Interviews
Exlusive Interview: Robert Englund - KILLER PAD
By Janet - The Fan Girl Next Door

Feb 6, 2008, 21:39

Robert Englund, all around nice guy and  horror icon was kind enough to speak with me yesterday morning to promote his new directorial effort "Killer Pad". This horror comedy comes out February 5th on DVD. Go pick it up today with a 6 pack of beer and a pizza. Robert wants you too...Really...Just read and see!

Fan Girl: Hey Robert

Robert Englund: Hi Janet how are you?

FG: I'm great how are you?

RE: I'm good, I'm a little jet lagged I was in Italy for 10 days scouting locations for a kind of horror fantasy I will be directing. It's easier coming back then it is going there.

I'm on daylight hours and I'm happy to be talking about "Killer Pad"!

FG: First let me say it is an honor speaking with you. I have a 13-year-old nephew who thinks I am very cool for interviewing you.

RE: Aw, well tell him I'm a nice guy. I promise I won't come and get you in your dreams while you take a nap!

FG: You do realize your going to live on forever, right?

RE: Well you know it’s so strange, I worked for years in the theater. I was maybe a good 10 to 12 years in Hollywood before I did the first Freddy. But I established myself as a character actor. I played best friends and side kicks a lot. Then, through no design of my own, the one two punch of being in a hit science fiction show, "V" on television. Then this little horror movie directed by the brilliant Wes Craven became a legitimate hit. Then it became an iconic horror movie of the latter 20th century.

You know it's just one of those things you can never plan but it is kind of ridiculous to try to control it. So I just sort of embraced the phenomenon, you know. And here I am eight nightmare on elm streets and 70 some movies later acting and directing and I am as pleased as punch.

FG: Absolutely, we are too.

RE:(laughs)

FG: Now you have "Killer Pad" coming out February 5th

RE: You know its interesting, a professional associate of mine who produced a film I loved years ago called "Suicide Kings" and has since become very successful in the business, Wayne Rice. Probably most famous for "Dude, where's my car" which was a huge giant teen hit that introduced Ashton Kutcher and Sean (William Scott) and Jennifer Garner to the world among other things such as "Duuuude" and ’Dudisms’. Wayne was very successful in teen films and he wanted to have a little fun with combining a bit of horror, horror spoof and be a teen comedy. It’s kind of a challenge because we actually made it PG 13 . We wanted to make it for what I call 'boys without drivers licenses'.So we adapted it for the evil spawn of my Freddy fans, you know their kids who really probably cant sneak into "Saw" but they could have a lot of fun at this one between going to a Judd Apatow film, you know?

We just got an amazing cast, extreme low budget but we got to shoot it up in the Hollywood hills and it has got a bit of a Faustian theme to it. My hapless three stooges sort of make a deal with the devil only they don’t know they are. Three guys from the Midwest that come to Hollywood with a wind fall from an operation gone wrong on their beloved pet dog. And they rent this house which just happens to be a portal to hell!

FG: Of course!

RE: (laughs) the great theme of the movie is just how much denial they will go through you know to see their party through  and the best thing about it is this extraordinary cast. We were in Hollywood  and we had to shut down up on Mulholland drive a little too early for my taste and squeeze the budget in other places but I just had the most extraordinary cast and crew. You probably know Daniel Franzese?

FG: Yes, I do

RE: From "Mean Girls" and also that wonderful film "Bully" and then I was able to pick some of my favorite guys off of TV. I got bobby lee  from "Mad TV"  who continually makes me laugh every Saturday night. My wife and I and the dog cuddle up and we can’t wait to see which new character Bobby Lee is going to uncover. My new favorite is Bobby Lee’s '24' where they spend 24 hours with him. Yeah, and he always wants to get naked, he is just a bad boy. We also got Hector Jimenez from “Nacho Libre” to sort of be my angel guardian to the portal.

