INT: Heather Langenkamp

Last Updated on July 28, 2021

The Arrow
interviews
Heather Langenkamp

All
horror fans should know who I’m talking about when I mention the
name Heather Langenkamp. She played Nancy, the original Freddy
basher, in the first “A Nightmare on Elm Street”, reprised the role in its zany sequel
“A Nightmare on Elm Street 3” and played herself in Wes Craven’s off-the-wall
“New Nightmare”. Heather stopped by The Arrow’s to talk about the
inauguration of her Official Site,
which goes LIVE on October 31, 2001 and her career.


1- What’s your favorite horror movie?


Nightmare
on Elm Street and Wes Craven’s New Nightmare… surprised?

2- Did you get into acting by fluke or
did you always want to do it?

I’ve
loved acting all my life but I was from the kind of family that
valued more traditional occupations.
When I was 17, I worked at The Tulsa Tribune newspaper as
a copy girl. I saw
an ad for extras needed for Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Outsiders”
that was shooting in Tulsa.
My best friend and I went downtown and met the casting
director, handed in our Polaroid headshots and hoped to get a
call. It was
definitely a fluke but also one of those rare moments in life
where opportunity knocked and I actually answered the door. The casting director later gave me a tiny speaking role in
“Rumblefish” – also shot in Tulsa that summer- which got me into
the Screen Actors Guild (The scene wasn’t in the final cut
however.) From that
summer, I met many encouraging people who helped me begin my
career as an actress. I’d say that very few actors have such good luck in the
beginning of their career.

3- “Nightmare On Elm Street” was your
first lead part. Looking back, how was the experience? Were you
nervous? Were you really afraid of Robert Englund in costume?
Any funny set stories that you can share with us?

I
had a few other roles before NOE, so I didn’t feel like an
absolute beginner. I think I am a very eager person and I tried
to let people know that I would take advice if they had it.
Robert Englund was a fountain of information as was John
Saxon. I enjoyed
learning from them. Of
course you are always nervous on a set for the first few days.
The funniest moments I remember from the first movie were the
days I spent with Ronee Blakely, who played my mother.
She had not played a mother of a teenager and so we
decided to go to the Galleria – a big mall in LA – and pretend
that we were shopping for a prom dress for me.
I spent the afternoon trying on the ugliest dresses we
could find and getting into a radical mother/daughter fight to
the horror of the store clerk.

I
also remember always showing up to work on days when big special
effects were planned and having the feeling that no one was
quite ready. The SP
F/X crew was always pulling rabbits out of their hats at the
last minute. The greatest example of this on film was the shot
of Johnny Depp getting sucked into his bed and the blood gushing
forth like a huge water spout. AN exact replica of Johnny’s
bedroom was rigged inside a room that could spin on an axle. All
the walls were there but one – where the camera was positioned
and where you could get in and out.
I believe several men were required to actually spin the
room 360 degrees. The
blood was rigged inside the bed and then Wes called action. This was one of those kinds of scenes where it pretty
much has to work the first time. Cleaning up all the blood and repainting the walls and
redressing the furniture would be a major ordeal.

So
the room starts to spin and the blood pours forth out of the bed
and then Wes and the crew realized that the room was spinning in
the
wrong direction! Instead of all the blood gushing out of the bed
and then splashing down the walls (to get a really disgusting
blood drenched effect), the room had been spun the wrong way so
that the blood gushed out of the bed and then right out of the
room through the opening and all over Wes, the cameraman and the
crew. If you look at the scene in the film, Wes ingeniously took
a creepy wind effect and gave the impression that some kind of
cosmic storm actually makes the blood disappear… it worked
beautifully because in our dreams that kind of non-sequitur
action actually happens. Rain
falling up and the like. But truly, that scene was planned to
have a totally different effect.

4- While shooting the Elm Street movies,
did you sometimes bring the nightmares home with you? How did
you sleep?

In
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, I did experience a lot more
nightmares during and after the filming.
I was in every scene literally and I was totally wrapped
up in my work on the set like nothing I’d ever done before. I
was shocked to discover from my husband that I took to sleep-walking during that period and
had several vivid dreams where I replayed the final scene with
Freddy’s tongue wrapped around my head (Please don’t try to analyze me with that image.) I also remember in NOE 3 having several Nightmare’s where
I had to save Patricia Arquette from Freddy’s claw.
But in general, I sleep very well,
thank you.

5- Were you disappointed that you
weren’t asked to appear in Nightmare on Elm Street 2-4-5-6?

No.

6- You played yourself in Wes Craven’s
New Nightmare. How different was it playing Heather in contrast
to playing Nancy? Must have been odd.

