Little film trivia like this is so interesting! Who would have ever guessed that two iconic, yet completely different, franchises such as A Nightmare on Elm Street and Star Wars could be connected in any way? Well thanks to an interview with Yahoo, we now know that Robert Englund, the actor who played Freddy Krueger on the A Nightmare on Elm Street films, was the one who informed Mark Hamill about the role of Luke Skywalker.
Englund explains that early in his career he went in for an audition as a surfer in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, but was denied due to being too old. He was directed across the hall where Star Wars was holding auditions for the role of Han Solo! He was now denied for looking too young (poor guy couldn’t catch a break), and the role obviously went to Harrison Ford.
He goes on to explain how Mark Hamill was offered the role of a lifetime:
“And then I went home and told a little kid that was sleeping on my couch, after a six-pack of Heineken, all about [Star Wars], and his name was Mark Hamill,” Englund recalls. “I said, ‘Hey, Lucas is doing this space movie. Maybe you’re right for it. The lead guy’s like a teenager…. So Mark got on the phone to his agent and I think he went up the next day. He nailed it, and the rest is history.”
Hamill went from complete unknown to worldwide stardom. It’s funny how these things work out sometimes.
And hey, Englund didn’t do so bad either..
He was cast as serial killer Freddy Krueger in Wes Craven’s hugely successful 1984 A Nightmare on Elm Street, and continued to play the character for 8 sequels, the last being Freddy vs Jason in 2003.
[Photo Source: StarWars, Comic Vine]