After playing Freddy Krueger in six movies over the last decade, Robert Englund finally gets to star with him in Wes Craven's New Nightmare. So, with an appropriate dose of identity confusion, we asked Englund to interview his alter ego (as Lois Alter Mark listened in).
Robert: It's a bit disconcerting that you and I appear together in Wes Craven's New Nightmare and that you have a great deal more screen
time than I do. I was lured into doing the movie with the promise
that it was a bit Robert Altmanesque, sort of literary like The
Player, and then I basically spent one day working in Pasadena and
was gone. How did you end up with a separate, starring role?
Freddy: Ha, ha, ha, ha! It's my face, not yours — you wiry
SOB — that's on dorm walls. There's no way in hell I'm sharing billing
with you anymore. I'm the one kids want. Everyone knows Freddy. But
Robert? Duh, you mean Redford? De Niro? Ha! You and your classical
training crap — who gives a damn?
Robert: As much as I hate to admit it, you've actually been very
good to me. What have I meant to you? How can you exist without me?
Freddy: Don't give yourself so much credit, butt-head. Kill the
creator! You and Wes — my ghostwriter, ha, ha! — gave me an inroad, and
now I'm unbound. No more Elm Street for me. No more white-bread
Dick-and-Jane suburbia. Freddy's coming to Hollywood, babe, and I
want the best table at Mortons!
Robert: In the movie, Heather Langenkamp says you're scarier and
more evil than I am. Do you think that's true?
Freddy: You're a puny runt. You think your dark side comes out
when you're driving on the freeway or when your wife tries to take
the remote. Your dark side is off-white, you loser.
Robert: I've been portraying you — quite well, I like to think — for
many years now. If we reversed roles, and you had to play me, what
would you do?
Freddy: Why the hell would I want to be you? I'd have to stoop to
your crummy little height and go pound the drums with those wimpy
Iron John types in Marin. I'd have to wear that Ralph Lauren crap,
with the loafers. I'd rather die.
Robert: Do you think perhaps you've taken Freddy a trifle too far?
I mean, you are only a character.
Freddy: In your nightmares, Englund. And, hey, speaking of
characters, try looking in the mirror, you stupid little moron. Or is
that too frightening for little Robert? You're the one who got
hitched to a babe named Nancy — the same name as that bitch who got me
in the first Nightmare. What do you think that means in your big-time
fancy Freudian crap?
Robert: Can we leave my wife out of this, please?
Freddy: Sure, if you quit trying to steal my thunder. Wanna shake
on it?
