By Joseph McCabe and Giaco Furino

There was once a time when the world was full of iconic horror actors. Guys like Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Peter Cushing, Peter Lorre, Vincent Price?the list goes on and on. These days, however, most people are hard-pressed to name even one, outside of Christopher Lee. Of course diehard horror fans have their own list of favorites. And whether your average supermarket shopper has heard of him or not, the name Robert Englund sits comfortably at the top of that list.

At this month?s Texas Fear Fest?where Englund received the festival?s ?Horror Icon? Award?we had the opportunity to chat with the man behind Freddy Krueger about the many projects he has in development, including his upcoming collaboration with fellow icon Christopher Lee; as well as his thoughts on the upcoming Nightmare on Elm Street remake. Here?s Englund?s award acceptance speech, followed by the conversation we had immediately afterwards?

?I just love being mentioned in the same breath as guys like Vincent Price, because I know when I was slumming in the 70s I?d go to the dollar matinees to see Dr. Phibes. Vincent Price went out starring with Bette Davis in The Whales of August, which is like the perfect small film. And I find myself bouncing back and forth between small projects, medium projects, animation and directing; and I?m just happy to still be asked to [do] them all, and to hopefully start up mid-to-late summer to start on a sequel to Maniacs. They promised me I get to kill Paris Hilton! And I have an opportunity to start next week on pre-production on the tentatively titled The Vij, which is English but filmed by Italians?we?re doing an Italian, Spanish and Canadian project. I want to thank John and everyone here at Fear Fest. Thank you all for supporting me and sticking with me through the years. When I first started in horror I did a little movie with Tobe Hooper called Eaten Alive?we had to change the title. In those days I wanted to be one of those Sam Peckinpah actors, and there?s sort of this natural progression?look what?s happened to me. But my point was, I digress, all of you sitting out there were the minority when I was watching Forbidden Planet and Horrors of the Black Museum. We were in the minority, and we?re not in the minority anymore. Every week, we?re in the top ten films?be it horror or science fiction or fantasy. We?re the demographic. And I?m glad I stuck it out with all you, guys, because you?re running the world now.

Which project are you most excited for?

Well, well I?m in pre-production on the tentatively titled The Vij, which is a feature film I?ll be directing in Italy, co-produced by a company out of Rome, as well as Spanish and Canadian co-producers. It?s based on a Nikolai Gogol short story about a fallen angel. Now, we were inspired by characters and elements from the original, but it?s not really Gogo. It?s much more like a dark Twilight Zone, or a Shyamalan, or a Kafkaesque piece. It does have some violence and gore in it, but if I get it right, it should be a really interesting hybrid?a kind of goth romance, a sort of dark fantasy. I have a fallen angel and a faithless priest and a dead girl. We shall see who wins?

Then I?m off to do the sequel to 2001 Maniacs. I?m going to do a rather Vincent Price, Klaus Kinski role in an Italian film called The Sinner, which is sort of Rebecca meets The House of Wax. And I?m busy always doing voiceovers for The Spectacular Spider-Man on the Kid?s WB, and The Riddler in the new Batman, and Faust in Justice League. So I?ve got a lot of stuff on my plate right now, but my head, every time I wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and pee, I can?t get back to sleep, because I?m always thinking about this movie I?m working on now, and casting and CGI effects and everything else. I?m kind of pre-occupied with that right now. I?m kind of glad to have a break here in Dallas and to get some feedback on Heart Stopper and Behind the Mask and some other recent films that I have out there.

In your acceptance speech, you referred to the lineage of horror. Can you talk about working with fellow icon Christopher Lee?

Well, Chris Lee and I were on a judging panel in Brussels several years ago. That?s where I got to know Chris, over the long, long lingering lunches. After a while, I?d let Chris choose the wine because he?s just about an expert on everything. But Chris has a great affection for history and he loves talking about it. It?s like being with an encyclopedia, you know. I love picking his brain about Afghanistan or WWII stories. They?re just magnificent. Let alone, you know, getting him to tell you about what it was like to work with Burt Lancaster when he was a young actor. So that?s just a lot of fun for me and his beautiful wife Gitte. I?m just looking forward to it. Actually it?s going to be a bit of a change of pace in this film, for Christopher, because I?m really gonna have him tender, and a broken man. A man mourning the loss of his daughter. I hope he really has fun doing it?as much fun as I?m going to have working with him.

Is it wrong to remake films, such as A Nightmare on Elm Street?

It?s certainly not wrong to remake films. If it?s wrong to remake them then it?s wrong to make sequels and I once was told by a very wise British journalist that the reason for remakes and sequels is because audiences fall in love with certain characters, and when you realize how many films that are wonderful and fall through the cracks, a film like Joshua for instance, starring Sam Rockwell and Vera Farmiga, a wonderful film; a film like The Mist, which I loved, which did not have the success it merited. When films like that don?t catch their audiences on the first or second time around you can?t begrudge someone remaking a classic like Texas Chainsaw Massacre or The Hills Have Eyes or Halloween, or even A Nightmare on Elm Street. With Nightmare, the original, I know we ran out of money on that one, and I?m very happy that with this one they can go a little crazy with the actual nightmare sequences. Because if CGI can serve anything it can serve the fantasy and surrealism of the nightmare. I hope with all my heart that they reinterpret the characters. I don?t want to see someone around looking like they?re in my make-up. I don?t think that would be wise. I hope the actor and the director choose to reinterpret Freddy. Maybe one of his eyes has been burned closed or he wears a tool belt (he was a janitor after all), or overalls from the school uniform. I don?t know, but just reinterpret it. I think that it?s such a great classic story by Wes Craven. I think that the elements in it are so tried and true that it can withstand a remake. Wes sort of locked in this great perfection and this great universality with the nightmare, and I think it?s open for interpretation. The characters, Nancy and Freddy and the others stick to the story, but freshen it up.

What appeals to you about Freddy?

Well Freddy doesn?t really appeal to me, but Freddy is the logo. The symbol of the experience of a movie that was made in 1984, that was not hyped at all; the beginning of MTV sensibilities in America and the world. That?s not to say that we haven?t merchandised the hell out of it subsequently, and advertised it subsequently, but that original film was discovered and it was sort of the equivalent of a garage band, or a punk band, and it represents that kind of last great homemade sensibility, something that the fans found for themselves. Freddy becomes the logo for that experience and that memory. And Freddy is universal, he is the universal boogeyman. There?s only X amount of dreams. We all color them with what?s coming to our lives in any given day, but the dreams themselves?the falling dream, the drowning dream, the suffocating dream?are all fairly similar. You just add your own random experiences and images to them. So I don?t think there?s anything I?ve particularly done as an actor. I think what it is, it?s that I, or the character I created?his silhouette, the look?stands for that experience of being an audience member in one of the eight Nightmare movies.