by Paul Fischer

There's more to Robert Englund than meets the eye. We all know him as the classic Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm St franchise, but behind the mask of horror's greatest villain lay a serious actor with serious ambitions. Englund will travel, later this month, to the Venice Film Festival where he will promote an Italian film shot last year, Il Ritorno di Cagliostro. "I'm a bad actor who is trying to resurrect his career," Englund explains. The Los Angeles native says that Freddy Krueger, the character he created in Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street, enabled him to appear in films as diverse as Ritorno di Cagliostro. "I think it's a happy accident that my career has kind of come full circle now. I would not have done that movie had I not been in Rome at a Freddie Krueger retrospective," Englund recalls. "I met these guys and they asked me to come down to their beautiful little art theatre in Palermo, where they take the kids out of the projects, and they introduce them to world cinema. I went there as a favour for them; flew there on my own dime and I talked to their students. Finally these two directors offered me a part in this movie a year later and it's just remarkable." Englund will also be attending the Montreal Film Festival with another film, Like a Bad Dream, which, despite its title, is as far removed from his more famous alter-ego as you can get.

Robert Englund began his acting training at age 12, taking a variety of drama courses before making his first professional appearance in a Cleveland production of Godspell. His first film role was the self-important Whitey in Buster and Billie (1974), after which he paid his dues in a series of villainous bit parts: shooting down Burt Reynolds at the end of Hustle (1975) and beating up Kris Kristofferson in A Star is Born (1976). For Englund, the seventies in Hollywood remains an unforgettable period in his life. "I remember being in the south with Scatman Crothers as a next-door neighbour on one side, Jeff Bridges downstairs practicing on his guitar, Sally Field in the pool, her little beautiful Gidget body in a bikini, Joanna Cassidy from Bladerunner laughing loud in the bar, Arnold Schwarzenegger rubbed down with baby oil with all his body-builder friends by the pool, working out. We were down there for three months shooting Stay Hungry, a Bob Rafelson film. There was Buster and Billy, with the young, beautiful Jan Michael Vincent, before all the tragedy that befell him. Being on location in the south was wonderful. Daniel Petrie spoiled me rotten as a first time director and was such a wonderful, gentle, kind, giving director. I remember watching a Lakers game in the jungle down there, in Georgia and he had fired the caterer and hired this wonderful old black woman, who was making homemade blueberry pie. Eating blueberry pie and watching the Lakers, during my first movie was pretty good. I got my nose broken by Kris Kristofferson and Richard Gere in fight scenes," he recalls with nostalgic affection.

Impressed by Englund's performance in the TV series V, director Wes Craven buried Englund under several layers of latex and cast him as malevolent, mass-murdering Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). The actor became an instant star, appearing in five Nightmare sequels, hosting a 1988 television spin-off, and basking in the glow of a multitude of fan clubs. Though Englund has been able to escape the Freddy persona, he can certainly understand the character's enormous popularity. "What is interesting is that these movies have travelled so well. They're international. You don't really need subtitles with them, because they're not that culturally specific. Everyone has this great primal basic hook which is the nightmare, the bad dream, so people can identify with these films." Englund says that because of Freddy, "I've kind of come full circle now. I wouldn't be going to Venice if it wasn't for him."