Robert Englund will forever be the definitive Freddy Krueger, but it turns out the actor almost didn’t return for A Nightmare on Elm Street’s sequels. Hollywood history is full of instances where a beloved role was recast later on, for various reasons, such as an actor not wanting to return, or no longer being age-appropriate for the role in question. To date, only one actor has taken a shot at playing Freddy other than Englund, that being Jackie Earle Haley in the widely disliked 2010 A Nightmare on Elm Street remake.
While Haley is a talented actor, and some fans found his version of Freddy to be fine, it was still one of those cases where seeing someone new play an iconic character just felt weird. With the estate of creator Wes Craven now taking pitches for a reboot of the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, it seems like only a matter of time until another performer tries their hand at bringing Freddy Krueger to life onscreen. When they do, they’ll have big shoes to fill.
After originating the character of Freddy in Wes Craven’s 1984 classic, Englund of course went on to reprise the role in five direct sequels, the meta Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, a Freddy vs. Jason crossover, and even the Freddy’s Nightmares anthology TV series. Robert Englund and Freddy are permanently intertwined, but that almost wasn’t what happened.
Robert Englund Almost Didn’t Play Freddy in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2
Made on a modest budget, Wes Craven’s original A Nightmare on Elm Street film was the first hit for fledgling company New Line Cinema, and the success of further sequels led them to earn the moniker “The House That Freddy Built.” But, one wonders if the Nightmare franchise would’ve even taken off, had Robert Englund not returned as Freddy, which he almost didn’t. According to reports, Englund asked for a sizeable pay raise before he would agree to play Freddy in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge. Considering the first movie made New Line millions in profit, that really seems like a fair request.
However, New Line boss Robert Shaye balked at Englund’s request, and hired a stunt performer to take over the Freddy Krueger role. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2, which released barely a year after the original, actually entered production without Englund onboard, but after two weeks of filming, everyone involved was entirely dissatisfied with the results. Surprise, surprise, Robert Englund brought more to Freddy than just a face and voice, and the magic behind the character was now gone. Sure enough, Shaye realized his egregious error in judgment, and worked out a deal with Englund.
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