Here's part two folks....
>QUINT: I HAVE TO BRING UP V. I HADN'T SEEN IT UNTIL I FOUND OUT I WAS DOING THIS INTERVIEW, SO I WATCHED IT YESTERDAY FOR THE FIRST TIME AFTER EVERYBODY TELLING ME HOW AWESOME IT WAS. IT STARTED OUT, I WAS LIKE, "THIS IS ALRIGHT... DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HOOPLA IS..." THEN, I'D SAY 20 MINUTES INTO IT I REALIZED HOW INTO THE STORY I WAS...
ROBERT ENGLUND: Well, you know originally I think Kenneth Johnson, and he's got one on now... on Disney and it's actually a pretty good show for kids, but Ken Johnson did that other really good series... another aliens on earth series (Alien Nation) that had much better make-up. But we brought John Dykstra to television, so I'm proud that V almost single handedly raised the stakes for special effects for television. Before that it was somebody in green make-up with a twisty bra showing through their spandex suit on Star Trek, with the exception of a couple of good effects on episodes of The Twilight Zone or Chiller or Outer Limits... we were pretty much state of the art. I think there was one TV movie called Gargoyles that had some pretty decent effects. Then it was us.
It was originally about the occupation of Europe by Nazis, but he couldn't sell that script, so he just turned it into the occupation of America by aliens. All those stories, all those subplots are really true stories, things that happened in the Warsaw Ghetto somewhere.
QUINT: TO ME IT WAS MORE EFFECTIVE THAT WAY. HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF. IT HAPPENED ONCE, IT HAPPENS AGAIN.
ROBERT ENGLUND: Exactly. Exactly. The series that followed the mini-series was actually pretty good, too. The problem was it took us about 8 to 10 episodes to really find the series. I remember one night we were all shooting at night with barrels with flames in 'em and we were warming our hands by 'em, actually in the story. All of a sudden, I look around and say, "We should be shooting the whole series at night." So, we become this sorta occupied America. When you shoot it at the day time and you see cars and malls and houses in the background there's no threat. At night, there was this great threat. You know, running around and sneaking potatoes and guns and dodging the aliens. Then it worked.
We sorta found it by episode 8, but by then the series was so expensive... Plus, we didn't use tons of stuff we built for the miniseries, which cost tons and tons of money. So, we had all this stuff, which was production value, but we weren't using it that much on the series which I think was a problem and because our show was so expensive because it was such a huge task, we eventually got cancelled after 23, 24 episodes. But the moment we got cancelled the show went to number 1 in Europe for, like, 2 years. I was immediately flown over on the Concord to Europe... I think I won best supporting actor in a festival in Italy, over Richard Chamberlain of The Thorn Birds. I actually won.
That was when I first realized how huge it was in Europe, but that was my first... the sort of veil was opening up for me in Europe then to do movies over there. It was kind of a one-two punch because the horror and science fiction audiences kinda overlapped. So, when Freddy came out I went to Europe, so it was like, "Oh, he's that guy from V. Boy, isn't he versatile?" I got offered to go over there and do movies, too... or attend a film festival or be on juries or things like that.
QUINT: DID THAT INSTANT CULT FANDOM OVER THERE PROVE TO BE A GOOD TESTING GROUNDS FOR WHAT WAS TO COME A FEW YEARS LATER WITH FREDDY?
ROBERT ENGLUND: It was actually about the same time, but you see my first taste of celebrity was with V. I remember being in New York signing autographs... I think it was at a Star Trek Convention or something because there was no Star Trek on at that time and during V, I was sorta like the de facto science fiction star on television. I had been sorta embraced as this character, Willie, and was getting tons of fan letters. So, they paid me all this money to go to New York and I thought this is great. I can go see a couple of Broadway shows. So, I'm signing autographs and it was, like, raining outside and my line was longer than the Star Trek actors. It went out the building and around the block. About halfway through signing autographs, instead of it being Star Trek/sci-fi fans all of a sudden it was punk rockers and heavy metal kids and they all wanted me to sign Freddy.
That's when I realized Nightmare On Elm Street was out, but it wasn't nation wide released. It had only been released on the east coast. Maybe a limited 500 theaters up and down the east coast without hardly any advertising. It became this huge grassroots hit and I'm really proud of that, that Nightmare On Elm Street became a hit without any... it was sort of like the last big, organic hit without the hype machine behind it. That's not to say we haven't been merchandised to death now, but when it began Nightmare 1 and Nightmare 2 they were really embraced and discovered by the fans without it being forced down their throat on MTV or anything like that. I'm really proud of that.
QUINT: WELL, YEAH... I MEAN FOR A GOOD WHILE THERE YOU WEREN'T JUST A HORROR ICON, BUT YOU BECAME AN AMERICAN ICON...
