Sung Kang, who portrays Han Lue in the Fast and Furious franchise, wants to play Freddy Krueger in a new Nightmare on Elm Street project.
Speaking with Collider about his upcoming film Shaky Shivers, Kang was asked if there are any preexisting horror franchises he’d like to join in some capacity.
“I’d love to play Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street,” Kang answered. “That character was just so fun. Having experience with prosthetic makeup and sitting in the chair for four hours like I did in the Obi-Wan series in Star Wars, that’s the only part that I kind of wonder if I have the stamina to sit in the makeup chair for months. But that character was so fun! That sweater, to this day, is so iconic, and the knife fingers. That’d be on the bucket list for sure.”
Freddy Krueger: An iconic horror monster born out of people’s nightmares
Freddy Krueger was first brought to life in 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, written and directed by Wes Craven. Robert Englund played Krueger in the movie, a former child-murderer who returns from the grave to terrorize the dreams of the people’s children who killed him.
Englund reprised his role for all of the canonical Nightmare on Elm Street sequels, including 1985’s A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, 1987’s A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, 1988’s A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, 1989’s A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, 1991’s Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, 1994’s Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, and 2003’s Freddy vs. Jason.
Watchmen’s Jackie Earle Haley, meanwhile, played Freddy Krueger in 2010’s A Nightmare on Elm Street remake.
Talks about a new Nightmare on Elm Street project have circulated in the years since; however, nothing has been officially green-lit at this time. In May 2023, Englund told Variety he’d be willing to return to the franchise for a cameo but felt he was “too old and thick to play Freddy now.”