He desperately tries to convince the guys to not rent the house or use the portal but they don’t listen. They just want to get laid. I have a great cameo by Joey Lawrence, very self deprecating, he plays sort of an A list star at the party, really on his way to play poker with Toby Maguire. We got TV’S Andy Milonakis to jump on board and a great young actor from ‘whose line is it anyway’, sort of doing my animal house, you know a crazy animal from the Midwest who is trying to test himself and to test his faith by going to one last party.

FG: Kind like '”Superbad” meets '”House”

RE: Yeah! I tell you we were really going for silly but we also  sort of got this . . . the new innocence, the new move is a little metro sexual, you know they talk about popular culture too but we didn’t want them to be glib and cynical because we had to manipulate them so much. It was kind of a fine line, we kind of wanted also, because it’s a low budget comedy, it’s not a new movie to go see the new digital effects, it's intentionally cheesy. We wanted to have a bit of a retro feel. Kind of an Abbott and Costello meets Frankenstein  and you know, a three stooges thing.. You know there is a golden rule about the master shot in comedy. It saved me money but in comedy you like the body language in comedy, you want to let their bodies react especially if you've got talented people.

If you watch old episodes of Sid Ceaser or old episodes of Mary Tyler Moore you watch how long Carl Reiner lets his characters stay in long shots so you can see the body language. So, I really enjoyed my three leads and a lot of tight masters to really let themselves feel  they are in something like “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”, Kind of a musical comedy, a physicality. I think it payed off. you know Eric Jungmann and Danny, I filmed it a little separate from my leading man ....Shane McRay who is sort of my loveable dolt and who they consider to be the small one. They really did some remarkable work and i think it's great for young audiences to get to see that kind of comedy. You get your dose of the kind of cynical hip stuff  from a lot of the talented guys working today like Judd Apatow but my guys are a little dumber and a little bit lamer and definitely more innocent

FG: That’s going to be refreshing to see because there isn’t anything out there right now that mixes horror and that comedic element.
 
RE: I love the glib and cynical but I also kind of wanted to preserve this plot, this Faustian theme. I really couldn’t have hip cool LA guys or really cool hip New York guys. I really had to make these guys from like a junior college somewhere in Southern Illinois.

FG: Right, you really don’t want it where they have seen it all and done it all.

RE: Right! You know we did find some cultural references, some things they could have because everyone watches TV and 'Entertainment Tonight' and knows about People magazine but with them it's sort of like to make it specifically lame, something happens like when they drive across the country their suitcase falls out the back of the car and they don’t notice they have lost their boxed set of Gilmore Girls. It doesn't mean they are metro sexual it just means they probably really like the daughter. Because they think she's.... HOT.

They like Alexis Bledel
                               

FG: Yeah, she's very cute

RE: She is the good girl too, she doesn’t invoke tramp

(laughs)

FG: I trust there will be audio commentary on the DVD?

RE: Yes. You know I LOVE DVD audio commentary and the making of but every time they ask me to do it i'm catching a plane or I’ve just been up for 48 hours acting, you get in there and you know you can react but your memories are weird. Like I can remember the burrito I had that morning at 8am and you feel weird but it’s always kind of funny. I remember doing the one from “Freddy vs. Jason”.  Ronny Yu and I had just done the entire sound check, you know I had just been doing all the breathing and groaning and the Freddy laugh to kind of spice up the sound check and Ronnie had been laying this music mix and everything else and Ronny was kind of falling asleep and my mind had just turned into one big mind fart.

I feel bad because if I could do it now, one morning when I have been sitting around on my butt all week and I have had a couple of Starbucks, I would be great! You know you just never get asked at the right time to do it. I feel sometimes that the fans get let down a bit. But I think this turned out all right, they edited it right.

FG: I'm sure it turned out fine

RE: Oh . . . we used a special new HD camera called the 'viper'. It had only been used once before for the film "Zodiac" and we were using it on a comedy which is really a first. And specially for me because I'm a techno weenie, I'm great with jokes and scripts and words and drama and shapes and actors and casting. I could go to camera school for a year but I like to surrender to a guy who has been doing it for 20 years. I can talk a little bit about lenses and ratios and filters but it’s like when you learn just enough of a foreign language to sound like a child. I don’t want to be that guy on the set.

