Excerpt from "I Was Freddy Too!"
Chapter 24
"Right Hand To God"
“The biggest thing to come from that sit-down with Robert was that it gave me authority and validation. Kevin was going to be Freddy when Robert wasn't there. It was going to be up to me to help maintain the image he spent years cultivating. He didn't want me to do anything he wouldn't do with the glove, in turn, I didn't want to do something he wouldn't do or approve of. This was when my naiveté regarding the franchise served me well. If I truly grasped the weight of having Robert rely on me to get it right it would have wobbled me.”
MY STORY:
In November of 1986 at 21 yrs old I packed everything I owned in a van,left Bradley Gardens NJ and headed to Hollywood.
I crossed the state line into CA that Christmas Eve, by the end of Christmas Day I had lost everything in the desert and was homeless. 18 months of misadventures leads to working on films as an extra. First on the movie Heathers, then The Blob and then A Nightmare On Elm St 4 where things really ramp up. I'm plucked from the crowd of extras to do everything from doubling as Dr Freddy onscreen to filming my hand in glove close ups for effects shots.
That lead to FREDDY'S NIGHTMARES where I performed all the glove close ups and "doubled" as Freddy. I don't consider it "doubling" because we shot a lot of long sequences with me walking and moving as Freddy head to toe, glove on, or casting shadows of the iconic glove for a shot. Looking back I feel my job defies a title, I did a stunt, but I wasn't a stuntman. I performed all the glove close ups on the series, including big swipes at the camera going in for a kill and the glove shot seen in the commercials for the show. Almost all the male hands you see in close ups without a glove are also me. Basically if you see Freddy on the show but don't see his face, it was me. I see it as more "replicating" than doubling. It was also while working on that first season of the show that Robert Englund dubbed me “Freddy #2”.
Sounds like a lotta work for a guy you've never heard of after being a Freddy fan for umpteen years...I get it. Here's the thing, you weren't supposed to know it was me, if you knew it was me I was doing it wrong.
If I had done a shitty job you'd know my name ...jussayin'.
I was on set every day of filming on both ANOES4 and FREDDY'S NIGHTMARES and my job kept me mere feet away from the majority of the action. The book is loaded with new stories of on-set mayhem all told from the perspective of someone who lived it.
Oh, I also totaled a brand new Camaro, had a gun pulled on me, was almost killed in a meth lab, split my head open, was nearly killed while filming ANOES4 and lied to Brad Pitt about why I couldn’t meet his acting coach.
"I Was Freddy Too!" stories you've never heard because I haven't told them and pictures you've never seen because I haven't shown them...until now.
