Freddy Krueger Actor Robert Englund and Young Costar Johnny Depp Once Got Lunch in Costume — and Terrified a Waiter (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Johnny Depp and Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger in ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ in 1984.Photo:Courtesy of Warner Brothers ; Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

Courtesy of Warner Brothers ; Michael Ochs Archives/Getty

The actor, now 77, originally appeared alongsideHeather Langenkamp as Nancy Thompson, longtime Western star John Saxon, Oscar nominee Ronee Blakley and a handful of teen stars, including Nick Corri andJohnny Depp, both in theirfeature film debut.

Johnny Depp in ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ in 1984.Courtesy of Warner Brothers

Courtesy of Warner Brothers

“There was still stuff left from those shows stacked in the corners, you know, with cobwebs and things,” Englund recalls to PEOPLE while promotingNightmare’s 4K Ultra High Definition (UHD) release, noting that making the horror movie there felt like “we were violating” traditional family Americana. “I do remember that kind of strange juxtaposition.”

Englund also recalls getting so “sick of the catering” on set that he, Corri and Depp went out for lunch in between takes one day. “We just couldn’t do it anymore. No more peanut butter and jelly and macaroni and cheese,” he says, revealing that the three of them “went across the street to a Thai restaurant.”

The only thing was, Englund was still in full costume as Freddy. While he says that “everybody got used to me in my Freddy drag,” it wasn’t the case for those not involved in the production, with his appearance frightening at least one of the employees at the restaurant.

Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger in ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ in 1984.Courtesy of Warner Brothers

“We went into this darkened Thai restaurant and we were sitting there, we were in the back towards the kitchen and a guy came from the back kitchen area,” he recalls. “I remember it had a porthole window in the door and I had taken off the hat and the door opened and that fluorescent lighting from the kitchen spilled out and illuminated me. And I just sort of looked up at the guy and I wasn’t thinking — I was playing with my chopsticks, I think — and the poor guy dropped his whole tray of food for this other group of people that were there waiting to be served. And he ran back into the kitchen.”

Laughing about it now, Englund says, “What he must have seen — you know, Freddy Krueger, 12 or 14 feet away sitting at a booth, no hat on that bit of fluorescent lighting just sort of slashing across him. I think that guy’s still running.”

That was just one of the many stories both Englund and Langenkamp, 60, have of their time on the set ofNightmare.

While looking back on making the movie, Langenkamp, who was 20 years old at the time, tells PEOPLE that she and her costar Amanda Wyss became good friends. “She’s now even my best friend today,” the actress shares, while also revealing that they, along with Depp and Corri, “would all hang out and have a lot of fun getting to know each other.”

She adds, “When you get thrown together on a set, there’s a lot you wanna find out about each other and where you’re from. And so there was a lot of that. But we were very comfortable very quickly. We all seemed to get along really well. We didn’t have any dramas or jilted lovers or anything like that happening on this set as far as I remember.”

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If there was any hiccup among costars, it was the fact that the costume team sometimes would mix up the clothes that belonged to Depp and Langenkamp. “There was a lot to laugh about,” the actress continues. “I know that Johnny and I, our jeans were the same size and often got mixed up. And so his, you know, were longer than mine, so he would walk out in my little high water jeans and we’d realize, ‘Oh, you’ve got my jeans on again.’ You know, we would just have funny times like that.”

Although she may have felt like she knew what she was doing in that moment, “I probably was faking it half the time,” Langenkamp shared, acknowledging that her first starring role “was a very daunting experience for me.”

In honor of its 40th anniversary, Warner Bros. is releasingA Nightmare on Elm Streeton 4K UHD digitally on Oct. 1 and on physical on Oct. 15.

source: people.com