Lights, Camera, Horror!

Hey, folks, welcome to this latest episode of Amy and TJ.

And just like.

Always, we have no idea what's going on in this episode, but it's different this time. Rodes. Now, this is truly one where we don't know what's happening and we're kind of excited about Heart is raising.

Yeah.

I'm not big on surprises, and I think you know that I'm not one loves a surprise party, but this is a controlled surprise, like we know we're about to be surprised, so.

It's a little bit different.

We were just told by our wonderful iHeart team that they had a surprise for us and for us to keep this day open for us to come into the studio, that they had guest possible guests for us that we were going to love, that we were going to be super excited about, but they wanted it to be secret.

Wait hasn't this been months in the world. I swear Hanad's been telling usbout this one months.

We've belt about this, I think for at least two months, and they seem to think that we're going to be so excited about it that they wanted it to be a surprise.

Okay, And it freaked them out a little bit because our schedule is a mess. They say, hey, October, you don't know, let's let's just check our schedule. So this finally did work out. Now we suspect it because it's Halloween, it's around thet We are huge horror movie fans, so we have all kinds of guesses about who it might be. But we've been thrown off a little bit. Now they throw us a couple of curves. So now I'm a little lost.

That's true.

So well, we know it's Halloween themed because when we came into the studio. We'll put the pictures up on social media. But the it's very cute. Emma decorated the Amy and TJ studio with some Halloween high ends.

We've got this is some high ends.

Bloody plastic feet. We've got a ghoule behind me. Oh yeah, some black netting everywhere. So obviously this is horror movie related, which we totally support.

Do I want to say when? I so when?

Now we believe it's more than one guest because we saw the s Okay, yeah, so that threw me because initially I was thinking it might be Stephen King.

Now I'm all, Now I'm thrown off. Now, I'm really off when it went the two that threw me off.

But yeah, all right.

Son, we we should do it. We should Okay. So we are now, folks, you listening to us, are going to find out, as we found out, find out who our guests are for the day. So Hannah, will you please finally give us the reveal? Who do we have on the show today?

What?

What?

Robert England himself? How did Joe pull this off? We should let everybody I'm your boyfriend now.

My goodness, wow, if I could have seen this.

I'm telling you, Heather, I'm telling you on this happened yesterday.

So true.

We were watching you a Nightmare on Elm Street just yesterday.

And what did I say to you? I under what she's doing now and here you are. That is a legit absolute.

So we were on a plane yesterday and we like to talk because we're you know, just like that, And so we put on what we call background movies. And it's usually just a favorite movie of ours. We've seen lance up at the screen and see and feel all warm and fuzzy, And for me it was Nightmare on Elm Street. We just let's say hello, I'm here with Robert Evid.

We're celebrating the fortieth anniversary of Nightmare this year, and we're also we're talking about the Ultra four KHD that Warner Brothers just putting out. So we're we're spending a lot of We're spending a lot of time together, and.

It's that thing.

You know. What I realized is so many fans discovered Nightmare on Elm Street on that that rented video, that VHS came from the Mom and Pop video store. There wasn't wound rewounded properly, you know. And of weeks ago, I was watching the four K of Hitchcock's Rear Window, you know, with Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly, and it was so incredible.

It was better than I ever imagined it. So I'm I'm I'm.

Really hyping this four K of Nightmare on Elm Street one because I just I know that I've had the experience of talking with fans so many of it watched it at home, you know, on video, And this one's gonna look really.

Creamy because everyone has these new TVs now that you know, can show all the glory.

In the man cave, the woman you know, how does that change. I have not seen like an original and older horror movie in this four K format before. We have watched the omen A lot actually lately, and there's something about just that grainy, that grimy look is not so that still is kind of appealing. But you're telling me the four K thing is going to blow blow his way.

And what's even more is if they added some about eight or nine seconds to the Tina death seeds. You know what.

I dragged China over the ceiling and.

I just watched it. Yes, that's one thing. I'm telling you.

Eight seconds of missing footage, which sounds short, but that's actually that's a lot of blood and that's already.

It's such a good scene. It's gonna yeah, it's even better now.

That is so exciting. What I'm trying to remember what year it was when it first came out in forty years ago, I was eleven years old. I didn't see it in theaters, but I sneaked over to my neighbor's house to watch it and we would sit there and sing one, two, Freddy's after You, three, four better, six, Crucifix eight.

Jumped in sleep.

