Many years later, when he saw him become an international horror movie star, his father forgave him. But the youth of Robert Englund (California, 1947) was not easy at all: he resigned from Stanford for the cinema, lived almost in the open, climbed the stages of theaters throughout the United States and ended up terrorizing half the world hidden behind a infinite layer of makeup in his role as Freddy Krueger.
Gary Smart and Chris Griffithas have collected Englund's eventful and exciting film career in the documentary Hollywood dreams
How do you remember the moment when you told your father that you were not going to study law?
It was very difficult for me to express my feelings to my father. I had been admitted to Stanford University, one of the most prestigious in the United States, I had very good grades in reading comprehension, although I was terrible at math and science. In any case, my father was very impressed. Until I told him that memorizing non-fiction stuff like law was not for me and that he wanted to be an actor. We had a tremendous fight. I threw the car keys at his head. I left home and as I was dressed, in shorts, I got on a friend's motorcycle. We went to Hollywood. It was the exciting 60s.
How did you survive on the streets of the Mecca of cinema?
I got a job at a theater on Sunset Boulevard. For the first year, I lived in the basement of the store and lived exclusively on coffee and chips.
But it was also a time of learning...
I enrolled in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. The faculty was London and very traditional and was at odds with Peter Brook whose way of doing theater was groundbreaking if not revolutionary. I learned in the morning with the traditional masters and in the evening I performed with Brook.
I guess the next stop was Broadway...
Before that, I went to theaters in Chicago, Cleveland or Atlanta until finally, yes, I arrived in New York. But once there I discovered that my beloved theater was as politicized as the cinema. I had been very naive, very innocent and I thought, if I have to put up with this, I'd better go back to Los Angeles because I already know it and there's more money there.
He worked in a dozen films, lent his fantastic voice to another film and was one of the protagonists of the famous series of alien lizards V . How did he become Freddy Krueger?
I found out that Wes Craven was casting for A Nightmare on Elm Street and I applied. But when I got to the audition I realized that my physique did not suit the role, because at that time he was surfing a lot and he was muscular and tanned and also had long blond hair. Nothing to do with Freddy. So I went back to my car and got the engine oil out and smeared my hair so it would stick to my head. As my hair is very fine, it was almost transparent and the scalp could be glimpsed. Then I took a cigarette butt from the ashtray, mixed the ash with saliva and put it under my eyes. When I finally saw Craven I played at his eyes without blinking and didn't say a word. He gave me the paper.
What has Freddy meant for his career after eight movies and a series?
It has been the most important thing for my career, because it gave me international fame. Wearing all that makeup so many times was liberating, because it gave me the opportunity to change my voice and allowed me to exaggerate my movements and dance a bit using some choreography by Bob Fosse. In addition, Krueger launched the renaissance of horror cinema and I am proud to have participated in that second life of the genre.
