment for it at that time. It seems to me that back in 84-83 I didn’t have the power yet to be sent the whole script so it was likely just scenes or sides or a breakdown.

 I loved it when Wes described it at the interview I was hooked. My original attraction to the project though was pretty basic it was the only project at the time that fit into my schedule. I was doing the television series at the time V and I had a small hiatus a window of opportunity where I could take other offers and this was one of them. The other thing that attracted me initially to it was back in those days we thought of Wes Craven a little differently. These days journalists sort of qualify Wes by saying Bogeyman Wes Craven or Horror Meister Wes Craven and back then we thought of Wes as more of a David Lynch talent especially the actors and his fans from Last House on the left and The Hills Have Eyes. That was my intrigue and curiosity was to work with Wes Craven this sort of David Lynch style director.

After you wrapped the film did you have any clues about what it might become?

I do remember at one point we were doing some second unit work at the old Dessie Lou Studios in the heart of Hollywood. The Kids were just beautiful you had Johnny Depp, Heather Langenkamp, Amanda Wyss and Nick Corri they were just the most beautiful nice wonderful young kids and we were at this fantastic old studio and we were right next door to this brilliant French theatrical troupe who were using the sound stage next door. They were due to be the stars of the 1984 Los Angeles Arts festival that was in conjunction with the Olympics they were called Le Théâtre du Soleil. They were intrigued with us with our stunts and our make up special effects and David Miller who did my make up had done Thriller and all the French kids were going ga ga about that.

  I do remember towards the end of the filming I came into help out with Heather on a second unit sequence a little bit of a chase scene on an empty portion of the sound stage. I think Sean Cunningham the creator of Friday the 13th and friend of Wes. I think Sean came into help Wes out because Wes was doing some first unit that day. I do remember Heather in her pajamas and me on the cold concrete floor with dirt sprinkled over it we were making up this little chase sequence with crazy hand held close ups and I do remember thinking at that moment we were onto something special but I never thought it was going to be a hit. I thought it would be kind of a cool cult art horror film 

After you shot the film were there any impressions in your head for what it might become?

 I do remember at one point we were doing some second unit work at the old Dessie Lou Studios in the heart of Hollywood. The Kids were just beautiful you had Johnny Depp, Heather Langenkamp, Amanda Wyss and Nick Corri they were just the most beautiful nice wonderful young kids and we were at this fantastic old studio and we were right next door to this brilliant French theatrical troupe who were using the sound stage next door. They were due to be the stars of the 1984 Los Angeles Arts festival that was in conjunction with the Olympics they were called Le Théâtre du Soleil. They were intrigued with us with our stunts and our make up special effects and David Miller who did my make up had done Thriller and all the French kids were going ga ga about that.

  I do remember towards the end of the filming I came into help out with Heather on a second unit sequence a little bit of a chase scene on an empty portion of the sound stage. I think Sean Cunningham the creator of Friday the 13th and friend of Wes. I think Sean came into help Wes out because Wes was doing some first unit that day. I do remember Heather in her pajamas and me on the cold concrete floor with dirt sprinkled over it we were making up this little chase sequence with crazy hand held close ups and I do remember thinking at that moment we were onto something special but I never thought it was going to be a hit. I thought it would be kind of a cool cult art horror film.

Obviously after the film was released it blew up didn’t it?

 Well it didn’t, it blew up in London but out here in the States it didn’t have what we called a wide release so it opened in New York first. In fact I went all the way to New York to do publicity for V and I think I was signing autographs with William Shatner at the Old Roosevelt Hotel on Madison Avenue. It was then I realized it was already a cult hit on the East Coast I don’t think it had been released yet on the West Coast or certainly not had a wide release maybe a screening or a limited release. That was my first inkling my line of V fans waiting for my autograph (and I write about this in my book) turned into these black leather clad Ramones punk rock Goth girls. I wasn’t there as Freddy Kruger I was there as Robert Englund the star of V the new science fiction Star Robert Englund from television for all the hungry science fiction fans who didn’t have any original science fiction programming on Network television at that time.  So my line changed from the sci fi fans into this other breed of fan a little bit rock and roll, a little bit Goth, a little bit cooler you know the closeted horror fans. That was my first indication that this was really taking off. I also got a photo from Bob Shaye at New ine who showed me how big it was in London. I’m not sure if I did any publicity for the first film in London I might not have got out there until the second one. I went back to London every year there after. I loved it I am an anglophile I was trained at the American branch of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts with an entire English tutorial staff and faculty. I worked with all the English and Canadian actors so I was this big anglophile and whenever they wanted anyone to do publicity I would raise my hand and run over spending all my per diem on West End plays and drink my way through the Irish pubs in Mayfair. I recognized how big it was there I remember doing a lot of big magazines  articles and magazines covers.  Palace pictures was chauffeuring me around in a Bentley and there was this beautiful girl from Palace Pictures named Roz looked like a teenage Annie Lennox a gorgeous little Champagne Socialist and I remember going to a party for the movie Absolute Beginners with the palace pictures people and that was quite a treat for me. I loved it.