But again, I mean I was a huge fan, and I know you probably love this, but I mean it is scary when I look at you now.

You still look like Freddy Krueger to me. But Freddy was older.

Freddie was older than Robert England when I originally played it, and as I age, I'm kind.

Of aging like him.

But that was that's a gift actually from Kevin Yaeger or makeup man, because he wanted to make my musculature, even with the burns on the face and neck. He wanted to make me look like an older man to begin with, and I played him with a with a gruffer voice that I actually had back then. So uh, that's actually why now the shorter my haircut is. When I'm in airports and stuff, I actually get recognized more now than I did.

That actually, because I look more like him.

Do you wear a striped sweater?

I've never seen Robert in a red and green sweater actually, except a couple of times. He does not usually have one with them.

Yes, I'm not all.

The time, Robert, not your brother. What is a what is a screen? Do we still have scream queens these days?

I mean I always say I don't feel like I scream that much. In Nightmare on Elm Street because I'm so busy kicking ass. Right, most of the time, I'm not screaming that much, but it is become a form. It's a term of art that I think is actually wonderful because I share that with so many amazing actresses who have been in incredible shows like Nightmare on Elm Streets.

You know, when I was a kid and we go to the you know, the matinee, Molan save up our allowance and go see the double bill horror movies for a matinee, and it was almost always boys. But after Sigourney Weaver and Aliens, and then Jamie Lee Curtis and Halloween and then at the outset the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, we always have a strong survival, survivor girl,

When we started forty years ago, very few women would come and meet us or come into these autograph shows that we do, and now it's half or more. Are not only women, but their grandmothers, their daughters, and they all come and they just love Nancy and they love what she stands for.

I think they identify, you know, the journey of the survivor girl throughout the movies, and it's Heather and several of them Lisa Willcox, yeah, Lisa Sane, Billy Zaye's sister, and Monica Kena. But their survived you identify and you follow that journey, and they do.

At the end. People forget this. Freddie always loses to a girl, a woman.

At the end of each film, she survives and vanquishes him. And I think that that was a kind of a first without it. But then all the girls didn't always just go into the barn with the guy with a chainsaw.

Let's go hide in the barcion.

Oh yeah, that commercial is amazing.

I'm amazed because I don't think I mean, I just loved the film and I did it's funny. I did identify with Nancy. I was watching you on the plane yesterday, Heather and I and I.

Was saying, it's so funny.

I remember just wanting to be you and looking up to you, and I just got sucked into the whole story. I loved, obviously the adrenaline, with the fear and Freddy Kruger and all of that, but I really really identified with you and your character of Nancy. Heather and I never thought about it like this, And I don't think I realized that a woman always ended up I love Vanquishing, is it?

Freddy Kruger?

I mean, I think that's why this movie came along at a time when America was really ready to have women step into these roles. But I always tell people it wasn't just It's not just girls love Nancy, boys and men love her too.

Because it's the pajamas.

It's the pajamas, the sexy pajamas, the little Chinese pajamas with the flowers. But she just represented how to face your fear and how to like get over through, you know, get through whatever in your life is causing you. You know, Freddy, I always say, what's your Freddie and people always answer, Oh, it's it's my you know, my horrible whatever that's going on in my life, and that's their Freddy and everyone needs a Nancy inspiration to get over that.

I think that's the best gimmick, the best hook that that we should praise. And remember, you know, the late great Wes Craven, you know, and he also did the screen franchise, you know, and he changed Horror before Nightmare on Elm Street with the Hills Have Eyes and last House on the left. But this great book, which is the Nightmare. The nightmare is universal everyone has had and we all have some of the same dreams about falling or drowning or our algebra test.

We're stepping into the gluey steps with your feet, yeah, but you can't get out.

It's funny you mentioned you we are not kidding. I assume they passed along to you how big horror movie fans we are. But on the way here to the studio today, she's in the kitchen just making scrambled eggs, and I'm on the computer and she's whimming up something to eat and puts on something in the background to watch on the TV in the kitchen, and she put on Scream. We're watching Scream at ten thirty in the morning as our background movie. That's how serious it is.

Yes, Breakfast with Drew Barrylmore. Yeah, the last Yeah, the.

Last two movies.

The last two movies we just watched are Nightmare and elm Street and Scream and then voila. We are now walking into this interview with you two and it couldn't be more perfect.

So we're super excited. I'm curious we're either.