I’ve been on enough sets to know what that sounds like. The new guys on the block, you don’t want to be that guy. So what I know is what I want to use. You know this movie is not a fancy movie, it is a quick 85 minute comedy. Get in and out, laugh and eat some cold pizza and drop the movie off at the mom and dad video store in the morning.

I'm so proud of my cast and the writing, we've got some great music in it too. We've got some Master P on board and there is a wonderful, wonderful rap back beat cover of the old Madness song "Our House", 80's but done with a rap back beat and interpretation  and of course the title song, we had been singing it for 6 months . . . I hope the fans like it. It’s got some great nasty lyrics, very infectious too.

FG: Were there any memorable moments that happened on set that you could share?

RE: You know there were weird things that happened. We have this phenomenally beautiful actress named Emily Foxler who plays the lead. She needs to go from innocent to my devil woman! She had to wear these devil wings and I think they look great in a theatrical way when she’s morphing, but I could see this motor on her butt [that helped the wings move] so I always had to keep her ass out of the shot. So that became my fixation for 48 hours it was like 'try to hide Emily’s butt' because it had this motor stuck to it. Also, just day in and day out ,you know, we ruined so many takes because Eric and Danny and Shane are just so fun, and I had to hold them back a bit because it’s too easy to fall back into that hip humor.

They have to remain buffoons and they need to stay in denial about what is going on around them. You know watching Andy Milonakis I was nervous because Andy has worked on MTV where he is in total control. He’s like Woody Allen, he is one of the few people who can do exactly what he wants. And I had to tell him stuff and he was such a little pro. I was so pleased with his stuff. There were weird days... We had Hector Jimenez vomiting his out heart over and over again so we could get it covered from different angles. Sam McMurray, I have been a fan of Sam McMurray's. I  produced a play that was written for him by John Patrick Stanley who won the Oscar for....

FG: ....Moonstruck

RE: Yeah! I have always wanted to hire Sam again, I have been such a huge fan of his ever since I discovered him in the Coen brother’s comedy “Raising Arizona.” I could have just done a whole movie with Sam’s character. I feel bad I had to cut him down to one scene, which is what it is in the script, but everything I cut out was great stuff. I think my favorite day was when he and Danny and Eric went off on  a kind of a metro sexual jag, it got a little . . . we had to call legal! It got a little dangerous but it was really a great, great improve. Funny, I never laughed so hard in my life.

Also, we sort of had a rough day with the animal house stunts at the party. The crazed seminary student finally succumbs to the beautiful catholic girls and tries to do an insane dive into a pool in the Hollywood hills. We just e couldn’t quite get it right and after two takes you’re really into some big money with the stunt man there. It was at night and it was a pretty decent high fall but my editor Eric got around it because it had to be just like we wanted it, it had to be funny. And on one of the takes the stunt man just clipped the branches of a little tree, just enough to where it is in the shot. And along with the impact shot we got our funny stunt. That was a long night and a scary night. We were watching the clock and you’re always worried about safety in those situations even though we had a great stunt man and a great stunt coordinator. As a director you do get worried but it’s like that Rolling Stones song ,”It's only rock and roll.”

In a teen comedy you don’t want anyone to get hurt. No one was hurt, no animals were hurt in the film, you'll understand that when you see it. Oh, and a couple of girls got bad skin from the makeup. But they can live with it, just break out the Clearasil. Believe me I know.

FG: I must ask you, what are your feelings on the "Nightmare on Elm Street” remake from Michael Bay's company,Platinum Dunes?

RE: You know I literally got back from Italy last night and I'm over there and i'm out scouting locations...I mean I knew this was going to happen because of the success of the remakes like Rob Zombie’s “Halloween” which I really enjoyed. And the success of the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” remake which I really enjoyed. It just seems logical to me. I mean the original “Nightmare on Elm Street” is a classic and it always will be.

