Home - News - Reviews - Interviews - Mistresses - Horror Talk - Quizzes - Links - Movie Malls
Trailers - Screensavers - Scripts - Wallpapers - Who is The Arrow - Contact The Arrow
 

(Part 2/2: click here for part 1/2)

Welcome to Part 2 of the Freddy Vs Arrow interview. Here, Robert talks about two of his upcoming film projects, the Spielberg produced TV show "Taken", the nightmare on "976-EVIL" street experience, his directing ambitions, getting the shaft in the movie business and his dream job. Here we go kiddies, Round 2 with Robert Englund!

ART FILMS IN THE HOUSE AND SPIELBERG'S "TAKEN"

ARROW: Setting Freddy aside, what else do you have going on movie-wise at the moment?

ROBERT: I have 2 films that I finished in Europe that are coming out but they won't come out in the States: they're like "art films" and I'm very proud of them. One of them we're calling "Who Started All This", I have a better title, but it's about the war in Bosnia and Serbia and what it's done to people over there. It's in English, but I'm sure it will be mostly a European art film. We have some really amazing actors in it and a brilliant director who had films at the Cannes Film Festival. It was beautifully shot by a Polish cinematographer, it was a real international experience for me. I play a sort of decadent European Professor in it. The other film I just finished before I started Freddy Vs Jason came about through these two eccentric, wonderful directors from Sicily, they're like notorious for outrageous stuff on Italian television. They did sort of like a bogus game show before any of the reality show hit the States, they shot all of their films in black and white until mine, they don't use women, they use men in women's parts....

ARROW: (laughs) That's pretty kool.

ROBERT: They usually use a lot of non-actors, but in this film they used a lot of known actors and they used me. I play a B-movie star from Hollywood in the early 50's who goes to Italy in hopes of reviving his career. So I play a famous American actor who's been to all the Beverly Hills parties and knows mobster Lucky Luciano. He goes over there  to star in a movie but they're really laundering mob money through the production. The film becomes this great Italian comedy about the mafia, the catholic Church, Hollywood and Italian filmmaking. It was kind of cool at this stage in my career to be shooting this film, taking three hour lunches and drinking a bottle of wine everyday with the Italian crew under the Palm trees of a beautiful villa somewhere. It was an adventure and I hope to do more of that in my career. It's just so much fun to travel and do that stuff.

ARROW: As an actor, you played Freddy for so long, it must be great for you to tackle different kind of roles.

ROBERT: Yes, but Freddy is part of it. I wouldn't be able to do it if it hadn't been for Freddy. You see, in Europe there's' no stigma about horror, horror is like Jazz, Levis, it's something they love from America as opposed to George Bush and all that. It's like rock and roll or rap, it's a great American import, it's something they love. I've been going there for years, doing publicity, film festivals and I've gotten to know a lot of people over the last 20 years. Since "Urban Legends" I've been doing lots of non-horror which is really fun for me. On these low budget films, it's sort of like being in a Robert Altman movie. You're in Paris, Prague, Rome...it's really been a treat. By the way, I just saw a great horror sequence last night, I don't know if you and your friends watch Steven Spielberg's "Taken".

ARROW: The TV show?

ROBERT: It's on Sci-Fi.

ARROW: We don't get that up here in Montreal, Canada.

ROBERT: It's absolutely phenomenal. There's a sequence set in 1950 at the Roswell lab, there's a guy that's been abducted and they go to take out the thing the aliens planted in his head. Now the subject can make people have every memory they ever had of their fears surface all at once.  So as they do the operation on him at a primitive 1950's used car lot, all the German Nazi scientists that have been brought there by the Americans and all the military guys go absolutely berserk while operating on him. They take the probe out...oh my god, it's like one of the best sequences in recent years in horror. You've got to look for some bootlegs out there. It's called "Taken"-- a 10-hour mini-series. It owes a lot to "V" my old show, Close Encounters, Roswell...it's really terrific stuff.

ARROW: Those are great influences, I'll try to check it out. Kazaa here I come!

ROBERT: Yeah...TAKEN.

976-EVIL, FUTURE IN DIRECTING?

ARROW: Last question,  976-EVIL.

ROBERT: Yes...

ARROW: I thought the film was flawed, but I also thought that you had a great eye.

ROBERT: Why thank you.

ARROW: I was just wondering if you're ever going to direct again.