One of you horror movie fans beforehand, and what did you think when you got the script? Did you think this is going to be crazy or this is going to be excellent? I mean, I just want to know what you thought going into it versus what the reality actually.

I'll start with you Robert.

Well, Yeah, I was fascinated with horror as a child, and my godfather had a coffee table book of the movies, and it had a section of the Golden Age of Horror Frankenstein, Dracula, the wolf Man, etc. But it also had from the Silent Days. It had a two page fold out of all of the various makeups that Lon Cheney had done, including one where he boiled an egg and took the placentia of a hard boiled egg and put it over his eye to make it look milky and dead, probably the first contact lens. But I was

So yeah, I was Heather.

How about you, Well, I was very scared. I never could really watch a horror movie all the way through. As soon as there was like one scary scene, I would turn off the TV as fast as I could because I had really bad dreams. And so, I mean I even tell people that Wizard of Oz would scare me so badly. Those trees that came alive and like tried to grab Dorothy, lying that wicked witch. I mean, all of that terrified me. So I knew I had a really low threshold.

Flying Monkey's got to be But you know, on the.

Other hand learning from Wes. I mean, I got to learn from the very best. I really learned to appreciate horror and like what kind of role it plays for people, and and so now I really love I love to watch horror movies. My husband's a special effects makeup artists, so I'm really critical about all the flood in.

You are American Horror Story. You've watched the American Horror Story.

Yeah, if I see something that looks slightly cheesy, I'm like, I don't know if I'm going to continue watching.

And there's some great There's some great new stuff out now too.

Okay, we have to ask you to you all are horror movie royalty. What these days do you like? And that you've maybe even something you've seen lately. We've got to know what horror movies do you two?

That's what I was just gonna say. There is some great new stuff out. I just watched Apartment seven A with Julia Gard streaming.

We haven't seen it yet from Ozart.

I just saw her do the that's the prequel to Rosemary's Baby, and Dan Weis is playing the Ruth Gordon role. She's channeling Ruth Gordon. And if you watch them back to back. It's a perfect prequel to Rosemary's Baby, which is one of my favorites, which is a definite classic. You just saw them back to back, and it was so much fun because in Rosemary's Baby they talk about that character that Julia Garner plays, she's the girl from the laundry room in the fabulous apartment house that disappears.

And what about you? What do you like in these days?

I mean, the last horror movie I really saw was Abigail, which I really like. Melissa Barrera is like one of my favorite actresses now in horror, and she's in a lot of different horror movies. She's gonna be in this movie called Your Monster that's coming up. That is also I got to see in the Citrus Film Festival just last weekend.

Is that the horror romantic or.

I mean it is a great oh wow, So yeah, he made the monster in that, So that's not why I love it. I saw it in an audience of like European people and they were cheering at the screen and laughing, and then at the end it's a pretty horrifying handy. But I that movie, I have to say, is one of my favorites, but more meta movies like Happen in the Woods and you know, of course I saw the latest Evil Dead.

You know, long Long Legs, Nick Page and long Legs.

Oh yeah, so good.

Probably, yeah, that's probably a serial killer movie.

But still, boy, wow, just really strange darlings enveloped.

You will see that one. Strange darlings were just exchange exchanging horror movie notes.

Now, I just saw the trailers. It looks great, It's phenomenal.

Oh my goodness, this is amazing.

I'm I'm curious how your lives changed after that movie. I don't think anyone probably could have anticipated. I know it was Wes Craven, the wild success. The fact that even my daughters who are now twenty one and eighteen will still watch and be scared by. And they love horror movies too, because they come by it honestly, but they'll still go back and watch a movie from nineteen

I'd had a hit TV series at the same time called v and that had made me international, and then doing Nightmare on elm Street. I did some of the publicity for it, and I realized it was also simultaneously as here. It was a hit in Europe, and the real gift I got from being in it is it made me an international actor, and you know, things get slow for me in Hollywood. I go chase some beautiful young actors like Heather or around a castle in Spain.

Well, I mean, yeah, I think the movie really did. The success really did pile upon Robert right away, but the idea of Nancy as this important character, really it really was a much slower build, and I found it probably took five to even ten years before people started noticing, oh there's this girl, and people started actually writing about it. The movie came out on VHS, and of course more people saw it. But Nancy's you know, slow rise to this point where she, you know, is this final girl

Well, Heather almost didn't do the movie. You know, her back in eighty four horror movies. I mean, I'm old enough to remember when you either did television or movies. You know, you didn't go back and forth. And then John Travolta kind of broke it wide open, going from Welcome Back Caught Her to Saturday Night Fever. But Heather's was counseled, you know, not to do a horror movie. And I even had second thoughts after I took the part.