ROBERT ENGLUND: Yeah... I mean the first time I heard Johnny Carson do a Freddy Krueger joke or the first time I saw a Freddy Krueger joke in the funny papers... I used to collect those... I got 'em in a drawer here somewhere. You kinda know how much you've infiltrated the American culture when you see yourself in... aw, who was the guy who had the talking cows? I'm trying to think of that artist.
QUINT: OH, GARY LARSON.
ROBERT ENGLUND: Yeah! I think there was a Freddy Krueger Gary Larson cartoon and things like that. Jay Leno was telling Freddy Krueger jokes. It'd be Freddy Krueger or Elm Street or Nightmare. He'd say, like, A Nightmare on Something Blvd. or A Nightmare in Austin... you know, or Saddam Hussein, that Freddy Krueger look-alike. It's like sliced bread. You hear him used as an equivalent piece of American pop vernacular.
QUINT: DID YOU GUYS HAVE ANY IDEA WHATSOEVER IT'D GET ANYWHERE NEAR AS POPULAR?
ROBERT ENGLUND: Oh, when I was doing the first Nightmare, I was very busy doing the television series still, V. We had this hiatus, so I was sorta like more preoccupied with trying to get away on weekends to do publicity and talk shows with V, make a little money on the side. I was working really hard and I knew this kid Johnny Depp was really special. I sorta thought Johnny was going to be a rock star then because he had a band. He had a sorta stray jazz band, rockabilly. I sorta thought Johnny was gonna make it as that 'cause there was this huge underground scene in LA then of music. It was a huge Renaissance, the New Wave and the go-gos, you know. I thought Johnny was gonna blossom there.
I knew he was special and Wes was special and all of the crew for most of the early Nightmares, maybe the first four of them, are all like who's who now in Hollywood. There was Chuck Russell who did The Mask, Renny Harlin who did Die Hard 2. These are all the directors. Obviously Wes Craven. The cameramen have all gone on. One of them now is doing one of the biggest shows on television. I see their names everywhere. They became a whole generation of behind the camera talent. The writers Brian Helgeland, the guy who wrote Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, duh!)... you know, these are all the writers of the Nightmare movies.
So, I was working with the hottest young guys in Hollywood, so it sorta kept me on my toes. But I had no idea when we did the first one that it was gonna take on and become as big as it was. I knew we did a good little movie, but I didn't know if we were gonna be able to sell it or if anybody was ever gonna see it because it was pretty nasty. I mean, Sean Cunningham came in and did some second unit work on it... It's like a lot of influential people. We knew we were on to something and doing something different and very, very imaginative.
I remember one day it dawned on me that no one's ever exploited the dream sequence of a nightmare this well for a horror movie. It's a great hook. You fall asleep, I'll getcha. Period. I think there had been, like, a Dennis Quaid movie (DREAMSCAPE) about dream experiments that explored that, but it didn't explore it on this sorta primal level. It was more science fiction. I just knew we were on to something. I just thought I was just going to go back to work on V. You have to understand, for me V was huge then. I thought I'd take my makeup off, drive home, have a beer and sign autographs for V. Everybody was talkin' about V then. I think the TV movie was in reruns then. They had a really quick rerun for the TV movie before the series started, so I was busy doing that.
QUINT: I HAVE TO ADMIT... I WENT AS FREDDY KRUEGER FOR HALLOWEEN 5 CONSECUTIVE YEARS IN A ROW AS A CHILD...
ROBERT ENGLUND: Ah! I maimed you! I scarred you!
QUINT: IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!!! BUT KIDS LOVE FREDDY. THERE'S NO GETTING AROUND THAT.
ROBERT ENGLUND: You have to be careful making him sympathetic, but he simply dares you to like him. I think that's part of the thing... Listen... Quint... I have an 11:50 call I have to make...
[AT THIS POINT WE RESCHEDULED THE CONCLUSION OF THE INTERVIEW, CONDUCTED A FEW HOURS LATER...]
QUINT: OK, WE WERE TALKING ABOUT THE NIGHTMARE STUFF BEFORE WE CUT IT OFF... WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT WHAT EVERYBODY WHO'S READING THIS INTERVIEW ON A MOVIE NEWS WEBSITE WANTS TO READ ABOUT... FREDDY VS. JASON.
ROBERT ENGLUND: Oh, we didn't get to that.
QUINT: YOU'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT IT FOR A LONG TIME. CAN YOU GIVE US AN UPDATE?
