Robert Englund Says He’s Too Old to Play Freddy Krueger Again

While there are developments in Nightmare on Elm Street franchise seeing new life, Robert Englund doesn’t think they’ll involve him playing Freddy Krueger again. Englund, who is synonymous with the role of the dream killer in the Elm Street franchise, spoke with EW and said that despite massive fan support for him to return to the role, he doesn’t plan on it.

“I don’t think I’ll ever don the makeup again,” Englund said. “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.”

The comments reflect those he made at Rose City Comic Con in Portland last year, when Englund said he would like to see the role pass onto someone new. Englund played Freddy in all eight films in the original franchise run from 1984 through 2003. Jackie Earle Haley played Freddy in the poorly-received 2010 reboot.

Englund’s comments come as the estate of Wes Craven has begun taking pitches for new content based on the franchise, having reacquired the rights to the IP. Elijah Wood, who has been vocal about wanting to bring back the franchise, said earlier this month that he would want to bring Englund back — which Englund is interested in, just not as the killer role.

“I know that the rights to A Nightmare on Elm Street have gone back to the Wes Craven family estate,” he said. “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. 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.”

He continued, “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.”