I said yes to the Blue.

Yeah, how does that work?

Robert?

Well, Heather, you're the one that's not in makeup the whole movie. He's in disguise. But you say he's the one that gets recognized all the time.

Well, I mean he's just such an iconic character. I mean, look that hat and a sweater. I mean people, you know, people just really love Freddy Krueger. And there's no explanation. It's just this visceral feeling of wanting to go for the bad guy, I guess, or or just feel part of that energy that he has. It's just so incredible.

Well also, I'm sure the image of Freddie is the logo for the experience of seeing the franchise or going through the franchise, whereas Heather was the star of three movies, you know, and has infinitely more screen time than I do. But I got this sort of lucky gift or the

With Heather you know, featured on them now than me.

You know, I'm in the corner over here, but they has a shadow and then Heather because you know, she's no drop dead gorgeous.

They feature Heather, you know, add a little cleavage to it.

But they never, like they've never marketed the little Cassio watch that says ten seconds you know they made that yet, you know, or my little wife of Jamas. They really deserve to be, you know, immortalized in some way. And I'm still waiting.

I still copy we're eating.

Oh, we have the coffee for the stay awake, the little pills in the bottle. There's so many marketing opportunities. They just got go out by the Heather.

Langen Camp says, I dream folgers.

Oh you know it is a mattress commercial. I could do a bet a betting mattresses. I could, like, I could advertise so many products.

A Lifetime movie Freddie and Nancy The Untold Story I'm Your Boyfriend.

We would definitely watch that.

I mean, it is such an amazing concept to make somebody afraid to go to sleep.

I mean, that's the thing you can't help but to do every single day.

I'm curious, Robert, you mentioned that for a while, being in a horror movie might have not seemed as esteemed as doing a Shakespeare play or something like that when you're trained the way you have been. But how fun Like, how does playing Freddy Krueger compare to other roles you've had. It has to be a blast. I would think to be the bad guy, to be the evil guy.

I think, you know, I played bad guys even before Freddy, and they're usually better written.

You know, the heroes are the hardest parts.

They have the hardest dialogue, and they also have to pitch a lot of exposition. But the great thing for me was once I got all that makeup on and I was in front of these semi surreal sets that were slightly exaggerated or askew, and the lighting was more dramatic and using severe colors, I realized I could use some of the tricks I'd learned in the theater, and

And that was a great liberating thing for me.

And when I went back to playing with my own face, you know, in movies and television series, I was just more free as an actor.

I think I was just more.

Yeah forgetting to mention that you had the clause, because the claws were actually something that he would often say, Heather, put your face here, so my Claus can go there, or move this way and the light will glint off my claws. Like the claus were such an important character in and of themselves that Robert quickly learned that they made sounds, that they could glint, that they could be really threatening. And so I feel some of the his

Prop But it's also that liberation that I was talking about in the theater.

You're not afraid to throw that tape over your shoulder.

Dramatically on your entrance into Shakespearean play, or to hit that pose with your hand on the hilt of your sword. And the claw became that kind of thing. I was not afraid. I didn't feel like I had to hide it or save it. I felt like I could get it in there and use it and again in the frame, dance with it a little bit, whether it was here or here or here?

Yeah, where's the claw? Where is it kept? Where is it right now?

Well?

I think the original is with the widow of my late great agent, Joe Rice, and I need to write her a certainicate of authenticity. But actually, yeah, I'd had it in a shoe box for about a year. Wes had loaned it to me to wear it to do pickup shots. Well, you have to understand back at the beginning, you guys, we had no idea it was going to become iconic, you know, film for that we'd be celebrating forty years later. And I took it out in frame, I stuffed it and framed it in plexiglass and gave

I believe you've just.

Broken the hearts of everyone who thinks they have an original Welt.

Oh well, there were, you know, a full full disclosure. There were several gloves. There was a stuntman's glove. There was one that had my lar on it that caught the light better. There was one made of razors that could cut through scenery. So there were and there were probably two or three hero gloves, so don't think that it was the only lub.

Still, do you own an original?

I have the original hero glove that Wes Craven took home from the set.

