Jackie Earle Haley says this version of Elm is mean, not campy. Photo / Supplied
The new guy behind Elm St's evil Freddy Krueger talks to Michele Manelis.
It's been 26 years since horror director Wes Craven terrified audiences with his Freddy Krueger, the monstrous bogeyman who invades the dreams of teenagers and kills them while they sleep. In this new version, Jackie Earle Haley takes on the iconic role that Robert Englund made famous.
Haley, 48, has
played a number of memorable bad guys - he earned an Oscar nomination for his role as a paedophile in Little Children and he played the sinister Rorschach in Watchmen.
"It was kind of scary playing this iconic role that one guy played so well and [which] has become a part of our culture. So, yes, it was daunting taking that on" he says of taking over the fedora, claws and striped shirt. "I'm not the hugest horror genre fan. I kind of liken it to a campfire story. There's something fun in sitting around and trying to scare one another," he says.
A former child star with boyhood TV credits for Bad New Bears, Murder, She Wrote, Breaking Away, and The Love Boat, Haley's career dried up in the 90s, and financial woes forced him into jobs ranging from limousine driver, furniture refinisher, security officer, pizza delivery guy and, when he was lucky, directing some television commercials. But his return in the 2006 movies All The King's Men, alongside Sean Penn, and Little Children reignited his career.
Of the 12 incarnations of Krueger-related movies, Englund played in 10.
The new take on Krueger is more faithful to the original concept but Haley's is a little meaner.
"If you look at the first Nightmare on Elm Street, it was darker than the rest that followed. It started to get a little campy. In this one, we embrace the origins of the film," says Haley.
LOWDOWN
What: Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger in the remake of the original Nightmare On Elm Street.
When and where: In cinemas from today.
