Freddy Krueger - A Nightmare on Elm Street,
Stranger Things
Robert Englund began his acting career on stage, starring as Pinocchio in 1959. In 2025, he will voice the evil Cricket in the film Pinocchio Unstrung. Talk about the circle remaining unbroken!
After five years of success in regional theater, Englund returned to Southern California, where he grew up. His very first audition earned him a starring role in the 1973 film Buster and Billie, directed by Daniel Petrie.
Far from enduring the typical hand-to-mouth existence of a struggling actor, Englund worked steadily throughout the ‘70s playing bad guys #1, #2, or #3, best friends and sidekicks, starring with Henry Fonda, Susan Sarandon, Jeff Bridges, Sally Field, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, among others.
In the ‘70s, considered the second Golden Age of American cinema, Englund was fortunate to work with classic film directors such as Robert Aldrich, Robert Mulligan, J. Lee Thompson, Bob Rafelson, and John Milius.
During this period, Englund was living in Malibu, fishing off his porch at high tide and surfing when he wasn’t slogging through traffic during countless interviews and callbacks that fill the days of any working actor. He guest-starred in many TV shows and hit his marks alongside some of the biggest stars of that decade, including Burt Reynolds, Charles Bronson, Richard Gere, and Barbra Streisand.
When Englund was cast as Willie, the friendly alien, in the hit mini-series and the subsequent NBC weekly TV series V, audiences finally put a name to his familiar face. Within weeks, Englund went from being asked, “Didn’t I go to high school with you?” to “Aren’t you that lizard guy on TV?” Nearly forty-five years later, Willie still generates fan mail from science fiction devotees both in America and around the world.
The series was a massive hit. As a result, Englund feared he might be forever typecast as a sweet and lovable alien. To challenge this public image, he looked for a role that would allow him to showcase a different side of his talents. During a hiatus from filming the series, he auditioned for a hot young director working on an interesting low-budget horror film for the independent studio New Line Cinema.
Englund’s interview with Wes Craven earned him the role of the burn-scarred dream demon Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street and catapulted him into horror history. The film became an international hit, making New Line Cinema a major player in Hollywood, and led to seven sequels and a syndicated TV show. The character of Freddy Krueger has been referenced on talk shows, in comic books, rap videos, and even cartoon appearances as a guest on The Simpsons, South Park, Rick and Morty, and Family Guy. New Freddy Krueger action figures, posters, and merchandise are released each year. To commemorate the 40th anniversary, Warner Bros. released a 4K UHD box set.
Englund’s portrayal of Freddy Krueger blasted him into pop culture as a successor to the horror legends of the past, destined to stand alongside such classics as Lon Chaney’s Phantom of the Opera and Boris Karloff’s monster in Frankenstein.
In the mid-’80s, Englund starred in the hour-long CBS TV series Downtown, a seriocomic look at parolees. The short-lived series also featured Mariska Hargitay and Blair Underwood.
Acting on the small screen allowed Englund to collaborate with talented actors such as Lillian Gish, Jack Warden, James Earl Jones, Hal Holbrook, Martin Balsam, Lou Gossett, and Sissy Spacek.
The international success of V and the Nightmare on Elm Street sequels opened doors for film opportunities abroad. Englund has starred in movies in such exotic locations as Budapest, Bucharest, St. Petersburg, Tel Aviv, Johannesburg, Palermo, Barcelona, Sofia, and Zagreb.
Englund is a sought-after guest at film festivals across Europe, and has served on juries and received awards at festivals in Venice, Paris, Rome, Brussels, Sitges (Spain), and Slovenia.
After nearly 100 feature films, four TV series, and countless guest roles in episodic shows – from featured parts in the OG Charlie’s Angels, Soap, Police Story, C.H.I.P.S., Alice, and Night Court to guest star roles on Married with Children, Bones, Charmed, Supernatural, Hawaii 5-0, Criminal Minds, The Goldbergs, and Stranger Things – Englund is now exploring virtual reality films and enjoys doing voice-over gigs for games, animation, and narration. In late October 2025, he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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