Can I some of those were actually sharp enough to do damage?

Oh yeah, but we had a hard rubber one for fight scenes.

There's one scene where he goes through the like the Muslin curtain, and that was of course those were real sharp knives, but only once or twice that he.

Use those on meat, Heather.

Did you see a switch in him or was it even weird to have Robert England in full Freddie makeup and then maybe have a conversation or a coffee with him. Did he go into character as soon as that makeup came on or was it weird to have a regular conversation le.

No, he was not that method. He would try to make us laugh. He would crack us up. He'd be telling us like where to go for the best, you know, thie food, and then they'd rele action, and then he'd be Freddie. You know, Robert. Robert did not maintain the Freddie character off screen.

You wanted to get I wanted to get the kids to trust me so I could throw them across the room, you know. And I mean, I'm sure over the course of the films, I've left thumbrints on Heather's arm, you know, in it from fight scenes and things.

But you want to get them to trust you.

So I would like, I'm there at dawn getting that makeup stuck on me with cold glue.

And eating donuts and drinking coffee.

But I would get all the only other people on the set were that that earlier, the teamsters, So I'd get all the dirty jokes for the teamsters, and then.

The little fresh fraced Heather.

That Andreu would come in about eleven am on Bankers Hours, and I would tell her all these really lude dirty jokes.

Forgetting to say is that overall the atmosphere on this particular set with Wes Craven was such a happy, happy experience. I mean, I haven't been on a set recently that had such Everyone was very joyous, really excited to be making such a creative project. Everyone was bringing so many

Like be about ninety nine and it still holds up that you know, it's the great era of practical special effects.

Wow, that is so fascinating and it's I'm still my mind is still blown that we were watching this movie yesterday and it had been a while since I had seen it, and I actually forgot I did. I forgot that young young Johnny Depp was in the movie. Do you all stay in touch? I mean, what is does the cast? I know it's been forty years, but I'm just curious who you're in touch with still and with this type of anniversary, is there a reason or a point to catch up or to reach out.

Well, I've seen some of the cast, Amanda Wiss, I see a lot, but I haven't run.

Into Johnny quite a while.

He was I had been in Europe on a movie, and he was on every bus and every billboard in Europe for a feature that he'd done, and it was it was like the number one movie in Europe.

And I ran into him at a pub.

This is back in ker Viper Room days and I ran into him at a pub and we were both day drinking and and uh he I told he was upset because I don't think the film had done as well here in the States. And I said, Johnny, I said, you're number one in Europe, you know. And I don't know if he took my advice, but I know he did go work in Europe for a while shortly after that, and it was a really smart move.

I think that he did for his career.

Then.

Yeah, well, we get.

A chance to see a lot of the people from all the Nightmare franchises when we go to city to city. We do autograph conventions and comic cons a few times a year, so we'll see the you know, Nightmare four, Nightmare five, Ninemore six, Nightmare three. We see all of the folks.

We should have We should have softball games.

We do.

We have these pictures of us that are like nine or ten of.

Us to get screen more years versus the original Elm Street Brats.

It's kind of a cub. Yeah, we're definitely a club. But I do see Amanda wisz Off and she's my one of my best friends. And I see Nick Corey quite a bit. But yeah, unfortunately I have not run into Johnny, and I really would love to, you know, see him again and you know, exchange some stories about then.

Back then, I.

Didn't know where that story was going to go, right, So me and Johnny Depp were day drinking. That could have gone a lot of ways.

I was going to kick him under the table actually and just say leave it at.

That, you know, and back to the makeup for a second. How long did it take you to get into Freddie makeup every day?

You know, I'd love to really be whiny and a Christian martyr about the makeup, but it's only it only takes about three and a half hours to be camera ready unless I'm going for an extreme close up. When I did find them at the Opera, that was a fat four hours because that involved hair. I had kind of like a big Maine like Beethoven of white hair. And I did a Stephen King movie called The Mangler and that was about five hours because that was prosthetics

But I was talking to that guy and.

He told me if they had to be camera ready by nine in the morning, they were in the makeup chair at two am.

Oh wow, good seven hours.

Still three and a half I mean.

So yeah, So Freddy's not the tough one. Tim Curry for legend, I think Tim Curry and Legend was a famously long makeup. I'm trying to think of it obviously, the Elephant Man.

Yeah, that was a yeah, oh my god, so how so wait?