FG: Oh Absolutely

RE: But I remember when we ran out of money on that film and New Line had to give away some of the video rights. This was in the very beginning of the video tape revolution and we took that money to finish the film. So I have always wondered if we would have had two million instead of one million or we could have had five million to make it. And because that story is so great and the shape of that story is so strong, I'm not worried about it being overly done with special effects. I'm not sure, I was in Italy and I'm not sure if Michael Bay is producing or directing.

FG: I believe he is producing with Platinum Dunes

RE: I think the responsibility will lay with the hot young director. To know when to push the envelope with horror and the gore and when to really exploit the digital effects, I think for the kind of surrealism that the film requires. Because that’s what so wonderful about dreams and the dream state.

 You can really get away with a wonderful shift of reality and that’s where I, if I were doing the project, would like to have fun manipulating. With the new technologies that we have. But I don't think I would change the story much. That is the problem with some of the great effects films now. They are a little story weak. You can tell they think they can fix some of the story problems in post. The fact is that almost never works. You can only fix a badly shot scene, you can sometimes make wonderful enhancements with the sky, the clouds or twinkling lights. That always helps a scene be more romantic, more atmospheric but you can’t save a film with special effects that has gone wrong with the story. And “Nightmare on Elm Street” is such a strong little story.

I know we shot three different endings and whoever is writing or directing really needs to pick that ending out right. They have at least two or three ways to go with the very ending. I remember the various ones that even Wes shot, they were quite different. But essentially the one that exists now, that the entire movie has almost been a prophetic nightmare of Nancy's, warning her of what is about to happen. It will immediately begin almost right after the movie ends. Because, of course, at the end Johnny Depp pulls up to pick her up for school in the morning. So none of it has really happened yet.

FG: Are you a little worried about Ben Affleck playing Freddy Krueger?

RE: (laughs) Nah., I have had a great run. I mean literally 48 hours ago I was auditioning some of the top actresses in Italy for my film. I have found a great lead . . . I'm not allowed to divulge names . . .

FG: Awwww

RE: BUT someone amazing is playing the patriarch in my film, someone whom we all love...someone who has probably been in some of the more successful franchises in the world. If I said James Bond, Lord of the Rings ...... (voice gets lower and lower in a very amusing tone) . . . of course i'm only suggesting..

It’s an Italian, Canadian and Spanish production so i'm off to plan it in a couple of weeks.  To get some casting done. I'm hoping the good fortune we have had in the last 48 hours will come to fruition in March April and May . . . and we'll end up in a little Italian hill town. It's inspired by a short story about a fallen angel.

FG: That sounds interesting

RE: Well, I want it to be scary and atmospheric  but I want there to be some really shocking thrills and I want to introduce a new monster in it. Really a great romance, a dark romance, almost gothic. I got my hands full but you heard it here first!

FG: Oh good, well thank you!

RE: Oh yes! I think I'm going to have my fallen priest. My priest without faith will make love to a dead girl. Scary stuff. But when I talk about that I mean sleeping beauty, snow white.

FG: (fake gasp) right, right

RE: (amused by my reaction) some great shit

FG: (laughs)

FG: You know there is something I had heard that I have always wanted to ask you about. Is it true you auditioned for the role of Luke Skywalker?

RE: NO! I don’t know where that comes from.  I talk about my old pal Mark Hamill. He was sleeping on my couch back in those days. He kept the kitchen in his Hollywood apartment, he was such a bachelor, his kitchen just got disgusting. He didn’t want to do the dishes.  There was like a month of dishes in there. And my ex Janice Fischer, who wrote "lost boys" would hang out with us, mark and I, and we would call our agents together and compare notes on Hollywood.

You know I always thought then that Mark was the funniest guy in Hollywood. I don’t think I ever laughed so hard in my life than in those years i spent hanging out with Mark. Mark was up for Luke Skywalker, not I. I had gone across the hall in a military shirt and my sleeves rolled up all tan and I was very big and buff then, i'm a surfer. And I had gone up for the part of the surfer in "Apocalypse Now.”

