No actor has had a bigger influence on horror films in the last thirty years than Robert Englund! However, the man who will forever be known to fans around the world as Freddy Krueger from "A Nightmare on Elm Street" has finally passed the torch on to Oscar nominee Jackie Earle Haley who will portray the evil dream-master in the remake of the classic 80's horror film opening in theaters on April 30th. Yesterday, movieweb caught up with Robert Englund while he was attending the 2nd Annual Streamy Awards in downtown Los Angeles, an event that recognizes excellence in global web television programming.
Here's the interview:
We asked the iconic actor what he thought about the new film and handing over the reigns of the character to Haley? "I haven't seen the movie yet, I've only seen the trailer but you know, I'm more than happy to hand off the baton to Jackie," he replied. "This guy has got such chops. I was a fan of his as far back as the very early '80s in a little film called Breaking Away, about the bicycle racers in the Midwest. Jackie has a kind of wiry build to him so he's bringing a certain energy that I've always thought was appropriate for Freddy, just in his own physicality. I thought he was the best thing in Watchmen so I'm real curious."
Englund continued by discussing his thoughts on the cast of the new film. "There are some other really interesting actors in the film, Clancy Brown, Connie Britton, the kid from Terminator: The Sara Connor Chronicles (Thomas Dekker), so I'm real curious." We asked the actor to confirm the fact that he would not have a cameo or be appearing in the film in anyway? "Oh no, they want to have their own identity. They're rebooting the franchise and I understand that. I'm not the guy to put down remakes. I think the biggest paycheck I made in the '90s was for a remake of Phantom Of The Opera that I starred in so I understand that it comes with the territory," answered Englund.
We also asked the actor to tell us about his upcoming horror film with Michael Madsen called Web Cam. "I haven't shot it yet. I just read the new script this morning," confessed the actor. "It's a really good plotted script now. There are one or two things that I think they need to fix but it's a real interesting script. We're going to be shooting it in Barcelona now instead of Buenos Ares. But there are some interesting people that are in it. I know Michael Madsen is supposed to be in it and I've heard all sorts of interesting people that are going to play the decadent people in the kind of snuff film within the film. So it's going to be fun." Finally, the actor dropped some hints about another project that he recently finished shooting. "I just worked in Barcelona on another project with Danny Glover and there is a huge renaissance in film there now," Englund said. "It's called . It's about children, violence and film. They're doing the post-production now. I just finished it in January."