A lot of your fans may not know this about you but you are a classically trained performer.

 It’s so strange because I did probably, if you count my professional student work a solid five years of Shakespeare with not a lot of starring roles but I did star in Comedy of Errors and I did understudy Iago.  I did a lot of clowns in Shakespeare not all of them but quite a few of them and I had nice supporting roles in Merchant of Venice and Romeo and Juliet. I have done Molliere professionally and George Bernard Shaw professionally Checkov and some restoration comedy. So I’ve done that stuff but before that I was sort of an Avant grade actor so I think I am this utility actor. As a utility actor you go through changes as you age so I am greying now I have a nice strong grey beard and I am sort of evolving into something in the middle of Trevor Howard Klaus Kiniski and Vincent Price right now in my looks. What’s great though is I have the Cache and I bring the baggage of Horror and because horror movies have been very good to me and I respect the genre, which I was taught to do by Wes Craven. I have aged into these wonderful leading roles I am playing fathers and doctors, scientists, physiatrist and divorced husbands and I am playing these wonderful older roles within the genre, which are a lot of fun. I just did a fantasy film in December called Kantemir that’s sort of Twilight Zone a little bit Romantic and was a great amount of fun.

Were there any elements of your classical training that you brought to your performances?

 The technique I used with Freddy was something I got from my theatre training was the confidence to physicalize him differently from the way that I would move or walk, because Freddy occupies the imagination and the subconscious of his potential victim who is dreaming of him. Freddy is an imaginary rumor or legend dwelling in the landscape of the minds imagination. So I danced Freddy a little bit just slightly, there is a little bit of Bob Fosse, there’s a little tiny bit of Jimmy Cagney in the way I channeled Freddy’s physicality and it was a little more theatrical than I would use in a normal behavioral film performance. I obviously changed my voice as I was hidden under all that make up I also had to live up to my surroundings so I had to move and pose a bit knowing in your minds eye the frame you were in as a figure because the frame around you many times was abstract and exaggerated and a fantasy nightmare design.

Freddy really Oozes Charisma you love to hate him. Were there choices that you made early on to turn him into a likeable anti-hero?

 I didn’t want to make him likeable but I felt that Freddy enjoyed his work and there is a subtle beauty and the beast sexual component because Freddy’s nemesis is always a beautiful young girl and the beautiful young girl always wins. Wes Craven has always said that Freddy is the Bastard father of us all on a symbolic level that’s for the boys and the girls. Freddy’s the future Freddy’s the ugly older generations legacy of corruption and perversion and everything else that has been left to a younger generation, kind of a rite of passage if you will that no one ever warns you about or teaches you about especially contemporary weak parents.  So there is sexuality there you know the stepfather rapist the stepfather as a violator of the girl the woman warrior, Nancy or whoever. Freddy enjoys his work so that’s in there.  There is a sub text in the performing and I would use that a little bit. It was very easy to use it, as the girls were beautiful.

  Part of it is that Freddy knows everybody’s secrets he is in their head, he is playing mind games with them he knows what their desires and fantasy’s are and he is manipulating those. Most importantly he is manipulating their fears. So I think there is a sort of evil Stepfather rapist threat somewhat sexual threat to Freddy. It’s not the thing that is up front though the thing that’s up front is Freddy playing a mind game with whichever his victims particular fear is.

In the original script Freddy was a Child Molester they had to tone down this element after the McMartin Trial in Los Angeles, which was causing a lot of controversy at the time.

 I don’t think they ever said anything other than the fact he was a child killer but I think it is definatly implied that other things went on there and I think the less that is said about it makes it so much richer. I never thought of him as a pedophile I think he could recognize the sexuality of the second-generation victims in other words the teenage daughters of the parents who burned him alive. I think there is a sexual threat there. I think though probably the original children he was a Child Killer and that is different to a pedophile. The Maliciousness and damage of Freddy’s psyche means he is unable to see the future I think he kills beauty I think he punishes beauty and youth I don’t think he fucks it I think he punishes it and kills it. When he comes back to haunt the second generation of victims in their dreams because dreams are Freudian and rife with sexual imagery I think that is where the sexual threat comes in. I never saw him as a child molester though with his original victims. For whatever reason he killed those first kids out of his own tormented way of ending the future or of some jealousy or some imagined being wronged at the school that he worked at in the boiler room. I think it is much more straight forward and then after he was burned alive that’s frontier justice so Freddy’s reign of terror after he was burned is a reign of terror in the realm of rumor Legend myth and camp fire talk and imagination and he dwells in that subconscious imagination which as I mentioned is very rife with sexual imagery.