ROBERT ENGLUND: What happened was originally, I believe, Rob Bottin, who did the special effects on one of my favorite films, the remake of The Thing directed by John Carpenter and starring Kurt Russell. Rob's a great hands on effects guy. They never agreed upon a budget, I think, at New Line. Then Rob left the project and it's been rewritten since then several times. Now, I believer, Steve Norrington, the guy who did the original Blade with Wesley Snipes, I think he's gonna helm it now. There's a new script that's been approved of by Bob Shaye over at New Line Cinema. You know, Michael DeLuca's left and Bob is King still, so he's apparently happy with the new script. I would imagine maybe 2002 we might tackle this thing.
I've been sorta signed, sealed and delivered for a couple of years now. I've just sorta been waiting. I guess about a year ago today, there was sort of a greenlight, it was going to start and then they changed the script and everything. It's still definitely in development, though, and on the track to be made at New Line Cinema.
QUINT: WAS THERE ANY HESITANCE ON YOUR PART IN STEPPING BACK INTO THAT DIRTY GREEN AND RED SWEATER?
ROBERT ENGLUND: I think they approached me, like, 2 years ago or so... what was that? 1999? It had been 5 years since I'd done a Freddy film and I realized, and I had heard rumors through Michael DeLuca and Bob Shaye that they didn't want it silly. There had been a lot of drafts of this screenplay. I was actually flying to Europe to do a film festival, be a juror at a film festival, and I ran into one of the guys that's a story editor/producer on one of my favorite TV shows, King of the Hill. He had written a draft for one of the Rob Bottin versions of Freddy Vs. Jason.
I know there's some humor, obviously there's gotta be some humor and some fun involved with it, but it's also gotta deliver the goods. I don't think you could make the movie without getting into Jason's nightmare. I think at some point there's gotta be some set piece of Jason's nightmare, of Jason's dream sequence, to see what makes Mr. Voorhees tick. I would imagine now we could do something kinda like The Cell because we have that technology now, not only at our disposal, but we can afford it now because whatever they did in The Matrix and whatever they did in The Cell costs about 1/10th as much now. Once that stuff's been done, it's much easier to duplicate. Once it's coined, then whoever does it next time can do it a lot cheaper. I know that was one of their big gifts that they had in the '80s at New Line Cinema, they had these great effects guys who could go see a movie like The Shining and duplicate that stuff almost instantly for maybe 1/50th of the cost.
QUINT: WHY DO YOU THINK THE FANS ARE SO RABID TO SEE THIS FILM GET MADE?
ROBERT ENGLUND: Well, for one thing New Line now owns the rights to Friday the 13th and Jason. I think they were sort of obligated if we didn't get Freddy Vs. Jason out in X amount of time, they would have to make Jason X and release it. They did and that seems to get the fans appetite whetted. I think Jason 10, which I hear is great, it's Jason in space...
After all the dust is settled, and I love Pinhead and I love Tony Todd as Candyman and there's a lot of guys out there and there's a lot of characters that I think are really great, but they fall into a different genre. Hellraiser is certainly never silly. It's pretty violent and pretty sexual. Hannibal Lecter is definitely of a serial killer ilk and it's an A movie and it doesn't quite have the sort of sleazy, although the last Hannibal had a pretty terrific third act, it doesn't always have the sort of fun that a Nightmare on Elm Street or a Friday the 13th had. There's an unrelenting cheap thrill about a Nightmare on Elm Street or a Friday the 13th movie.
I personally think the Nightmare on Elm Street movies are a couple of rungs up the evolutionary ladder than the Friday the 13th movies because we have that added cleverness of the dreams and the nightmare to play with. We also have a richer backstory. I think the Freddy backstory is a little richer than Jason's. I think it was sort of an idea that somehow we get these two horror icons together, kind of like Frankenstein and the Wolfman, would be fun. It's certainly a tradition in hindsight, a Hollywood horror tradition to do that.
QUINT: SO, WHAT'S YOUR STRATEGY? HOW'RE YOU PLANNING ON TAKING HIM DOWN?
ROBERT ENGLAND: Well, my strategy would be that I... That Freddy would have to... I mean, I haven't read this screenplay, the most recent screenplay, but mine would certainly be that Freddy would have to do a mindgame on Jason, he'd have to confuse him 'cause I can't grapple the guy, he's too big! But it'd have to be a situation where Freddy could really play a head game on Jason and finding out some deep, dark secret buried into some weird Cell-like nightmare, flashback/dream sequence where we see something that makes Jason particularly vulnerable and Freddy could just get in there and work it.
QUINT: I KNOW THAT YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY'RE DOING YET, BUT WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT DOING THIS DO YOU IMAGINE THE CLASSIC FREDDY GET UP OR THE NEW NIGHTMARE FREDDY GET UP?
