Fan Fest News

News for Fans, By Fans!

Robert Englund hangs up his Freddy Fedora, eyes a Replacement!

When you hear the name ‘Freddy’ there is always one that comes to my mind, and that is Freddy Krueger – the dream demon who terrorizes his victims while they sleep. Through the decades of Nightmare on Elm Street, Robert Englund graced us with his eerie performance. Out of the nine total Nightmare on Elm Street films, Robert played the character for eight of the films. It wasn’t until the 2010 remake when he was replaced by Jackie Earle Haley, whom fans will probably recognize him for his role as Rorschach in Watchman.

While Haley’s performance was pretty on point, fans still missed the infamous Robert Englund, claiming that Freddy just wasn’t the same. Fans may find themselves disappointed, as the horror actor recently revealed in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that he is no longer interested in playing the character.

 “I’m too old to do another Freddy now. If I do a fight scene now it’s got to be real minimal because I can’t snap my head for eight different takes and different angles. My spine gets sore. I can still be mean and scary, but I’m mostly relegated now to sort of Van Helsing roles, old doctors and sh*t. So it’s fun that the last moment of me ever playing Freddy is a wink to the audience.”

The last time that Englund played Freddy was in the 2003 Freddy vs. Jason, where he stated the infamous line ‘Welcome to My Nightmare’.

“It’s like, I had a good run, I had a good time… And no one plans for this in your career. When I was wearing tights and doing Shakespeare, I didn’t say I wanted to be famous for playing this boogeyman. Careers happen and one of the pieces of advice I give to people is I’m sure you’ll do a great pilot or you’ll do a little independent art movie and it won’t go anywhere and then you might do your Intern No. 3 on Grey’s Anatomy and that’s the one that becomes the huge hit. People just don’t know. And when you’ve survived as long as I have and you see that, you can be real happy that you got 20 years as Freddy Krueger, you know?”

Currently, there are no plays for a new installment in the franchise. However, if there were to be a remake… Robert Englund already has his sights on an actor that he would like to pass the mantle onto – Kevin Bacon.

“Kevin was in Friday the 13th. I know way down deep, Kevin has a respect for horror. He’s not one of those guys that goes on the talk show and says, ‘This isn’t a horror movie. It’s a psychological drama.’ You know? There’s a lot of people that still put down the genre.”

I’m not completely opposed to this idea. It would certainly be interesting for sure. He played the role of a victim in Friday the 13th, the film that originally got his filming career kick-started right before he jumped into the classic film Footloose. Needless to say, if Kevin does take up the role of Freddy Krueger, I expect several Footloose jokes to come out of it. After all, Freddy does love being humorous.

What do you think? Would you like to see Kevin Bacon as the next Freddy Krueger?

Related Articles:

Robert Englund Returns as Freddy Krueger For New ‘Nightmares’ Documentary

Fan Fest ’31 Days of Slashers’: 10 ‘Must Watch’ Slasher Films for this Hallo-Season!

Fan Fest’s ’31 Days of Slashers’: 6 Facts You Probably Didn’t know about Freddy Krueger

Fan Fest ’31 Days of Slashers’: EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW – C.J Graham talks playing Jason Voorhees, and the ‘Friday the 13th’ Series!