ROBERT: I was actually asked yesterday to direct a werewolf movie, but here's the thing you have to understand. I love horror and I respect my fans and I'm grateful to my fans and I go to see every horror movie the day they come out. I'm like out there the first day "The Ring" comes out. I'm a good horror fan but it's not my best talent as a director. Suspense, thriller and effects are not my gifts, my gifts are in casting, camera, art direction and script. I should be doing movies like "Tender Mercy", that's really more my style. With 976-EVIL, I was so paranoid with all the effects in the movie, that I didn't have enough time to direct my exposition scenes and my character development scenes as well as I would've liked.

I did them all very simply, heads and tail to length the editing. It was a very low budget movie and the producers cut that all out in post because they thought a horror movie had to be the same running time as an action movie, when in fact with horror movies you can take lots more time. But my producers didn't know that rule and thought it had to be 90 minutes and that's not true. I could've had the movie down to 103 minutes.

ARROW: That would've been fine!

ROBERT: Nothing wrong with that. The point is that they didn't let me and had a trailer editor come in to do the job. So all the production values on the length of the exposition scenes were lost. Now my special effects came out pretty good, I budgeted enough time to get them in there and I had some really good actors and called in a lot of favors from Kevin Yagher and people like that.

ARROW: So what did you get out of the experience?

ROBERT: I loved doing POST on that movie, I loved shooting most of it and I turned in a really great rough cut and when it was taken away from me, it kind of freaked me out. I'm kind of like a junkyard dog in real life, I bear a grudge. Also, I had in my contract ever since 1985 that if I did television, I automatically get to direct a certain amount of episodes so I don't have to go knock on doors and beg.  So consequently, I've been a bit lazy about pursuing directing.

STOLEN SCRIPTS AND ROBERT'S DREAM JOB

ROBERT: I also had, without divulging too much info...a script ripped off from me..

ARROW: That sucks! What happened?

ROBERT: From a very famous company who shall remain nameless. I had a script ripped off and the guy that wrote 976-EVIL, who is a partner of mine, he had two scripts ripped off and one of them was the one I was working on with him. It's just weird and I don't know if I want to go through that. Should I get angry and sue, or should I just keep acting and be a character actor? By the way, I was actually a character actor before Freddy, but Freddy made people learn my name which is great for an actor because before that I was just that face, you know?

ARROW: That face with no name we all know...

ROBERT: Exactly. People actually were worried that I was going to get stereotyped as a monster after Freddy, but my God, I got stereotyped as white trash for 5 years, the best friend for 5 years, the redneck for 5 years, the nerd for 5 years and let me tell you...it's better to be a monster than to be a nerd.

ARROW: (laugh) I can imagine.

ROBERT: We go through different incarnations in my our careers and now I play the Professors, the Mad Scientist, the Doctors and Teachers which is kind of fun. Having said that, I'll probably direct again, but my feelings say that it will either be on the stage or on television. Obviously if I could have anybody's career it would Jeff Bridges', Donald Sutherland's, or Gary Oldman's...somebody like that. These are guys I really love, but right now I just want a dream job.

I wouldn't mind being in "Tremors" on the SCI-FI channel, you know co-starring on that, directing a couple of episodes and not beating myself up so much. That's what I think might happen after the big Blockbuster Freddy Vs Jason comes out. I'd love to be second billed or third billed on a series like Buffy or Angel. That and directing a couple of episodes because it would be easy as opposed to spending a year of my life knocking on doors and making preparations for a movie. It's so collective when you direct. Now I'm a team player, but when I want to direct, I want to be boss. When you get to be my age,  I'm a real nice guy or I'm a real son of a bitch: I don't have a middle anymore. That middle area got beaten up by road rage or something.

ARROW: LOL

ROBERT: That's sort of my feelings on directing right now.

ARROW: Fair enough Robert. Well, I won't take up any more of your time. Thanks a lot for the interview!

ROBERT: No problem and see if you can check out "Taken".

ARROW: Will do Robert. Take care!

ROBERT: You too John.

-----------------------------------

And that's that! Again, I'd like to thank Robert and New Line for making this interview happen. It was hoot to talk to the man from this fanboy's point of view. Hope you get that Buffy or Angel dream job Robert. Keep kicking that ass!

CLICK HERE TO READ PART 1 OF MY INTERVIEW WITH ROBERT ENGLUND

ARROW REVIEWS 976-EVIL

ARROW REVIEWS NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET

ARROW REVIEWS NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2

ARROW REVIEWS NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3

ARROW REVIEWS NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4

ARROW REVIEWS NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5

ARROW REVIEWS NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 6

ARROW REVIEWS NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 7