FG: Wow, I never knew that

RE: Yeah, and that part I believe is played by Joe Bottoms and because of the military shirt, it's like the military type shirt that Harrison ford wears in "Star Wars", you know? I was called across the hall to read for Han Solo, I don't think I read I think it was just for a meeting.

They brought me over to look at me. I was too young because Han Solo was supposed to be older than Mark. Kind of like an older brother. Older and wiser and I didn’t look that much older than Mark . . . so, that's the story. I didn’t read for Luke Skywalker. I don’t  even think I read for Han solo. I actually wanted to read for the cook, the Freddy Forrest part in "Apocalypse Now" because back in those days I had been the go to guy for young southerners. I starred in three or four movies playing southerners. But I wound up being brought in as the surfer because it was on my resume that I surfed. I think I was too old for that part.

Back then because I was hanging out with Mark, I knew all of the stores and all of the gossip, in fact when Mark got back from doing "Star Wars" he was probably one of the few people who knew how really big it was going to be because Mark is such a genre fan himself. I mean there are literally old famous monster magazines with letters in them from a little boy named Mark Hamill

FG: Oh that's sweet

RE: Yeah, well that how long he's been a fan, of course back in those days a lot of us were trying to be a little bit snobby

FG: (laughs)

RE: (snickers) it took years to actually confess my love for the genre. And how much certain movies.."Forbidden planet,” "Horrors of the black museum,” you know as a child, how much those movies meant to me. "Twilight zone" and "The Outer Limits.” You know you want everyone to think you’re an intellectual and that you like all the important intellectual works and believe me I do, I have a very diverse taste in things. I can go see "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" and one day I want to see "Saw 4".

I like everything. It took me a long time and Mark encouraged me to kind of make peace with that, those memories inside of me. I literally remembered about six months ago, as a child, going to my godfather’s house and he was a huge salesman with Simon and Schuster. The biggest guy west of the Mississippi and he had rooms and rooms of coffee table books. I would pull out the same book every time I had to go over there and it was "Life Magazine Goes to the Movies.” and I would turn to the horror section. I remembered a couple of images and I'm 8 years old. One of them was Frankenstein  by the lake with the little girl and the other was a series of pictures of Lon Chaney, the man of a thousand faces, all in different makeups.

I looked at that article and those photos of Lon Chaney and I remembered him talking about how he took the film around a hard boiled egg and put it over his eye to make himself look blind. Technically that was the first contact lens. I remember that, I was so obsessed with that. Then things change, you discover girls, surfing, whatever I was doing. I have wondered now, for the past six months if that was in my subconscious when I was excited about doing the original 'Nightmare' because I was excited about doing it for the challenge and the makeup and because I really thought Wes was a genius. I had enough instinct to know how special Wes was just from  talking to him once at the interview because he was such a great storyteller.

FG: You just knew something special was there

RE: Yes, it's weird, I'm able to acknowledge, talk about how I loved horror and science fiction and fantasy as a child and I remember it. As well as loving Shakespeare when I was a young actor too. I credit that to Mark Hamill and Wes Craven because they really taught me to respect it.

FG: I don't think people realize you have a stage background..

RE: Well thats what I was going to be. There was this huge moment of time in the late 60's where regional theater was beginning to blossom. The progressive work as well as the classic and in the late 60's and early 70's you could live really well on a stage actors salary in a lot of places in America. My god, I had a place in Malibu, in the early 80's, that only cost $250.00 a month.

FG: Oh, your kidding me?

