Robert Englund quotes:

Death by plane crash scares me. I travel a lot, and when you hit turbulence, and post 9/11, that's in the back of my mind a bit.

As a result of playing Freddy Krueger, I can remember having to look at some medical books, and at some of the disfigurement that fire can cause on people, because they were the source material for some of the prosthetic makeup that I wore. That aided and abetted this fear of death by fire. Which is sort of what happened to Fred Krueger.

I have an Italian comedy at the Venice Film Festival.

When I was 9, I went to a birthday party. We were supposed to see a cowboy movie, but the programming got screwed up and we saw 'The Bad Seed' instead. Horrifying. For years I was frightened of girls with pigtails.

I wouldn't want the pressure of a Six Feet Under or the pressure of improvising like Curb Your Enthusiasm.

I went to see a children's matinee at the movie theatre one summer, but at some point they had changed to the grown up movie in the late afternoon, and I ended up seeing this movie called 'The Bad Seed.' It just terrified me.

I know there's a certain love and affection for the homemade on the Internet, and I'm all for that, too, and I appreciate it in alternative music, and I appreciate it in B-movies and in Sundance, independent films.

I'm a big fan of Brian De Palma's 'Sisters,' and I also love 'Let The Right One In.'

Halloween starts earlier and earlier, just like Christmas.

And in Freddy vs. Jason I like when Jason and I double team Destiny's Child.

I do genre films because I like them or because I need the money. I make a star's salary when I do horror because I can still open a movie in Italy or Spain or Germany.

When I was a boy, I read a terrible article in a big weekly American magazine called the 'Saturday Evening Post.' In the middle of this family magazine on my parent's coffee table was an article about this family that was camping, and they were all mauled by a grizzly bear in their sleeping bags.

If they do something like that, maybe a Freddy Krueger fan, a girl, a really sick goth girl starts killing kids herself and Freddy has to put a stop to it, or they have to fight it out.

I'm scared by the enormous amount of bottled water being consumed today, instead of people drinking filtered tap water. Did you know that nearly 90 percent of those plastic bottles are not recycled and wind up in landfills where it takes thousands of years for the plastic to decompose?

Jeff Bridges taught me a lot about how to keep a scene fresh.

I never played Freddy as real. In the true bible of Wes Craven's outline for the films, Freddy only manifests himself in dreams. And a lot goes into a dream, not the least of which is imagination. So Freddy is secondhand information. Freddy is an urban legend that's been handed down to these teenagers over the years.

When you see Robert Englund in a movie, you think he is the bad guy, but if I'm not the bad guy, and I'm supposed to just kind of fool the audience, it makes it a lot easier for whichever actor is the bad guy. So I find myself doing a lot of those, I think they're called red herring characters, faking out the audience.

Many great horror stories are period pieces and English actors have a facility for historic characters.

We all have to change with the times... it keeps you younger; it's a new challenge.

Horror does better when it's bubbling under. It's a niche. It doesn't like the limelight.

I just finished my 62nd or my 63rd movie here, and you know, I do good ones, I do bad ones, I do big parts, I do small parts, I do cameos - but I've allowed myself a pat on the back, because I realized that I've been working in Hollywood now since 1973.

Kids today don't watch a black and white movie.

It's real simple - we all have nightmares, and the idea you can be in real jeopardy in them is a great gimmick. It's universal.

But it's mostly about pacing yourself when you do these movies.

Nightmare on Elm Street' really lends itself to using new technologies. CGI would be a great way to exploit and embrace the dream sequences.

I think there's a time and place to watch an independent film, or catch up on a French action film on your laptop, or Netflix it, or download it, or watch it on-demand. But I think we also have to maintain the sacredness of the movie theatre as church - especially with event screenings.

I always wanted to play a monster, and I also wanted to work with Wes Craven.

I get a lot of teenagers going, 'Yo, Krueger,' and honking their horn and giving me the claw. Yeah, I'm recognized.

Horror movies travel pretty well anyway. They're like action movies: People overseas can watch them and enjoy them, and they're not so culturally specific in terms of their references, and they can follow a good scary story.

We were having a sleepover when I was eight or nine, and we all got to stay up late and watch the original 'Frankenstein.' It was uncensored, so as a child, I saw the scene where he throws the little girl into the lake, and that freaked me out. Though not as much as when he hangs the hunchback.

While I still do a lot of horror, it doesn't feel to me like I'm repeating myself. I like to stay interested. I'm kind of turning into one of those elder statesmen, like a Vincent Price or a Donald Pleasence. I like to think of myself alongside those guys.

Most of my nightmares involve me forgetting my lines in a stage play.

