The original Freddy Krueger actor Robert Englund has expressed doubts he will reprise his role as the iconic horror villain, claiming he’s a “little too old” – though he would love to have a cameo in a future A Nightmare on Elm Street project.
“I don’t think I’ll ever don the makeup again,” Englund shared with EW. “I’m a little too old for that. I’m a little long in the tooth to play Freddy now. I think if I was doing it, it would be more like ‘Freddy vs. Viagra.’”
Englund played the slasher icon eight times during his career with his last appearance occurring in 2003’s Freddy vs Jason before Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen) took over the role for 2010’s reboot of the original.
However, despite Englund casting doubt on a return as Freddy, he did express interest in returning to the franchise as a cameo appearance if or when the Wes Craven estate kickstarts the series in the future.
“I know that the rights to A Nightmare on Elm Street have gone back to the Wes Craven family estate,” Englund admitted. “And I know they’ve looked at a lot of different submissions and ideas. I’m hoping they’re open-minded because there’s a lot of young screenwriters and wannabe director-screenwriters that have been kind of obsessed with the horror genre and have some interesting ideas. I would love to be invited back if they decide to reboot A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3: The Dream Warriors. I would love to come back and maybe play the dream analyst, the woman in the therapy sessions who doesn’t believe that there can be such a thing as a collective nightmare that’s common to a group of people.”
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He added, “I think it would be fun for the fans, it would be fun for me to play the part originally played by a woman and do a flip on that. I think there’s kind of a tradition in the horror genre of cameos like that, so that would be fun for me. But I have no idea whether they’re going to go on and create completely new stories or whether they’re going to go back and do prequels or origin stories on the Freddy Krueger myth. I don’t know what they’re up to. So, I’m just waiting to hear.”
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