Fun fact: Mark Hamill can thank Robert Englund for encouraging him to audition for the role of Star Wars hero Luke Skywalker. That’s just one of the fun tidbits you can learn in Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story, which is now available on Screambox and digital platforms. The wide-ranging documentary explores and celebrates the veteran character actor who shot to fame thanks to a pair of renowned projects — one on TV, one on the big screen…
We recently caught up with Englund amid the release of the documentary that focuses on him, which was shot over the course of two years. It doesn’t just start at his moments of glory on V and in A Nightmare on Elm Street. Robert Englund’s career on stage and screen started way before that, as he’ll tell you. And it doesn’t just stop at Netflix’s Stranger Things, whose latest season featured Englund as an epic villain. There’s more to come from the iconic Freddy Krueger performer…
The Robert Englund Story
With a documentary’s title featuring Englund’s name like that, you’d think maybe Englund had something to do with the making of this entertaining new project. But think again. “It’s interesting because it’s not something that I thought of, or that I’d ever thought of, in fact. I had been approached before for much more Freddy-centric projects. But these guys were very smart,” said Englund regarding the filmmakers behind the doc, Christopher Griffiths and Gary Smart. He continued:
It took me about an hour to just sort of become friends with these guys. They’re just sort of like having my own personal IMDb because every time I couldn’t think of an actor I love from Hammer films or something, they would help me out. It was just a real nice sort of hang with those guys.
Englund also commented on helping to bring the end result to life, which came with a number of challenges. As has been the case with many Hollywood efforts, the pandemic presented its fair share of setbacks.
“COVID hit in the middle of it, and that threw everything apart. And I had a television series canceled because of COVID, and our timing was kind of wackadoodle, so we were meeting in hotel rooms in London and other towns in England and in the U.S. and sort of piecing it together,” said Englund.
And I had no idea who else they were talking to or what kind of stuff they were finding. I let them take some stills of some of the stuff I have here in my office. But other than that, it was all a secret to me.
Englund shared a funny anecdote regarding his experience of finally sitting down to watch the documentary about him:
“When I first saw the film in Spain, it was rather strange. It’s a bit like Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer attending their own funeral and hearing these people talk about you after you’re dead, you know? When I finally saw it, I had to watch it on a laptop in a hotel room in Spain because I just didn’t have it in me to see it with a live audience. I pretended to watch it with the audience, but I really snuck out, went to the bar and came back for the Q&A.”
Surviving 50 Years in Hollywood
As you’ll see in Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares, the documentary takes a unique approach in sharing Englund’s journey through Tinseltown. He’s been a familiar face for decades and is not afraid to detail the reality that folks haven’t always recognized him on the street as a famous actor. Englund elaborated:
People knew my face since 1972. But no one knew my name until I did V and A Nightmare on Elm Street. And that’s a real great blessing for an actor, and I try to impart that knowledge to other actors.
But he’s stayed afloat, through thick and thin. And Englund isn’t afraid to bear it all in the new documentary film. We can’t help but root for him while watching — even if we already know it’s a success story of sorts. “We never intended to make this, to make a movie about Robert Englund. It’s this actor who happens to be Robert Englund, who survived over 50 years in Hollywood, and in the middle of all that, accidentally becomes a horror icon. It’s this sort of happy accident that happened to my career,” explained Englund.
“Nothing prepares you to be an international actor. It’s just this great, happy accident. And it’s just been this wonderful gift,” continued Englund. “I made some tactical decisions to stay with the genre, but that was well into my career when I made that decision. And it turned out to be a very smart decision, but this accident that happened to me by starring on an American television series that was a huge national hit, and immediately after that doing a little low-budget horror movie that became an international hit. That’s nothing that an actor can prepare for or control or establish. That’s just random.”
Robert Englund on Turning 76 and Future Projects
Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares also benefits from the countless little insights Englund shares about Tinseltown culture — on both a domestic and global scale. “I was in Tokyo years ago, and it was amazing because the boys from Supernatural and Alyssa Milano from Charmed, they were so big in Japan, those three young actors,” Englund told MovieWeb. “And we don’t realize that, here in America, how some of our actors are particularly big in another culture. They just seem to embrace them as much as we do, if not more. And it’s just a fun thing. It’s just part of show business, you know?”
And show business continues on, despite the ongoing writers’ strike. Despite moving into the “seventh level” in life, Englund shows no signs of slowing down. “I just turned 76 years old,” he told us. “I have a movie coming out. I’m going to make two more movies this year, and thought I wouldn’t be doing that.”
Englund continued to detail said projects:
“I’ve got a movie offered overseas. And I have a little low-budget horror movie, directed by my Phantom of the Opera director, Dwight Liddell, a wonderful director. He recently did kind of a little Don Siegel, low-budget gangster film with Robert Patrick that I just love. But Dwight’s always been a wonderful, talented guy, and it was great to reunite with Dwight and my old pal Danielle in that. We did Fear Clinic together. And I’m looking forward to seeing it because it’s such a great idea [and has] Danielle Harris in her first mom role.”
“It’s called Natty Knocks, like the nickname for Natty, who knocks on the door,” continued Englund. “It’s also a nursery rhyme that the kids sing, kind of like the Nightmare on Elm Street, ‘One, two, Freddy’s coming for you.’ And ‘Knocks’ is her last name, but the kids use it as a pun.” Even after all these years, Hollywood and filmmakers of all kind are still knocking on Englund’s door.
From Cinedigm, Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story is now available on Screambox and digital.
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