I did a lot of stuff before I became known for horror. I did a lot of small films in the '70s, in all kinds of styles. I worked with all kinds of people when I was just starting out: I was incredibly lucky.

I have friends that are much better actors than I am that had to quit the business because they couldn't survive the auditions or the rejections, or people just didn't realize how good they were.

I would like to see the technology used to explore more period horror genre works, for example, E. A. Poe.

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 years, the best friend for years, the redneck for years, the nerd for years and let me tell you...it's better to be a monster than to be a nerd.

Gosh, I'd like to direct Our Town on stage.

I sat in the barber's chair in David Miller's makeup shop, hours and hours of trial and error. While David poked at me with his crusty brushes, I grew more and more profane. That's how I started to find the voice of Freddy.

There'll always be movies that are meant for the big screen, and they should be seen that way.

I actually am grateful for Freddy Krueger, because the big surprise to me - with that sort of double punch of science fiction TV series and then the 'Nightmare on Elm Street' phenomenon - was that I got an international celebrity out of it.

I have very liberal parents. People forget that Fidel Castro was on the cover of 'Time' magazine, and the one that I remember the most - it's not necessarily my favorite - was when they dressed me as Castro when I was eight years old. I was in fatigues, camouflage hat, beard and cigar. I don't think I did that well with candy that year.

I'm a Hollywood kid, and I know that there are only so many stories. Only so many tales around the campfire that we have to tell. Then we have to regurgitate them. Our grandparents' movies were all remakes of silent films - we forget that, but it's true.

As a jobbing actor, you can't afford to be choosy; if you're typed, you're generally working. I still feel that way, and the thing is, even within the horror genre, I now get to play all kinds of different roles.

I used to drive up from theatre in Michigan to Stratford, Ontario to watch every show. I idolized the actors from Stratford. I was very influenced by them because they would come down and work at my theatre and get time on their American Equity union cards.

Had I not done Shakespeare, Pinter, Moliere and things such as 'Godspell' - I played Judas in a hugely successful production before I did 'Elm Street' - I'd probably be on a psychiatrist's couch saying: 'Freddy ruined me.' But I'd already done 13 movies and years of non-stop theatre.

I've done 'Two Gentlemen of Verona,' I've understudied Iago in 'Othello.' I've done Mercutio in 'Romeo and Juliet.'

I didn't make good money on 'Nightmare' until part three. I eventually got some nice merchandising checks.

I'm basically a movie actor now, and my big roles are mostly horror movies - unless I'm doing a guest star or something - and occasionally I try to get back into television.

I was on the cusp - or thought I was on the cusp - of celebrity, the result of starring as an adorable curly-haired alien in the miniseries 'V' on NBC. 'V' was a hit, and then got green-lit as a series. During the hiatus, the only job I auditioned for that fit my schedule was 'Nightmare on Elm Street.' That's the real reason I said yes.

The last time we had Freddy in reality was part two and Freddy sort of went out on his own.

You're going to have to surrender a little bit to the contrivance of how Freddy and Jason get together.

The modern horror audience is wise to our tricks this lets it in on the gag.

Sometimes jobs are jobs, and when you guest star on television, you're also working with a guest director. You're the new kid on the block, because everyone else is already in the ensemble.

My dad worked as an executive at Lockheed Aircraft and worked on the U-2 and things like that. My mother was a homemaker, and she was vice-president of the Democratic Council of California back in the '50s.

I think superheroes today are like whistle blowers.

The truth of it is when you get an audience to laugh and camp along with you, it's much easier to scare 'em again because they're using two sides of their emotions. It's much easier to set them up for a good cheap thrill scare again.

I actually sing horribly, but I used to dance pretty good. I was a gymnast, and you can usually use those gymnastic tricks with dance. Plus, they're so much fun to do. That wasn't really a big part of my career. It was just a phase.

A lot of guys like to go to the beach and bring a crowd, but not me. I like to be alone and out there with a couple of pelicans.

All my old surfing injuries have kind of come back to haunt me.

American Horror Story on cable now, it is terrific. There has to be room to re-invent.

Arguably, the Venice Film Festival is the second best film festival in the world, after Cannes.

Because I am known in the horror genre now, I try and do at least one horror movie a year for my fans, my fans have been so good to me.

By the time I'm out of makeup, I'm ready to act.

Doing a movie in Tel Aviv or London or South Africa or Mexico. It's this great second act to my career, and it's a real good time.