An
actor wants to play a character. I definitely learned from that experience that it’s
easier to develop motivation and actions when your own personal
ego isn’t involved. I
often thought that people would think that the things I did in
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare were like me in real life. I only
wish I could be as cool and brave as that “Heather
Langenkamp.” I actually felt I had more of a right to
challenge Wes on certain lines and ideas because he was using my
name for the character. I
was more careful about what I wanted to portray because I
personally felt more vulnerable to the way my character would be
perceived. It is
hard to describe but trust me; I wouldn’t want to do it again.

7- You
used to be on a show called “Just The Ten Of Us”. I used
to watch that show religiously and was quite bummed when it got
cancelled. How was shooting on a sitcom different than feature
films?

A
sitcom is a great experience for any actor. You have to be quick on our feet and in top form. The schedule is grueling on one hand and wonderfully
exciting on the other (No
waiting forever for shots to
be set up!) On JTTOU, the ensemble immediately trusted each other
and we really got along well. We had a different director every
week, which made every week very exciting.
There was a lot of rehearsal, relatively speaking…. so
we tried all sorts of wacky ideas to get a laugh. That was truly
the greatest payoff – a huge laugh from the live audience!

I
was the religious daughter and had a great time developing
Marie’s quirky personality.
One day, you find a movement of the head or a way of
walking that clicks and then suddenly the character comes alive
for you. It takes a
few weeks/months for that to happen but it evolves naturally
from the day in and day out attention you are paying to your
work.

n
film, it is up to
the actor to develop and bring to the set on the first day that
sophistication with her character.
It is a lot more pressure, and naturally there is often
not the days and weeks of rehearsal time to work out the tiniest
details. I can’t count the times when I arrived on set and had
only a few minutes to actually walk around a brand new set and
look at it and figure out how I would move around and what
objects I could use then I’d meet my co-star with a brief
hand-shake and then suddenly the director’s calling action and
you’re running the scene for the first time – it is extremely
invigorating and exciting but frustrating too, knowing that with
more time the scene would get better and better. Just when the
director is happy, I always feel like I can still be better.

8-
You played another Nancy (Kerrigan) in the TV movie “Tonya and Nancy:
The Inside Story”. Did you feel a lot of pressure having to
play a real-life person? What kind of research did you do for
the part? Can you skate?

I
realized early on that no matter what kind of job I did, Nancy
Kerrigan would never like my performance. Who would? There was something ridiculous about the whole
story. So I felt
freer to really go for a portrayal that would serve the purpose
of the TV movie. Something
not quite realistic, something bordering on the voyeuristic,
tabloid kind of acting that this movie would sell itself on.
It was very campy and quirky.
I really loved recreating that terrible scene where
Kerrigan got whacked in the knee. We had all seen that on TV a
million times and I really tried hard to be exactly like Nancy
in that. I studied her tapes of course to try to develop similar
speech patterns. But
talk about quick. we made that movie in about ten days I think. One or two takes per shot and that was it. I love ice skating and had taken lessons as a child. But I trained with a great skater for a few weeks and
realized that I couldn’t do much at all. I actually fell really
hard a few times and realized that ice skaters are probably the
toughest athletes out there.

9- You’ve just hopped on the
“internet train” with your official site that
goes
LIVE on Halloween. What prompted you to hit the web?

I
was tired of a lot of Web sites talking about me and getting
stuff wrong. I also love my fans and wanted to find a way to
have a more direct line to them. I’ve collected great pictures
from the Nightmare sets and am aware of lots of different kinds
of discussions going on about Nightmare on Elm Street… a web
site is a perfect place to put it all together.

10- What
can we expect from Heather Langenkamp in the near future?

I
am working hard on my career after several years raising my two
awesome kids. I have an independent feature at the end of this
year that I’m doing, and producing a film of my own called “Grimke.” It’s the story of a horrible little boy who redeems
himself on Christmas Eve.

11-
Do you know if the “Nancy” character is set to return
for the long awaited “Freddy vs Jason”?

I
am curious to know myself. Though I think it will be hard enough writing a story to
hold those two evil monsters without having to try to find a
place for Nancy too.

12- Of all the parts you have played,
which one is the closest to your heart?

In
high school, I played Nora in Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s
House”. It is one of the best roles for a woman ever written, I
think. Learning
that play and having the chance to play her made me want to be
an actress. That
role made me believe in the power of theater to express great
ideas. I want to
play roles like that. Second
in line would be Nancy Thompson. Like I said, every girl wishes she could fight Freddy and
win (or at least put up a good fight!)

13- I couldn’t end this Q&A without
asking this question: What’s your favorite Elm Street film and
why?

Nightmare
on Elm Street – the original. I just can’t believe I got to be part of that pivotal
film. I am still surprised by its success.

‘d like to thank Heather
for popping over. Another one of my dreams just came true. Man, working
on this site surely has its perks. I encourage you all to be there on
October 31, 2001 for the opening of Heather’s Official
site