Robert Englund imagines playing Freddy alongside several other actors

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Later this year, AMC will be airing a documentary series called Eli Roth's History of Horror, in which familiar faces from the genre will explore how it has evolved over the years. One of those familiar faces is Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund, who was helping promote the series at the 2018 Summer Television Critics Association press tour.

During his panel, Englund revealed that he has come up with an idea that would allow multiple actors to play Freddy within the same film. He told a room packed with journalists, 

If I had an Eli Roth budget I would have cast different actors to play Freddy for every potential victim. Because Freddy is only alive in the imagination of his future victim. They would talk about it at a slumber party or in a locker room at school, or on the bus going home. All we know about this Fred Krueger is he wears a hat, wears a red and green striped sweater and has a clawed hand. That’s the specifics. So it could be a red and green cardigan for one Freddy. It could be an old tattered baseball cap for another Freddy. Freddy could be tall, he could be short, he could be overweight, he could be muscular. Every one of the victims could have a different Freddy they imagined. And you could haunt them with that Freddy."

Such an approach might be a way to solve the problem of fans not being able to accept someone else as Freddy Krueger – Jackie Earle Haley doesn't get a lot of love for his version of the character in the 2010 remake. Instead of putting the weight of replacing Englund on the shoulders of one actor, the filmmakers could have multiple actors playing the character… And one of them could even be Englund.

Englund's way to work in a cameo for himself:

And then at the end, it would be the ultimate victim and we see Freddy peel [his face] open and maybe it’s yours truly revealed. And it’s the essence of Freddy."

This could be a viable option, as Freddy did purposely change his appearance throughout the Englund films, whether that involved taking the form of a giant snake creature in A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS or fooling people into thinking he was someone else – including appearing to fellow horror icon Jason Voorhees as his mother in FREDDY VS. JASON. He even turned into a "Super Freddy" (pictured above) that was played by Michael Bailey Smith in A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET: THE DREAM CHILD.

It's been a while since we've heard anything about what the future may hold for the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET franchise. ORPHAN / THE CONJURING 2 / The Walking Dead writer David Leslie Johnson wrote a screenplay for a new reboot, but there hasn't been any movement on the project since then.