Everybody has a nightmare, and everybody apparently has falling dreams, and everybody has the drowning dream, and everybody has certain kinds of sexual manifestation dreams, as well as our stress dreams; I didn't study for the algebra test, I didn't study for my driving test, you know, all those dreams. I still have those dreams, and it's just such an interesting thing that our mind can turn against us, our own mind, you know we all have.

Everybody underestimated the universality of the concept of a nightmare or a bad dream.

Hollywood is tripping over its own feet.

Horror has been very good to me in my career. Doing horror films is for the fans and helps keep that part of my career alive.

I always get inspiration from whatever characters say about my character.

I always liked the skinny punk girls; I even loved them before punk.

I always serve the writer first because I'm English trained, even though I'm American.

I am constantly seeing new horror that I like.

I am lucky. I am fortunate. I found the love of my life.

I did lots of Shakespeare and classics, and I just kind of became that person. I was a bit of a snob.

I do a lot of stuff in my career, but I like to keep a hand in horror.

I do genre films because I like them, or because I need the money.

I do love old horror, everytime I watch Rosemary's Baby the performances just get richer and richer and more multi-layered, and I see images that are just so politically outrageous. I love it all.

I don't choose roles. I go where I'm wanted.

I don't rush out the first day to see every horror movie, but I do keep up on them, because I want to talk intelligently with the fans about them.

I hate these actresses-pretending-to-be-lesbians movies. To me, that's just as prurient as a bad violent movie.

I have friends in New York that won't leave New York, and they're really talented people, but they'd rather take an acting class in New York than do a play in Florida or Boston. That's just weird to me, but they get into that I've-got-to-be-in-the-center-of-the-universe mentality. I'm not that way.

I have some friends that just stick to the same criteria over and over again not realizing there are lots of other kinds of people and that may be what you like. People get in that mindset and put their blinders on.

I kind of forgot about the inner child in me that loved the old horror movies.

I know actors that were on great television shows that got cancelled and they have never done anything that good since.

I know sometimes when I go to a convention or a film festival occasionally people bring me really valuable and really rare memorabilia that I have never seen before.

I know there really is someone out there for everyone.

I liked girls with pale skin because I am a California boy, tanned and blonde hair.

I love fire. Fire is hypnotic.

I love fire. I just think it's hypnotic and great, but I've got to tell you - on a sound stage, that stuff scares me.

I love new questions.

I love the idea of comedy in horror. I think this should be allowed.

I love the idea that all genres can have subsets.

I loved horror since I was a kid.

I make a star's salary when I do horror, because I can still open a movie in Italy or Spain or Germany.

I may be a B-movie star, but I work. I'm an actor.

I think I am a little too old now.

I think that what's happened is that there's been a rediscovery of some good old-school films and a realization that there's always a place for them. We don't have to outgrow them with the new technology and we can do them with it and we can do them without it. We shouldn't always have the demands made on us to do it.

I was quite a snob when I was a theatre actor earlier in my career.

I'd like to see a really good kind of closeted 1950s vampire movies. The war is over, the Korean war is over, we're happy now, a little bit of Cold War paranoia ya know, and then mix it up a little bit. I just think there are so many avenues that you could do that.

I'd like to see a slasher movie set in the depression.

If a girl comes into your arms, that's pretty romantic.

If I'm out in the country or something, I'm still spooked by snakes.

If you don't invest in the characters, you don't care if they get killed. It's more fun if you know them.

I'm a pretty psycho-obsessed shrink.

I'm an actor. Actors are supposed to act.

I'm at that stage in my career, especially now where I go where I am wanted.

I'm doing a lot of boogie-boarding now. It's actually better exercise, I get a lot more waves, and if I'm out in big surf, I can duck under the waves much easier.

I'm getting older now, and though I still surf well, it's hard for me to paddle in big surf.

I'm kind of like a combination of a red herring and a fake-out.

I'm not surfing every day, so I'm not in that good of a shape, and when I paddle, I might get caught in the impact zone and get my world rocked pretty good.

I'm of the opinion that you go where you're wanted.

In a great horror movie, you've gotta have some character development and you've gotta set some of your people up and you've gotta have a little back story going. You've gotta take that time for exposition.

It's hard for young people to understand when you tell them how great relationships are.

I've watched people who were better actors than me disappear, and they're selling insurance now.

I've worked with pythons and such in a couple of movies, and I had to wrangle around, but I was okay. Still, if I'm out in the country or something, I'm still spooked by them.

Let's kill somebody to Sinatra! Or to early Elvis!

Now pole dancing is part of popular culture as exercise.

Once you have a history together, it's just another love for life. Everything is easier. It is just easier to live.

People forget that we are character actors and we can do other things.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But there is always a time and a place for the subsets within genres.