Robert Englund

Robert Englund (born 1947) is a classically trained actor who spent the 1970s and early 1980s in supporting parts, most visibly as Willie in the alien invasion series V, before he was cast as Fred Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). The role took over. It runs through eight films in this catalogue plus the anthology series Freddy's Nightmares, and Englund played it every time, which is unusual for a slasher villain of that era.

The reason it worked is that he played Freddy as a performer rather than a shape. Where his contemporaries in the mask business were silent and slow, Englund gave the character a voice, jokes, timing and a visible enjoyment of his own work, and then had to keep pace as the sequels turned that comedy into the whole point. By the fourth and fifth films the makeup chair was contributing more than the scripts were. Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994) turns the situation on itself and has him playing both a fictional version of himself and the character.

Outside the franchise he has been a reliable presence in horror for four decades, in Urban Legend, Hatchet and Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, with voice work as the Vulture in The Spectacular Spider-Man and Anti-Pops in Regular Show. He holds a Fangoria Chainsaw Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and he directs as well as acts.