RE: No, real estate really has gone crazy. I always tell young artists that is one of things that is different now. You know you hear about actors from the 40's, 50's and 60's living in New York and sharing an apartment and each was paying 65 dollars a person. When I was stage actor I worked in some really beautiful summer stocks and community resorts,in a couple of major cities back east, and I always imagined I would get a great little house, outside of town and walk to the theater. And I really kind of wanted to be that person for a while but then I discovered there was just as much politics in the theater as there is in Hollywood and I was sitting up very late one night watching a Roger Corman movie on television and drinking some wine to calm myself down and I noticed on the credits for the Roger Corman movie it was all my friends I had gone to school with in California, behind the camera . . . on this film.

There was another film called "Boxcar Bertha" which was directed by another young unknown by the name of Martin Scorsese. And I knew a lot of the guys on that crew too.I had run into the same crews on the plays I had been doing. I remember having some envy but I thought 'my god if i'm putting up with bullshit in the theater  I may as well go back to California  and put up with it there and make a little money'

Im really happy I did it, I think it was the right decision

FG: Well I think so too

RE: (laughs) Yeah

FG: Who is someone you have always wanted to work with but haven’t had a chance to yet?

RE: I just got back from Sundance, before Italy and I attended the premiere of “Red.”

FG: Oh, the Jack Ketchum Novel

RE: YEAH! And I got to pull my marks with two actors I really admire, Amanda Plummer and Brian Cox, the original Hannibal Lecter. I starred in a movie with Henry Fonda in 1975, 1976, and my girlfriend was played by Susan Sarandon. Now its 2008 and i'm hanging out with Brian Cox and he is someone I have always wanted to work with.

There are things that come as surprises too, you just never quite know, like working with the kids on "Killer Pad" was great for me. It made me young.  It actually broadened my perceptual horizons on comedy and how to do comedy and how to listen to young people and what they bring to the table with their point of view on what is funny. You know i'm getting a little old now, I am an old dog.

FG: Awww, stop

RE: (amused) But I still have a couple of new tricks left.

FG: Oh good

RE: I even have a couple of old tricks left that I haven’t shown anybody and that's kind of fun . . .  You know I'm like you and everybody else, i'm a fan. I mean i'm going to vote for the Oscars. I just got back and I’ve got my ballot in the kitchen. I love actors, I'm actually disappointed that a couple of people didn’t get in there. You know I love actors.  I don’t understand why Casey Affleck isn’t up for best actor.

FG: I don’t get that either

RE:....I'd think he would have been up for best actor. There was also a performance, it was also a genre film, you might be aware of . . .  Now I love everyone that is up for best actress . . . last year a young woman was up for a film called "The Departed" and even though this year it was a genre film and it was a very classy genre film, called "Joshua.” Without a doubt the most wrenching performance I saw this year from an actress was Vera Farmiga in "Joshua.” As a sort of yuppie, rosemary's baby mother. Her tits go dry and she doesn’t lactate and goes neurotic and Sylvia Plath over the course of the movie. It was like watching Gena Rowlands!

I thought it was some of the most amazing work I saw all year. Like Maggie Gyllenhall's work was overlooked in "Sherrybaby.” I know these are small films but there are small films nominated this year and I don’t feel it's the academy's fault as much  as sometimes films just come out too soon I think. It’s that timing thing, I'm telling everyone I know to go see "Joshua" because I really liked it.

FG: Yeah Sam Rockwell is in that

RE: Yes!

FG: He is an amazing actor

RE: Sam Rockwell is too good, he's never the same. Nobody knows who the hell he is because he is just too damn good! (Laughs)

FG: He's a great character actor

RE:  Oh Yeah

FG: Robert. I really appreciate you talking to me

RE: Thanks! Please, tell all my fans that have been around for a while that "Killer Pad" is probably the movie they will want to go buy or rent for their kids.

FG: Absolutely

RE: And if you discover it on pay per view or cable, let me tell you when it's raining out or it's snowing out and I know it is in a lot of places, it's the perfect beer and pizza movie. I guarantee you'll laugh!

...laugh and tap your foot

FG: Oh!

RE: maybe even jump once or twice

FG: Thanks again for talking with me, I really appreciate it

RE: Thank YOU Janet

See "Killer Pad" directed by Robert Englund, now available on DVD

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