Robert Englund embraces title of horror icon and new role as host of True Terror – cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio Travel Channel executives knew they had to scare up the ideal tour guide for a series that would take viewers on journeys to dark and creepy corners of American history. Now, wouldnt Robert Englund be bloody perfect for such an assignment?

And, indeed, the actor best known for playing Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street movies was absolutely delighted to get the call. Englund not only happily embraces the strong association with the horror genre, he believes that, 17 years after his last time in Freddys striped sweater, he has aged into a great look for True Terror With Robert Englund, the six-part series that premieres at 10 p.m. Wednesday, March 18.

After wearing the horror makeup for 20 years as Freddy and some other heavy makeup horror roles, I realized something when I took off all that makeup, Englund said during a telephone interview. Im Swedish and Scottish, and my face was getting a little craggy. My hairline was receding. And I grew a beard that came in gray.

Before playing Freddy for the first time in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Englund often was typecast as a nerd or a rural Southerner. Then he was typecast as the monster. And then?

Well, around 2004, I had this look that allowed me to segue into playing evil fathers and mad scientists and old poachers and eccentric doctors, he said. It dovetailed very nicely from that to them thinking of me as a host as a sort of a road company Vincent Price. Its a good fit as host-narrator.

True Terror picks its destinations from newspaper stories of yesteryear. The premiere episode tells of a North Carolina storekeeper who is tormented by a prophetic countdown to his doom, a New Orleans teenager trapped inside a waking nightmare and an Atlanta police station that becomes the battleground for a killer.

Its a journey into the American psyche of the 19th century and early 20th century, and the kind of things that intrigued us, Englund said. Its the strange corners of American history. Whatever you make of them, these stories all found enough credibility to be written up in newspapers of the day.

And although hes not donning any Freddy-type makeup, Englund, 72, is conscious of playing a particular kind of role on True Terror.

Im Robert Englund, but Im echoing Rod Serling and Vincent Price, he said. Its a bit theatrical but also conversational.

It also helps that True Terror is just the type of show he would have loved as kid growing up in Southern California.

I was a huge horror fanboy as a kid, Englund said. I was fascinated by the makeups that Lon Chaney did in silent films. I was obsessed with that stuff. I can remember being in the third grade and lining up on the playground, and wed be whispering about the last episode of The Twilight Zone. And then I became a bit of a theater snob during the days of my classical education.

In the late 60 and early 70s, Englund was learning his trade as a busy young actor in regional theater. That included a few stints with Great Lakes Theater (then known as the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival).

It was so great, he said. I was just a kid doing small roles in Shakespeare plays, an occasional lead and understudying some of the bigger roles. I have all these great memories of working for three years or so at Great Lakes, summering in Rocky River and Lakewood, and riding my three-speed bike, with my knapsack and hippie hair, all over Cleveland.

Perhaps his most notable Great Lakes role was Judas in the hit 1971 production of Godspell. Three years later, he landed his first movie, director Daniel Petries Buster and Billie.

I was fortunate to have done a lot of theater, 12 movies and a hit TV series [NBCs sci-fi drama V] before I did Freddy, Englund said. If Freddy had been my first success, it might have been uncomfortable. But having all of that experience in your hip pocket, it was easier to go along for the ride when the Freddy fame hit. It was a lot of fun.

Adding to the fun was Cleveland native Wes Craven, the writer and director who dreamed up A Nightmare on Elm Street.

I kind of forgot how much I loved that stuff as a kid, Englund said. At some point, I got back in touch with it, and that fueled my great respect for the genre. That and working with Wes. Wes taught me to respect the genre.

Like so many who only knew Cravens name and credits, Englund expected the director to be a wild-eyed biker type.

I thought hed be all dressed in black with a skull earring, he said. And then you met this very funny, very warm, erudite, soft-spoken and sort of academic fellow. Such a sweet, sweet man.

Thanks to Craven, who died at 76 in 2015, Englund was on his way becoming a horror icon, playing Freddy in eight films and the 1988-90 series Freddys Nightmares.

It will be the lead in my obituary, he said. But you make peace with being a horror icon. Im so honored to be mentioned in the same breath as people like Vincent Price and Christopher Lee. I got to know both of them. They were such interesting, erudite men who could talk about anything, but they both had great respect for the horror genre, and so do I.

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Robert Englund embraces title of horror icon and new role as host of True Terror - cleveland.com

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero