ROBERT ENGLUND

It's real simple - we all have nightmares, and the idea you can be in real jeopardy in them is a great gimmick. It's universal.

Jeff Bridges taught me a lot about how to keep a scene fresh.

I would like to see the technology used to explore more period horror genre works, for example, E. A. Poe.

I have friends that are much better actors than I am that had to quit the business because they couldn't survive the auditions or the rejections, or people just didn't realize how good they were.

I have very liberal parents. People forget that Fidel Castro was on the cover of 'Time' magazine, and the one that I remember the most - it's not necessarily my favorite - was when they dressed me as Castro when I was eight years old. I was in fatigues, camouflage hat, beard and cigar. I don't think I did that well with candy that year.

Many great horror stories are period pieces and English actors have a facility for historic characters.

I didn't make good money on 'Nightmare' until part three. I eventually got some nice merchandising checks.

But it's mostly about pacing yourself when you do these movies.

I wouldn't want the pressure of a Six Feet Under or the pressure of improvising like Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Some actors get by with behaving, not acting. You've got to sell the effect. I act more in the 'Nightmare' movies because it's not like me. I'm acting, not reacting.

Had I not done Shakespeare, Pinter, Moliere and things such as 'Godspell' - I played Judas in a hugely successful production before I did 'Elm Street' - I'd probably be on a psychiatrist's couch saying: 'Freddy ruined me.' But I'd already done 13 movies and years of non-stop theatre.

As an actor, you need everything you can get to be truly scary and truly memorable.

I went to see a children's matinee at the movie theatre one summer, but at some point they had changed to the grown up movie in the late afternoon, and I ended up seeing this movie called 'The Bad Seed.' It just terrified me.

You're going to have to surrender a little bit to the contrivance of how Freddy and Jason get together.

I always get inspiration from whatever characters say about my character.

The modern horror audience is wise to our tricks this lets it in on the gag.

My dad worked as an executive at Lockheed Aircraft and worked on the U-2 and things like that. My mother was a homemaker, and she was vice-president of the Democratic Council of California back in the '50s.

There'll always be movies that are meant for the big screen, and they should be seen that way.

We all have to change with the times... it keeps you younger; it's a new challenge.

When I was a boy, I read a terrible article in a big weekly American magazine called the 'Saturday Evening Post.' In the middle of this family magazine on my parent's coffee table was an article about this family that was camping, and they were all mauled by a grizzly bear in their sleeping bags.

I never played Freddy as real. In the true bible of Wes Craven's outline for the films, Freddy only manifests himself in dreams. And a lot goes into a dream, not the least of which is imagination. So Freddy is secondhand information. Freddy is an urban legend that's been handed down to these teenagers over the years.

I've done 'Two Gentlemen of Verona,' I've understudied Iago in 'Othello.' I've done Mercutio in 'Romeo and Juliet.'

'Nightmare on Elm Street' really lends itself to using new technologies. CGI would be a great way to exploit and embrace the dream sequences.

If they do something like that, maybe a Freddy Krueger fan, a girl, a really sick goth girl starts killing kids herself and Freddy has to put a stop to it, or they have to fight it out.

Fear has been good to yours truly.