I don't remember how many Nightmare on Elm Streets are there or were there.

There's eight, there's eight.

Okay, there's eight.

Would you all be open to doing another one? I mean it's revisualia.

Yeah, yeah, he always says that, shine up.

Yeah, We're ready.

No, I would love We're ready.

We're gonna do it?

If yes, if they if they remake number three Dream Warriers, which is arguably the most popular.

If they remake Wes Craven's.

New Nightmare, yes, or West Craven. But yeah, but if they we made Dream Oyers, I would like to be asked to play one of the medical faculty in the therapy section that Heather's in, because I think it was.

Just it's actually crazy.

I think it was played by Priscilla Pointer, Amy Irving's mother, the wonderful actress Priscilla Pointer. But it would be fun to play it, you know, switch the genders and play it as a man, because if I'm the skeptical doctor, the cynical doctor that doesn't believe all these kids are having a collective nightmare. I think that's a great cameo, wink at the fans if there would be attending a reboot of.

That Wait, but you would be coming back.

So that's maybe a good one to start with on a remake.

But you don't see yourself your question. The first thought I had was you being Freddy Krueger again.

But you're still I can't you, guys, I'm an old dog now. I can't do those stunts from every angle. I could probably do one take of a stunt now, but I can't do them for you know, they cover them.

From different das four Robert. I know that's why the stunt men get into your gift, you know.

But you get into that, it's still you still have to sell, Robert.

Robert did do a lot of the work when we were forty years ago.

But well, I did a lot of my stuff on Freddy versus Jason, and I was well into my fifties on that one.

But Heather, Robert, it sounds like you all are ready to go. Has there been any talk, even rumblings of the past couple of years that you all stay in contact. Is there a script on a with dust on it on a shelf somewhere.

Fortunately, No, Unfortunately, I think there's a I think that there's a bit of a tied uh.

I think with the rights now.

I know it's I know a time Warner and Warner Brothers, and I know I think there for a while Platinum Dunes, and I know that there's the West Craven Estate, and there's just lots of people that sort of, uh, you know, have have DIBs on on it that.

They have to negotiate.

But yeah, if they ever get around to doing a remake, I would love to cameo in Dream Warriors, so you've heard it at first.

I love that. Heather, What about you?

Would you want to reprise your role as Nancy? Would you want to come in as another character?

I think any and all. I just love the series so much. I love having played Nancy, you know, three different times as a teenager, as a young woman, and then as a mother. I really loved that arc and I kind of would like to see her like as an older woman, just to put a nice bow on it.

But night mare and menopause may.

Yeah, Perry menopause, my mayor. I don't know.

It's not a terrible idea there. I'm not a hot class right now, No, I mean I just feel so indebted to this entire franchise for you know, a lot of the good things in my life. So there would never be an instance where I would reject it out of hand. I would love to hear what you know, anybody had to create based on all these great characters.

I love hearing that because so often, Look, we've been interviewing celebrities and actors for three decades now, and so many times you hear actors try to get away from that iconic role that put them into the limelight because they want to be something different, or they don't want people to think of them only as that character.

Right.

Some people say it even ruins their careers because they're only thought of as that one character. I love hearing both of you embrace those characters, embrace how much they're loved, embrace how much they're celebrated, and actually credit it with helping your career. I think that's so cool because we don't hear that that often. I'm sure you're familiar with it, so that's a pretty.

Much that's exactly what happened, though you know, I mean it, it's that thing, that gift that I got for working internationally, you know. But it's also that I was established in Hollywood when I did nightmanams It, I'd done a dozen movies and I had a hit television series, so that

Understands say that. I mean, I think you'd be hard pressed to find better roles actually even today than Nancy Thompson. I mean, she was such an incredible character. She not only was the dramatically, but she had to do all these stunts and she had to fight Freddy. So it's rare that you get a part if you're just a lead in a straight movie where you have such an amazing amount of things that you have to do in

And people forget that whole dynamic between Heather and her mother played by Ronnie Blakeley.

The star of Nashville.

But that whole dynamic, I mean, that was serious stuff because Wes Craven was saying that the adults are flawed, you know, and it's a loss of innocence with the kids. Throughout the franchise, but the adults are actually more damage than the kids, because it was that moment of time in the early eighties when we became aware that there can be damage from divorce, and there was damage from alcoholism and damage from from pill taking, which we know

Well, night Merrel Elm Street is more cerebral than I gave it credit. And after talking to I know.

