A Nightmare on Elm Street: Robert Englund Thinks He’s “Too Old” to Play Freddy Krueger Again, Would Love a Cameo

Fans of the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise have been waiting a decade for a new installment, but if a new entry into the series takes shape at some point in the future, Freddy Krueger actor Robert Englund thinks he has gotten too old to play the character, though would love a cameo. Englund has been asked about a return to the series since his last appearance in Freddy vs. Jason in 2003, with the subsequent 17 years seeing a number of reactions from him, though the prevailing reaction has been that he doesn’t think he could embrace the required physicality of Freddy that he could convey earlier in his career.

“I don’t think I’ll ever don the makeup again,” Englund shared with EW. “I’m a little too old for that. I’m a little long in the tooth to play Freddy now. I think if I was doing it, it would be more like ‘Freddy vs. Viagra.’”

The character was last played in a film by Jackie Earle Haley, who starred as the murderer in the 2010 reboot of the 1984 original. That film was both a critical and financial disappointment, resulting in no new entries moving forward in the years since.

One positive revelation is that, last year, the Wes Craven estate secured the rights to the franchise and its characters, allowing them to develop a film as they see fit. Despite Englund knowing he couldn’t fully reprise his role of Krueger, he would hope to appear in a new film in some capacity when the series eventually moves forward.

“I know that the rights to A Nightmare on Elm Street have gone back to the Wes Craven family estate,” Englund admitted. “And I know they’ve looked at a lot of different submissions and ideas. I’m hoping they’re open-minded, because there’s a lot of young screenwriters and wannabe director-screenwriters that have been kind of obsessed with the horror genre and have some interesting ideas. I would love to be invited back if they decide to reboot A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3: The Dream Warriors. I would love to come back and maybe play the dream analyst, the woman in the therapy sessions who doesn’t believe that there can be such a thing as a collective nightmare that’s common to a group of people.”

He added, “I think it would be fun for the fans, it would be fun for me to play the part originally played by a woman and do a flip on that. I think there’s kind of a tradition in the horror genre of cameos like that, so that would be fun for me. But I have no idea whether they’re going to go on and create completely new stories or whether they’re going to go back and do prequels or origin stories on the Freddy Krueger myth. I don’t know what they’re up to. So, I’m just waiting to hear.”

Stay tuned for details on the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.

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