I heard that there was always a prequel idea floating around about Freddy before he was burnt was that ever a consideration at New Line?

 I wrote a script for part three which exploited the concept of Tina from the original movie (Amanda Wiss) having an older sister and that her sister thought that something was fishy about the very violent strange death of her kid sister. It was set several years in the future and she was using microfilm and putting together a case against Freddy Kruger existing in a spirit realm. A lot of the movie that I wrote took place as a prequel with Freddy’s back story being unearthed so that was my investment in that.  Now I also heard that director John McNaughton (Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer) had a prequel script that he wanted to direct which was also a prequel. I never had the chance to read it but I heard it was a wonderful script something like Nightmare on Elm Street The First Kills or Nightmare on Elm Street First Blood something like that. It apparently was almost like a documentary of Freddy before he is disfigured and burnt and it would end with him burning. Much like the Tobe Hooper pilot to the television series and much like some of the stuff that they did in the remake with Jackie Earl Haley. So there was a script that was knocking around for years and I had heard about it. I always thought that would have been a challenge but now I’m too old. I mean ten years ago I could have played a man in his late forties which is probably how old Freddy is lets say mid to late forties. So ten years ago I could have still played that and I think it would have been a real challenge. Maybe I would have shaved my hair real short in sort of a crew cut. One of the things I have always used in my minds eye is the guy who assassinated JFK Lee Harvey Oswald I always thought that is the way Freddy should look. If you look at the way I look in Nightmare part six Freddy’s dead you’ll see I look a little like Lee Harvey Oswald. I chose to have red hair because I liked the idea of the red and green and how it would in those flashback sequences echo the sweater because I have green eyes so in a close up you would get a color coded echo to the sweater. That’s just a thing actors use sometimes in their minds eye who was he, what does he look like.

You auditioned for Star Wars didn’t you?

The Internet is so full of shit and so full of misquotes and I have corrected this a number of times. I was up for Apocalypse Now I was up for the part of the surfer. I was 165 Pounds of solid Muscle and long blonde hair like William Katt and I had a little scruffy beard. I wanted to be up for the cook but I was a little too young to play the cook. The casting guys looked at me and I was wearing a pair of skin tight faded green levis and I had an old military shirt on with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of military boots they said you might want to go across the hall because they are casting something you might be right for. So I went across the hall and I they looked at me for Han Solo. I was too young to play Han Solo so I left went across the street to the Formosa and had a drink and headed home. Staying with me at the time was my good buddy Mark Hamill and he was there on my couch watching the Mary Tyler Moore show and I told him all about the casting for Star Wars. He got on the phone with his agent and the next thing I know he was playing Luke Skywalker.  Mark stayed with us when he got back London shooting Star Wars so I heard all of the Star Wars tales. Mark actually took me thanksgiving one year to the old ILM studio, which was over in the valley. I went with him and David Irving who was Amy Irving’s Brother Amy Irving who was actually with Spielberg at the time. So we spent Thanksgiving Day there and Mark brought them Turkey and stuff because they were all working. I saw them doing lots of the motion control work on the miniatures and all that stuff was very fresh with me. I heard about how Mark had a crush on Carrie Fisher and I heard stories about Alec Guinness teasing everybody and I heard what it was like on location in Tunisia. Now I am a friend with Jason Joiner who is one of the worlds top Star Wars collectors and close friend of Gary Kurtz. So I do have a lot of Star Wars Lore in the back of my brain. I did though just go in briefly to be looked at for Han Solo but it was originally a casting for Apocalypse Now.

Maybe we could petition to get you in the New Star Wars Movies being directed by JJ Abrams?

 That would be fun you never know where you are going to show up again. We will see if JJ makes them a little dark I think it’s time for Star Wars to go dark after that Fucking Jar Jar Binks I’m outta there.

You have also had the opportunity to direct

 I love directing I would probably spend a lot more time in the theatre if I were a little bit more disciplined when it comes to directing. The problem is they always want me to direct horror movies now I do love horror movies but it is not what I am best at I just end up giving myself an ulcer worrying about special effects as a pose to a movie like Tender Mercy’ s the Robert Duvall movie about Country music that is much more up my alley as the type of film I would like to direct. That probably won’t happen because people think I am exclusively horror that’s just the typecasting that goes on by people who just want to make their lives easier by not doing research. The only job I ever lost was a directing job because of Freddy. It was a romantic comedy that I wanted to direct I actually recommended the young actress Helen Hunt for the lead as I was a big fan of hers she has just received an Oscar nomination. Rank films that were the money people said that they didn’t want me because I had never done comedy. What they didn’t realize is that all I did for many years in the theatre even in television shows I had done a lot of comedy early on. I then started doing rednecks and I was able to move into bad guys you know rednecks to bad guys is almost a direct line. I did almost exclusively comedy in the theatre and it’s strange to me that people don’t see that especially with the way I look and everything so it’s a little shocking but that’s the only time I have ever had any conflicts that I know of with anything that I really cared about. 

