How Freddy Kruger was born out of an accident involving the man who played Jason
Kane Hodder reveals while working Wes Craven on Hills Have Eyes, suffered a bad burn on set, and Wes remarked how a burn victim would be a great horror villain, leading to Freddy's creation for The Nightmare on Elm Street.
Video Transcript
- Please, God.
FREDDY KRUEGER: This is God.
- Kane, of course, you started early on with stunts. Which came first for you? Were you doing stunt work, or working horror, or did those sort of coalesce at the same time for you?
KANE HODDER: No, I was doing stunts, and that's all I ever thought I would end up doing at all. I just wanted to have a successful career in stunts. And my first horror movie was actually "The Hills Have Eyes, Part Two." And I was stunt doubling a character called The Reaper. And he was, John Bloom the actor, he's like close to seven feet tall, so I was not a good stunt double. But for the stuff I was doing, it worked out fine. But I was sitting on the set, Hills Have Eyes Two, with Wes. He directed it. We were talking about my burn scars. Because you guys know that I got burned doing a fire stunt. So I have scars over most of my body really.
And he told me about this character he was developing, who is going to have burn scars. And at that time, he was considering possibly using an actor with real burn scars just for the sensationalism or whatever of it. And he said, I think I'm going to call the character Fred Krueger. And I thought, oh, that sounds interesting. And then of course, as we know, Robert made the character unbelievably amazing, which was the best choice possible. But it was just kind of strange to have talked to Wes about that before it ever happened.
- That's amazing. Robert, did you know that story?
ROBERT ENGLUND: Into maybe my third Bushmills one night, Kane shared that story with me. Yeah.
KANE HODDER: Yeah.
ROBERT ENGLUND: But I was never up for Friday the 13th, so it seems rather unfair.
TOM SAVINI: So he could have been Freddy, and you could have been Jason.
ROBERT ENGLUND: We, maybe.
- Wow.
DOUG BRADLEY: I don't think it's likely Jason would have been silent if that had been the case.
ROBERT ENGLUND: Leave me alone. Leave me alone!