Did the photos of “Elm Street Nightmare” give you nightmares? Mrblancmange
In the first part, I didn’t have a trailer for my movie star; I had a small car with honey the size of a urinal, with a Formica table, a plastic chair and a mirror with light bulbs around it – the classic makeup room behind the scenes. The lights were dimmer. I lowered them low when I took a nap at about 4 o’clock in the morning, with my head resting on a tightly rolled towel so as not to smudge my make-up. I was waiting to be called to the set and I heard that knock on the door. When I stood up, I saw this disfigured face looking at me in the mirror. The shock made me jump out of my skin. I raised my hand and realized, “Oh God, this is my own reflection!” But it was such a startling moment that it still has various nightmares.
Behind-the-scenes photos from Elm Street Nightmare seem to have a great connection between you and the young cast. Did that make it difficult to kill most of them on screen? Ker555
By making films, you are certainly developing a relationship between the actors. We would all get up at dawn, with puffy eyes full of caffeine, scared of work during the day. I remember teasing Heather Langenkamp [Nancy Thompson in Nightmare 1 and 3], who was a Russian major at Stanford University. I would tell dirty jokes that I thought repulsed her, but they were related to Freddie’s filth and insults and helped break the ice. I know Mark Patton [Jesse Walsh in Nightmare 2] we agreed that we should play on Freddie’s sexual allusion to trimming his mouth with my blade.
In the days of practical effects, so much was left to the imagination. You will cross puppeteers and animation teams crawling around dressed as ninjas. So backstage really helps when they say “Action” so you can move on to the reality of acting.
Do you have a favorite iteration of Freddie, from the dark origins of the first two to the wisdom sequels and the return to the darker Freddie in New Nightmare? ninkwink
Fans liked the grim, cruel clownish sense of humor that became apparent when people began quoting Freddie’s remarks, such as “I’m your boyfriend now.” So we used this as the franchise progressed. But until we get to the seventh part [Wes Craven’s New Nightmare]we made it very gloomy again: what if Freddie, the manifestation of evil, was really there?
But Freddie has always been smart. In the original Nightmare, Freddie pulls his tongue out of the phone, gutts a girl and wears her face as a mask as a cheap thrill. He cuts off his fingers and wisely cracks as the green pus and blood gush. I know Wes thought we had gone too far, but we responded to the fans who loved this inexcusable, politically incorrect wise ass exercising his nightmarish revenge regime.
Watch the trailer for Englund’s latest movie, Choose or Die.
Do you dress like Freddie on Halloween and scare the kids? TopTramp
No. I leave Halloween to people who dress up as amateurs, and I leave New Year’s Eve to amateur drinkers. But during the filming we certainly had fun. While making the first film, I was fed up with the food served, so Nick Corey, Johnny Depp and I walked across Sunset Boulevard and sat in the back cabin of this dark Thai restaurant. I took off my hat, we ordered, and when the waiter opened the kitchen door, I was lit by bright fluorescent lighting. The waiter took a good look at me, dropped his tray, returned to the kitchen, and we never saw him again.
Sometimes I was worried that I was no longer scared, so from time to time I hid behind the landscape and hoped from the dark to some unsuspecting crew member on the way to the bathroom. I think a few 6 feet 2 inches of handles soiled their underwear, so I knew I still had it.
Did you really audition for the roles of Luke and Han Solo in Star Wars? how far have you come TopTramp
No. I really wanted to be in the Apocalypse now. I wanted to read about a chef – played by the late great Frederick Forrest – but that role was taken over. They heard I was a surfer, so I read about the surfer, but I think they think I’m too old. As I was leaving, one of the producers told me that they would be performing in the hall for this George Lucas space film. George Lucas was my hero, so I thought, “Damn, I’m going.” At the time, they wanted Han Solo to play older, like a cool uncle who lets you smoke marijuana at Christmas. They watched me for five minutes, took a few Polaroids; I did not read. That’s all I remember.
But when I left, I grabbed the sides of the audition [script excerpt] for this much younger character named Luke Skywalker. I returned to my apartment in the Hollywood Hills and my friend Mark Hamill’s cowboy boots were on the front porch. He worked down the hill in the CBS studio as a very successful television actor. Mark was watching the show of Bob Newhart or Mary Tyler Moore. We will watch together in the afternoon and then we will call our agents at 17:00 to see how the auditions went. I remember saying, “Guess what? George Lucas is making this space movie. “We both loved American graffiti, so Mark called his agent and pressured her to audition for him. It’s a bit like Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I lived with that time. Ian Fischer, who went on to see The Lost Boys, our best friend was Luke Skywalker, and I became Freddie Krueger, and at the time we were just three young people living in the Hollywood Hills with big dreams.
This is Inglund… Robert behind the mask. Photo: DPA Picture Alliance / Alamy
Did you really sing backing vocals in Elton John’s Can You Feel the Love Tonight with Gary Barlow and Rick Astley for The Lion King? Princeton
I think this is an internet rumor. I made a million different voices, but I had nothing to do with The Lion King. Besides, I can’t sing.
What can you tell us about your role in the fourth series of Stranger Things? TopTramp
This season is a tribute to the horror of the 80’s. I think this is their worst season. I enter about the fourth episode. [The series debuted on 27 May.] When Covid hit, I had some personal appearances and some Stranger Things fans asked me so many specific questions that I just assumed other actors had already talked about it. So they slapped me on the arm for that.
Are you actually a friendly space reptoid in human skin, as the 80’s TV series V suggests? Random_Dan
No, I’m not a reptile. Snakes are one of the nightmares. As early as the early ’80s, they still had an old-fashioned makeup lab on the Warner Bros. section, with all these men in white medical jackets making beautifully designed dentures. Once, because I was playing a reptile that could withstand extreme cold, I had to save an earthling, and they had to do something like a frozen blister effect. They literally stuck grapes to half my face with wax, so I looked like there were blisters on one side.
Later in the series, I discovered that my friends from the resistance would experiment on me to see what was toxic to aliens, such as an alien allergy test. I had the whole back with reptile skin, up to the hairline and behind the ears, with fake skin on top. Then they did this weird operation, in which they removed my fake humanoid back and saw that it was made of shiny, scaly reptile skin.
With Zsa Zsa Gabor in Nightmare 3. Photo: Cinetext Collection / Sportsphoto / Allstar
What are your memories of participating in the 2012 Halloween Special on Come Dine With Me? Unknown here
I remember asking for fresh tuna fillets to add my secret ingredients – onions, sweet pickled gherkins, finely chopped paprika, hard-boiled egg, some gourmet mayonnaise and some honey mustard. I break everything, put on toast with a little butter, then melt on cheese; this is an old bachelor recipe called melting tuna. But it only works if you use really high quality tuna. The crew brought this horrible canned tuna. In the end, I served my poor fellow racers famous cat food.
The problem with making British reality shows is that sometimes I know exactly who the people are – I know all the gossip and scandals – but sometimes I don’t. Dress me, I’m a celebrity… Get me out of here! with each of the QI or host of Tipping Point [Ben Shephard]. I do my best to go to London because I’m an Anglophile. I often went out in London, drank a few cocktails and returned to my room. When jet lag starts, I find Tipping Point and it’s a great comfort food for me, just like the QI reruns with Alan Davis and Stephen Fry, who make fun so wonderfully.
Robert Inglund starred in “Choose or Die” on Netflix
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