You worked with some mutual friends Mark Richardson and Nick Princepe on a film you directed called Killer Pad.

Oh yeah I know both those guys very well theyr’e great guys Iv’e worked with them on other stuff I bumped into them recently on something else. Those guys saved my ass because we had to shoot that in 21 days and 21 days in Hollywood we did it for under two million and that’s hard to do so it was tricky. That movie is funny it’s genuinely funny I’m proud of that movie it was almost an impossible task the problem was we tried to make that movie family rated and the movie needed to have a lot more nasty stuff in it. It was the concept of the producers to make it PG-13 and we didn’t want to go there. I think it probably should have been an R rated film a nastier film not gorier but sexier. Our goal was to make it for men without drivers licenses fifteen year old boys and down and that was an experiment but I think it was the wrong choice to make. If I had to do that over again I would have fought and said we should be able to say fuck we should be able to see nudity in this film we should be able to have devil boner jokes and stuff like that a lot more obvious. My actors though are wonderful in that film and it was a nearly impossible task and it was intentionally supposed to look cheesy and fun it was a shame though at that moment in time all the fifteen year old boys were already watching porn and already sneaking into R rated movies. I remember though that my prop guys and my make up guys were just so great to work with my make up guy Rob Hall was just a saint on that . We had a great DP you know a great camera man on that too. We were using one of the first Red cameras the Viper so we were digital and I was also learning that at the same time. You know it is a good cheap thrill movie it’s got some good gags in it I have my Gilmore Girl gags in it.

Both Mark and Nick said you were so great to work with but occasionally on set if you lost your temper they would come running because when you yelled your Freddy voice came out and they are such massive Fanboys that they would just love to hear Freddy yelling at them.

(Laughs)  Well I was also hoarse because I was using my voice from 6 in the morning to 10 o clock at night so the hoarser I get the more I sound like Freddy.  Yeah you loose your temper and also I hurt my foot and was nursing a bad ankle on that movie as well which was akward.  I have just finished my 75th film Kantemir and before that I did Sanitarium with John Glover and Malcolm McDowell and people loose their temper that always happens on a film set and you try not to but it always does. Especially for me with a stunt or a special effect I was hanging upside down in San Antonio in a Shriners lodge above a marble floor and I knew a better way to shoot what they were trying to get but sometimes you just have to bite your tongue.

Which classic horror monster would you most identify with?

I am actually sitting here talking to you looking at a couple of busts that I brought in France of a muscular very hulk like Frankenstein and a very old Karloff winde up tin toy and a Karloff portrait by the very famous photographer Joseph Carche so I am a huge huge fan of Karloff and I love his portrayal of Frankenstein’s monster. I love Bride of Frankenstein I think it is a Great Great film. I love Sisters the Brian De Palma film I love Margot Kidders work in that but more especially I love William Finlay’s performance as the mad scientist I think he passed away recently but he was just such a brilliant Brilliant actor I love his work in the movie The Fury and he is the Phantom of the Paradise.  He was just a very wonderful underrated actor and I do love his portrayal of the mad scientist in Sisters who separates the Siamese sisters and fucks them.

   I also love just in terms of pure creation Stan Winston’s original Alien it scared the bejesus out of me it’s just a great conceptual design.

Another performance, which really scared me on an acting level along with Margot Kidders performance in Sisters, was Angela Bettis work on the movie May. She really seduced me and pulled me in and rocked my world and Lucky McKee’s work was so strong on that it was a very interesting seduction into a climatic ending.

 I think you would always have to acknowledge Anthony Hopkins too because certainly at the end of the 20th century he really elevated horror film acting with the help of Jonathon Demme to a new level. He really raised the bar for a lot of people.

Of course now I’m so sick, that every serial killer is played on television by a male model who whispers his lines so it’s really easy to predict who is going to be the bad guy. Now it’s always the handsome guy with the long eyelashes that’s whispering and they think that’s avoiding a cliché. I’m ready to see some character actors back twitching and salivating playing the bad guys again I’m getting bored seeing these pretty boy metro sexual serial killers. I’m getting sick of it give me some character actors twitching again that’s what the contract says it says acting. I want to see somebody out there acting again.

What would you say would be your favorite horror movie of the last decade?

I think probably my favorite is Guillermo Del Toros The Devils Backbone. I think it’s a great great film. I liked the first SAW film I thought there was stuff in that I haven’t seen before. I also Loved 28 days later I felt it was really extraordinary stuff.