Watched it seventy five times yet.

Just going to be at the end of the show.

But you know what, this is so cool because I think oftentimes DJ and I and I've had to defend my love of horror movies for a very long time. I think people think that it's some silly you know, uh, just non cerebral form of entertainment where you're just inundated with fear. But so often when you think about Wes Craven, when you think about Stephen King, these are some of my favorite like authors and I have grown up loving

Well, what you mentioned about the comedy is so true because I have, you know, the horror movies that I see, comedy's actually missing in a lot of them. But the final say, ten minutes of Nightmare on Elm Street has so many funny moments where Nancy's like breaking the windows saying get my dad, you know, and the guy's like, maybe I better go get certainly, you know, I mean, it's this humor that's a laugh, and then there's terror laughing and then a terrar laughing.

Well, Wes Craven and Sam Raymie, the Great Sam Raimie explored that early on, you know, with the Evil Dead films, and Wes. Wes told me once that you can't just scare people for ninety minutes. If you let them laugh a couple of times, then you can sit. They relax, they release that tension and you can set them up to scare them again. And he was so deft with that scream in his Scream franchise, especially.

Well, especially when Marge brings the vodka bottle out of the linen closet and it's at this really heightened tension when Nancy has to go see if Glenn is dead or not, and that moment when she grabs the vodka bottle and chugs in the hallway is the biggest laugh I ever get. I mean ever here in the movie theater. People just want to let.

It all go at that they.

Need to laugh, and it's always like a huge laughter moment.

There's a whole new sub genre now of horror that is horror comedy, and we're starting to get into that a little bit. But to you Ole's point, some horror movies they just need a little moment of levity, just give us a little relief. It almost sets you up to relax, and then they're coming for you. And you were mentioning just a moment ago, how you kind of were able to progress and mature in some of the movies, from a girl to a young woman to a mother.

Well, you know, Wes Craven was my you know, he's kind of my coach all along the way, because I would I would be really confused, like how am I supposed to play this, Wes? And and I'd ask him so many questions about that, just that kind of thing, like how am I going to make people believe that

Heather's being modest.

Just prior to the original Nightmare in Elm Street, I think she starred with Joe Anne Woodward in a film, so you know.

Yeah, but that was like that was the daughter and I was in four scenes, you know, it was.

That's some good season.

How the original movie, how long did it take to film? Do you all remember? I'm curious because it was.

Such a it was five or six weeks.

Yeah.

We shot at the old Desilu Studios in Hollywood.

I had Lucille's ball Ball's old dressing room.

Yeah.

I love Lucy and I think they'd done the Partridge Family there because I used to see some memorabilia stuck in the back on the back of an old scenery flat in the back, and they were like polaroids, you know of David Cassidy.

You'll shut it out.

It was a really dilapidated old studio. I mean it was really romantic though well I didn't know any better. I just thought it was dusty and it was falling.

Down Futon's with cigarette burns in them.

You think Carver was like, really it was the.

Now you said it took six weeks to shoot it. You all didn't know what you had and what it was going to become. How long did it take after the movie came out that you all say, oh, wow, we got a winner here.

Well, I knew we'd made something special because I'd been around, you know, it was maybe my thirteenth or fourteenth film.

But I just wanted people to see it.

I just wanted us to be able to get it out there because you know, we had We actually kind of run out of money towards the end, and I think they had this new line Cinema had to sell the video rights.

They eventually bought them back.

But I just wanted it to get distributed and get it out there because I knew it was something special. But for me it was I was in Italy getting an award in Milan and for a television project in my rented tuxedo, and the fans grabbed me and pulled me out of the limo and passed me over the crowd of chanting Freddy Freddy, And that's when I knew this is this is right after it had opened, and I didn't it was already a hit in Europe.

So that's when I knew, how I.

Think I knew when actually Wes asked me to be in Nightmare three Dream Warriors, when he said, you know, I've written this script and you're in it again, And then I thought, oh, wow, they're doing another they're doing another sequel, and it must be doing well.

Sat when you were doing your series.

I mean it was just after I did this series.

She was doing a series then the Ten of Us.

But so yeah, that yeah, and then ate in the middle of that she found out that we're going to be three, and so.

That way, I mean, I just his faith to do another show with me as the lead. I felt, oh, it's doing well enough where he would put me in. But like I said, those three years between those first one and the third one, I didn't really think it was like that big of a deal. I mean, I don't know, I didn't get pulled out of the limo. I didn't get like sir body serves across that.

