“A Nightmare on Elm Street” star Robert Englund got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this Halloween. And it feels long overdue.
As Freddy Krueger, Englund was one of the premiere pop culture icons of the 1980s, starring in six mainline entries from 1984 to 1991. Englund also hosted the anthology “Freddy’s Nightmares” for two seasons, beginning in 1988. And he would return for a pair of appearances, in Wes Craven’s brilliant, metatextual “New Nightmare” in 1994 and the long-awaited crossover movie “Freddy vs. Jason” in 2003.
Now, you can revisit his greatest hits in full, HD glory, thanks to Warner Bros. Home Entertainment’s “A Nightmare on Elm Street” 4K box set. The set collects all of the entries up to “New Nightmare,” lovingly remastered by the filmmakers themselves, creating definitive versions of the movies, which look and sound better than they ever have before.
TheWrap spoke to Englund about what it was like spending the 1980s as Freddy and playing a part in the formative years of New Line Cinema, which is lovingly known as the studio that Freddy built.
What was it like for you in the ‘80s, when Freddy mania really exploded?
You know it was, there was a nice speed to the snowball, because I was busy promoting and starring in the miniseries “V” simultaneously. I was dealing with my first network television fame, which begat international fame, and then the Freddy thing came out of left field, and I really started experiencing it. I was up for an award show in Italy for “V” but the fans were all chanting “Freddy” outside of La Scala in Milan, Italy. That was my first sense of it, that international thing. But you know, by the time Johnny Carson starts cracking Freddy Krueger jokes, and you see yourself in the Sunday funnies and Mad Magazine does a cover of you and things like that – that’s really when I knew that we were a popular cult culture institution.
Was there any benefit to having the distance of Freddy Kruger? It was you but it wasn’t you.
It was definitely a blessing. That was my reward for sitting there for all those countless hours getting that latex glued on me. I was like a walking colostomy bag there for 20 years. But yeah, it was nice. I did have a bit of privacy for a while, although you have to understand that “V” was a huge success, so I was, that’s really the first time people kind of put my face to my name. That was a specific audience, science fiction. But still, that was when there were only three networks and we had certainly commandeered NBC for a while, so I was dealing with that attention. I had a little bit of anonymity as a result of the makeup for a while, which was fun. I’m not quite sure the moment when that ended, but there were magazines that love to do that before and after stuff – getting the makeup on, or the man behind the mask. And once that stuff had come out, people had put two and two together. But if one person came up to me in a coffee shop, then everybody else went, Oh, it is that guy? They’d get their little coffee cup stained napkins for me to sign.
Did that ever get to your head? Did you ever think about walking away from the franchise or demanding much more money?
I was a movie actor throughout the ‘70s. Then things were very separated back then, back in the day. I had never made big money until I did “V” – you know, that network money, and I actually was able to renegotiate on that between mini-series and the series, and I got a nice bump. I bought my first new car, an ‘85 Mustang 5.0. I was the sh-t. I was dealing with that and I didn’t really need to beat up on New Line for a while. I think maybe it was part three or part four my agent had to get a little serious with them.
But up until then I was awash in the network generosity that I really didn’t think about it. And it was just more about can they work around my schedule? I know we bumped heads about that with part two a bit. I wasn’t trying to hold them up. I just wanted to be able to finish my obligation with “V” and then psych it up to wear all that makeup every day. I just wanted that right. I didn’t even need a break so much as I just wanted them to work around my schedule a little bit. And I was talking about a week or 10 days. Not a big deal.
Do you have a favorite piece of merchandise?
New Line, they had never had a hit like this before, and they kind of merchandised it too young. That early merchandise is a little silly to say the least. However, there are some great laserdiscs and soundtrack albums, especially the Europeans, and they use images from the PR proof sheets that are different than the ones that were used stateside. Those are fun to see because I see photographs I’ve never seen before.
But in the last 10 years, especially since COVID, I think all of the fine artists that are involved in merchandise, and especially the conventions and the comic-cons, they were extra busy during COVID, and so when I go do a film festival now, or I go do a convention now, I see incredible, amazing illustrative art, faux retro posters, reconfigured of the films – “Nightmare 3,” “Nightmare 4.” Just really extraordinary stuff.
You can look behind me. I don’t have any wall space behind me, because I covered half of my walls with my early career, from the ‘70s and early ‘80s, before I did Freddy, before I fell in love. Because I have an inner fanboy, alive and well, in me, and I see stuff that’s just cool. It’s just cool stuff that you want to stick up on the wall, but I don’t really have room anymore. You can probably see on this wall here. Those are all black and white photos of me from movies of the week and feature films.
It’s fun with the new collection coming out on 4K because I realize now how many fans experienced the “A Nightmare on Elm Street” franchise on VHS on a dog-eared copy, wound up loose that they got from a mom and pop video store, you know, while their mother took out a copy of “Pretty Woman.” And then they’d scare the bejesus out of mom and dad when they pop “A Nightmare on Elm Street” on or vice versa, a cool stepfather or single mom would let the kids watch it and watch them jump out of their pajamas. But it’s just so crisp and perfect and brand new.
I’ve been sharing this with everybody, because I saw the 4K last year of “Rear Window,” the Alfred Hitchcock film, and I was trying to entertain my wife’s family, who’d all come down last summer, and I downloaded it, and it blew my mind, because I saw it with my parents originally as a child, and I’ve seen it before on television, and I could not believe how incredible the 4K is. And so I’m working my way now through the franchise. And you know when you get to like, Renny Harlin’s “Nightmare 4,” [“Nightmare on Elm Street 3” cinematographer] Roy Wagner, who actually changed the look of network television when he was the house cinematographer for “CSI.” We remember how popular that show was but he changed the look of television with that color field and deep focus. I’ve seen these movies in screening rooms and stuff, but never, never that nice.
What was it like being there for New Line Cinema’s ascendency?
Those people are my friends now – Robert Shaye and his sister Lin Shaye, the wonderful actress and Rachel Talalay. Rachel and I go all the way back to Roger Corman days. But you know, it wasn’t just the “Nightmare” franchise. They had the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and John Waters movies. They really embraced the Black audience too, with the Kidd and Play movies, and a lot of hip hop movies.
They were just really onto the changing culture. And if you ever went to a New Line party in the old days in New York, it was great. You never knew who you would bump into. I remember bumping into Debbie Harry at one of them. It was just like a great moment of time in New York. And I think they were over on Eighth Avenue, the old offices, which was right in the heart of things. It was a golden time. We were always turning each other on to new music and new movies and alternative cinema, discovering stuff. It was a pretty golden time.
Don’t discount your role in that.
Well, we were the first, I think the first big capital source obviously. Because people forget, I don’t think we spent money on a “Nightmare” movie until “Wes Cravens New Nightmare.” They were all extremely low budget films. I think on the first “Nightmares” they protected me. They sheltered me from this. I found this out in hindsight, but I think they had to sell off the video rights to a company in England just to get the money to finish the first film. There was some belt-tightening, but they got it done. I think later on they bought those rights back, obviously, but they almost ran out of money making the first one. They were low budget films. We were working tight, but they had these brilliant crews, and they left them alone. They were hands off once they’d picked them out and set them free. They had those original meetings about budget and creativity, they let those guys alone, and those people sank or swam with their ideas. And for my money, they mostly swam.
The “Nightmare on Elm Street” 4K collection is available now.
