If there's one thing you remember about actor-filmmaker Jonathan Schaech, it's that good-lookin' face of his. Adoring fans know him as the hot-but-pretty-crazy killer from Prom Night or the saucy-but-overly-cocky fireman in Quarantine. This time around, however, Schaech is turning his cheek and showing us his best poker face in the film adaptation of Ed Gorman's The Poker Club (which Schaech co-scripted) in which he plays a card-playing family guy that gets wrapped up in a really horrific situation. In the following interview with Schaech, he tells us about his latest role, his love for Stephen King novels, his work on scripting King's From a Buick 8 and even how he tried to nab the role of the man with the most unattractive face of all -- burn-baby-burn Freddy Krueger -- in the upcoming remake of Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street. Schaech lost out on that role to Jackie Earle Haley, but he's pretty optimistic about his own spin on another iconic killer. Hit the jump for the details and check out The Poker Club on DVD now!

Tell me a bit about how you became involved with The Poker Club…

The Poker Club is the first book that me and my writing partner Richard Chizmar collaborated on adapting to a screenplay. Since then it's been about five or six years, and we've adopted about five different novels—two Stephen King novels—but this was the very first one. Ed Gorman is the writer of the novel and he's the kind of crime noir writer that Stephen King looks up to.

You've been involved in a ton of projects, in both a writing and acting capacity. What made you do both on this film?

This was the first venture out from my production company. I think that I grew making so many movies. I purposely did movies that were budgeted at $500,000 to films that are made for over $20 million. I saw the best of both worlds and I tried to find something that hit the commercial and the artistic world. That's what we wanted to do with The Poker Club.

Tell us a bit about your role.

I play the main, everyday guy, a family man who gets in a lot of trouble.

You portray a poker player in the film -- do you play poker off-screen?

Yeah, I like poker. The Poker Club isn't so much about poker as it is about the underlying currents when you're at a poker table. It's not a very nice game. You may have a lot of fun playing it but really all the other people want to do is get rid of you.

Then there are of course these horrific things that happen to The Poker Club…

Sure. The underlying currents of the game. One of the poker greats called it a blood sport. You really just want to get rid of and eliminate the other players. That can be construed in many different ways in the horror world. These four guys encounter a burglar on their regular poker night and they get into a confrontation with him and accidentally kill him. Then they find themselves having to figure out what to do next and they make some bad decisions and come to realize that that burglar wasn't alone. That person is coming after them…

You've been involved in a ton of horror projects over the years. Dare we assume you're a horror fan?

I'm a huge horror fan. Stephen King's The Shining -- I love that. There are so many good ones. I love all King stuff. That's my big thing.

You've written the script for Stephen King's From a Buick 8…

Yes. Yes and it's gone through about 20 different rewrites… [Laughs.]

What was the cause for the rewrites?

It's just the nature of the business. The book is very sci-fi by nature. I was told by studio heads that The Green Mile would not have been made now. If it didn't have Frank Darabont at the time or Tom Hanks at the time it wouldn't have gotten made. I love The Green Mile. It's one of my favorite films and I always find that hard to believe. But in today's world, they didn't think they could take a risk in the market to put it out there. That was what the original screenplay for From a Buick 8 was like. It was more like The Green Mile. We found aspects of King's novel, the more horrific aspects or psychological horror and played them up. We've been working with Tobe Hooper on that and have been drawing those into this new screenplay that we've got out there that we're hopefully going to be making come fall.

And you'll be involved in a producing capacity as well?

Yeah. Me and Richard RISMAN, we first ventured out with The Poker Club and From a Buick 8 will be the second film we produce from our company Chesapeake Films.

As a horror fan and a genre veteran, what would be your dream horror project to write, produce, and star in?

Ah, well I just lost out on Freddy Krueger. [Laughs.] I did though. They loved my stuff but they just weren't, you know—they wanted a bigger actor.

So you really went out for the role?

Oh yeah. I got such praise from my work that I showed them. They wanted to see creatively what people could come up with for Freddy and that's what I jumped into. I had a lot of fun doing it. Freddy Krueger would have been someone I would have loved to play. I'd love to see a modern version of It, Stephen King's It. I would love to see how Pennywise could be created. That's one of the scariest creatures ever. I keep talking about the villains so I guess I'd like to be a villain. [Laughs.] I'd love to play H.H. Holmes. There's something I've been trying to develop about H.H. Holmes.

He was America's first serial killer and when I went through Prom Night everyone always said I did a really good job and I was creepy, but a lot of people said "You're too handsome to be a serial killer." It makes you smirk because that's exactly what Ted Bundy was thinking the whole time. [Laughs.] H.H. Holmes? Used all his looks and charm to make his victims do what he wanted. So that's my little revenge factor. And I'd love to be Best Villain and have people vote for me on MTV.

What is your biggest fear?

To be trapped in the ocean with a bunch of sharks around me.