Even even when that happened, even when that that just meant to me that we had a hit movie and that I could work in Europe, but that I didn't know that. Forty years later, you know we'd be we'd be here talking to you about this.

All right, forty years later, still to this day, the Mount Rushmore, of of of bad guys, ha's got to be Freddy Jason, Michael Myers. Who else goals on that list? Are those who leather Face?

Maybe leather Face? Yeah?

Probably? I think he has his foot in the door. Wonderful actor Doug Bradley, who's pin Head Phead? Maybe in that hell Wow, because that's a real Those are real, strange, dark, kinky films, and they deserve a.

Place in the pantheon.

Yeah.

Does Chuck Barker Flyve Barker's got some dark ship?

Does Chucky count in that group? Chuckie?

I don't think so.

I go with no.

I'm gonna go no. I think we just got the Mount Rushmore. I think that's exactly it. That's perfect.

You have to be I don't know the doll thing. I don't know. It just doesn't seem right on Mount Rushmore.

I kicked a Chucky across the room.

It makes a good point.

Here's our story. Here's the story for you. When I was doing Nightmare and Elm Street Part two. In the trailer dressing room in Pasadena. As I was getting my makeup on, my makeup man Kevin Yaeger was also doing the prototypes for Chucky the Doll, and so I sat there getting my makeup on and saw he would bring them in to get he was working on them and to get people's opinions.

So I saw all the evolution of the Chucky doll.

He originally had short red crew cut and he was fattered, you know, and they sort of kept modifying him, you know. And one of the producers, Sarah Risher of the Nightmare on Elm Street Films, she just had a baby and she was really a hands on producer. So in the it was Freddy Krueger and whatever the new incarnation of the Chucky Doll. And then next to that was the baby, the baby creatit, you know, with this naked baby crime.

That's that poor child is scarred for life.

Robert, how how long would it take Freddy Krueger to take out Chucky if that was a Freddy versus Chucky moon.

The first two things you got on us know about Freddie one as I dropped that little sucker, But the other thing you have to know is if any of the other monsters fall asleep after they know or they know who I am. This is the whole point of Freddy versus Jason. But if they acknowledge me in my existence and they sleep, I've got that conduit into their subconsciousness and I can exploit. For instance, Jason's afraid of water,

Robert's been thinking about this alone.

No, really, these are elements. These are elements in the world, fire and water and air. And that's what Jason's fear is.

He is I here? Where's he from? Cam Crystal Lake?

So it's just that that that's if they follow us, I've got them.

Yeah, that's amazing.

I love that the nose comes in, Are there?

I I that is so creepy to hear you say that. I love it, though, creepy in a really, really good way. I'm curious if you had to pick both of you your all time favorite horror movie, you can only pick one.

What is it?

Okay, I'm going to say, just because I've been asked this question a lot, and It's the first horror movie that I really loved and was scared by his Wizard of Oz because for a little kid, that one was terrifying to see that and the trees that come alive, and the flying monkeys and the Wicked Witch and everything

I think.

For me, it's Brian De Palmer's nineteen seventy four film Sisters, low budget, starring Margot Kidder, Lois Lang from Superman as Simese twins from French speaking Quebec in Montreal, Canada, and.

A great great actor.

William Finley playing my favorite mad doctor ever. He's the mad doctor who falls in love with his Siamese twin patient and he's got to cut them and separate them so he can have his for himself. It's just a terrific film. Some of the best split screen editing and parallelism I've ever seen in.

Movies amazing early to Palma. We cannot wait.

We will be checking out, and we are just so honored to have the two of you here. It was such a wonderful surprise and so well timed, not just with Halloween.

But with our recent air travel.

I just I'm still kind of like in shock that you all are sitting in front of us. So I mean, oh my gosh, my teenage self would be dying right now because I was so obsessed with these movies, and so many people still are, and all to your credit, Wes Craven's credit.

But thank you all so much for being read.

Thank you Amy, thank you maj thank you so much for having us.

Yeah, thank you, hey you, Qutie Piere.

Okay, no, we got to land on a better note than that. Say say something, Sep, Robert, whatever.

You do, don't fall asleep.

Oh my god, guys, love you so much. Thank you. We'll see you in the next nightmare, all right, Yes, thank you.

Bye,