Jackie Earle Haley will be the new Freddy Krueger in the remake of A Nightmare On Elm Street, reveals The Hollywood Reporter . Haley has recently impressed as Rorschach in Watchmen, but started his screen career as a child star in '70s in films like The Bad News Bears. He takes over from original Freddy, Robert Englund who played in the dream-invading child killer in eight movies and a TV series.
“Looking at his performance in Watchmen, here’s a guy playing a character under a mask yet you feel tremendous empathy for him,” said director Samuel Bayer of the actor. “And in Nightmare, he is going to be under prosthetic make-up. You have to feel something for the character. The greatest villains are multi-dimensional and I think he will bring that to the character.”
Bayer describes the new take on Freddy as: “Nosferatu meets Ed Gaines". Well, that's what the quote says... we think he may have another mass murderer in mind.
Filming begins in May in Chicago.