ROBERT ENGLUND: I think we've taken the audience there. Certainly, Wes Craven's New Nightmare wasn't a huge hit, it was a very successful film and since Scream has sorta indoctrinated a young audience on how to watch movies with their tongue's firmly entrenched in their cheek, a lot of people have returned to Wes Craven's New Nightmare both on cable and on video and DVD and sort of reevaluated it and watched it with that post-Scream sense of humor...
So, I think we would certainly have to split the difference. I think Freddy has to probably be a bit of the heroic Freddy that he was. Heroic is probably a wrong word, but... You know, Freddy's sort of a legend in his own mind since A New Nightmare and I think he has to have a bit of that streamlined appearance, which means I gotta go back to the gym.
QUINT: JUST OUTTA CURIOSITY, WHAT'RE YOU DOING THIS HALLOWEEN?
ROBERT ENGLUND: I usually leave Halloween to the amateurs. I'm still doing some Boogeymen stuff on Halloween with a couple of friends of mine that run some pretty big radio shows back east. Actually, I'm probably going to be answering the door and learning lines. I've got a lot of lines I have to learn by the middle of November and I've been busy on the road to Chicago, San Francisco and New York being the sort of voice and spokesman of the Boogeymen DVD. Those trips have sorta thrown my rhythm out of kilter. I'm growing a beard now, I'm growing my hair long for this part and I'm trying to tackle these lines. I'm working on a translated script Macedonian into English by an Italian. I'm doing a little bit of rewriting on this script. I'm trying to learn it. So, that's really what I'm doing now. I'm just sitting around in bed watching the new season on television, finding some movies on cable and working on my lines.
QUINT: WHAT PROJECTS CAN WE LOOK FORWARD TO FROM YOU?
ROBERT ENGLUND: I was on television last night. I did a little turn, a kinda Twilight Zone turn last night, on Charmed with the fabulous Rose McGowan and Shannon Dougherty. It was a great little script... I know it's more a teenage show and on the WB you have a certain target audience, but this reminded me of one of those great old Burgess Meredith Twilight Zone's... I'm sorta like a demonic doll collector and I shrunk all those girls down, which I think is every teenage boy's fantasy, to have Rose McGowan and Alyssa Milano stashed away in your night stand drawer. It was a kind of a cool little episode. It was fun for me to do.
So, that was on last night. I have a digital movie coming out where I play a one-armed hitman that's been picked up called Cold Sweat. That stars a girl you might know, Melissa Clark, who, among other things, was in Spawn and more recently on the UPN network on a show called Soldier of Fortune, a Don Bruckheimer production. I just got back from Europe... In June and July I was over there doing a little action movie that I think is going to go direct to Showtime called Windfall, which is a little caper/action film and I'm sidekicking again with Casper Van Dien, from Starship Troopers, and a wonderful actor as our heavy. We have a great guy playing a bad guy. If you know who Greg Henry is from Brian DePalma's Body Double and he's also the guy that gets Lisa Lui from behind in Payback. He's a great, great actor and a real teddybear of a guy and he plays all these psycho marines! He's a great musician, too.
QUINT: I GOT ONE MORE QUESTION FOR YA' AND THAT'S MY STANDARD QUESTION... SOME JOURNALISTS HAVE THE "IF YOU WERE A TREE, WHAT KIND OF TREE WOULD YOU BE" BULLSHIT QUESTION...
ROBERT ENGLUND: Is this my Barbara Walters-Quint Question?
QUINT: YES! SLIGHTLY MORE RISQUÉ... WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE DIRTY JOKE?
ROBERT ENGLUND: (laughs) My favorite dirty joke... gosh... It's strange because I spend a bit of time in my local bars now, here in Laguna Beach, but you know all I've been hearing lately are these really bad Bin Laden jokes, these Taliban women jokes as if the Taliban women are bad... these poor woman and probably tied up with a blanket over their head with an eyehole cut out.
My favorite one is an old, old one and my dad use to tell it to me. A guy is in a hospital and he can only be fed through a certain... cavity on his... backside. It's real hot, it's just in the middle of a hot heat spell. He's in his hospital room and the air conditioner is out and it's pretty miserable. The nurse decides to give all her patients a brake on this hot summer day. You know, they're all in traction, they've got tubes up various orifices, so she makes up this great batch of lemonade in a big perspiring pitcher of lemonade. She pours it down the tube and it goes up guess which orifice in our hero and he lets out a shriek and the nurse goes, "What's the matter? What's the matter? Was it too cold?" And he goes, "No, too sweet!"
That's the kinda joke my father use to tell back in the day. In memory of my late, great father, that's my favorite dirty joke.
Wow... you got to the end of that big sucker! Congrats! Hope you enjoyed it, squirts. This is one exhausted seaman shoving off. Happy Halloween and farewell and adieu!
-Quint
email: AICNquint@aol.com
