What The Nightmare On Elm Street Cast Looks Like Today

A Nightmare on Elm Street, Wes Craven's supernatural journey into dream-manipulating terror, remains one of the most beloved and influential horror films ever made. It catapulted writer/director Craven into the realm of horror cinema legends after an already influential filmography, launched Johnny Depp's young career, and made Robert Englund the stuff of everyone's nightmares thanks to his wickedly fun turn as Freddy Krueger. It also set a new standard for the places slasher films could go by taking things to another plane of being, and remains an extremely important milestone in horror cinema history.

In the years since Nightmare premiered, its various cast members have gone on to many different pursuits. One become a global superstar, others stuck around for sequels, and another became part of another hit horror franchise more than two decades later. If you're wondering what Nancy, Glen, Freddy and the gang are up to these days, here's what the cast of A Nightmare on Elm Street looks like today.

Heather Langenkamp is one of the most famous "final girls" in horror history thanks to her performance as Nancy Thompson, the girl who outlasts all of her friends in the struggle against Freddy Krueger and then manages to seemingly defeat him. Nancy's struggle against the dream killer made everything from bubble baths to falling asleep at school scary.

After breaking out in a big way with Nightmare, Langenkamp stayed close to the franchise, appearing in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors in 1987 and playing a version of herself in Craven's meta-sequel New Nightmare in 1994. She also narrated and executive produced a documentary about the franchise titled Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy. In addition to continuing to act in everything from the TV movie Tonya & Nancy: The Inside Story to the Growing Pains spinoff Just the Ten of Us, Langenkamp joined husband David Leroy Anderson to run AFX Studio, a makeup effects company whose work has included Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead and Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story.

Johnny Depp made his feature film debut in A Nightmare on Elm Street as Nancy's boyfriend Glen, who suffered what's arguably the film's most memorable death when he finally drifted off to sleep.

After Nightmare, Depp continued to gain traction in the acting world, joining 21 Jump Street in 1987 and starring in two iconic films — Cry-Baby and Edward Scissorhands — in 1990. After acclaimed indie film work and a continued collaboration with director Tim Burton throughout the 1990s — including Ed Wood and Sleepy Hollow — Depp achieved international superstardom in 2003 with Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, in which he starred as Captain Jack Sparrow in an Oscar-nominated performance. Since then Depp has played Sparrow in four more films, continued to work with Burton on everything from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Dark Shadows, and joined J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World with the Fantastic Beasts series, in which he plays the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald.

Robert Englund had already been a screen actor for a decade when he was cast as the nightmarish child killer Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street, with his most notable role up to that time coming in the alien invasion miniseries and subsequent TV series V, in which he played Willie. Playing Freddy changed his life and career forever.

Unlike Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers, who were always behind masks, Englund was still recognizable to the public despite Freddy's burn makeup, and became a vital part of the franchise and a legitimate horror star in the wake of the movie's success. He reprised the role of Freddy Krueger in seven Nightmare sequels and the television show Freddy's Nightmares – A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Series. His success as Freddy also led to a number of genre roles in film and television, including The Phantom of the Opera, Babylon 5, Urban Legend, Regular Show, and many more. In 2018, he reprised the role of Freddy once again for a tribute episode of the '80s-set sitcom The Goldbergs. He also continues to appear regularly at horror and sci-fi conventions around the world.

John Saxon was already a seasoned and recognizable character actor by the time A Nightmare on Elm Street rolled around. After gaining prominence as a teen idol in the 1950s through films like Rock, Pretty Baby, he went on to starring and co-starring roles in cult classic action and horror films including Enter the Dragon, Black Christmas, and Battle Beyond the Stars. In Nightmare he found another memorable role as Nancy's father, police Lt. Donald Thompson, and yet another chance to play an authority figure amid the chaos of a slasher film.

After Nightmare Saxon continued working regularly in film and television. He reprised his role as Donald Thompson (alongside Langenkamp's Nancy) in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors in 1987 and also returned to play himself in Wes Craven's New Nightmare in 1994. Now in his 80s, Saxon continues to appear regularly on the big and small screens.

Ronee Blakley's career began not as an actress, but as a singer/songwriter, with the release of her self-titled debut album in 1972. Her breakthrough in the world of film came in 1975, when Robert Altman cast her as the fictional country music star Barbara Jean in Nashville. Blakley wrote and performed songs in character for the film, and her performance — in only her second film appearance — won wide critical acclaim and earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Blakley worked regularly throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s until she was cast as Nancy's mother, Marge, in Nightmare. After the film her acting output slowed; her final role to date came in 1990's Murder by Numbers. In recent years her creative output has picked up again with new music releases, and in 2012 she wrote and directed her first feature film, a drama called Of One Blood, which starred her daughter Sarah.

Amanda Wyss began her career on the stage in Los Angeles, which translated to work in commercials and then television. In 1982, she appeared in another '80s classic — Fast Times at Ridgemont High — before joining the Nightmare cast as Tina in 1984 and becoming Freddy's unforgettable first victim. The success of Nightmare translated to more high-profile roles for her in the 1980s, including appearances in Silverado, Better Off Dead, and Powwow Highway.

Since then, Wyss has continued working in film and television, making appearances in films including To Die For, Strategic Command, and the independent thriller The Id, as well as television series including CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Highlander: The Series, Murder in the First, and Cagney & Lacey. According to her official website, she is also an environmental activist working with the Human Thread Foundation and the Erudio Project. In 2018, she appeared in the documentary short "The Craven Touch," paying tribute to A Nightmare on Elm Street director Wes Craven.

Charles Fleischer's screen acting career began in the 1970s with guest and recurring roles on TV series including Sugar Time, Welcome Back, Kotter, Aloha Paradise, and Laverne & Shirley before landing a memorable co-starring role as Dr. King, who oversaw Nancy's treatment at the sleep disorder clinic.

Though the part gave him a role in one of the biggest horror hits of the decade, the best was yet to come for Fleischer. In 1988 he landed the title voice role in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, in which he also voiced Benny the Cab, Greasy, and Psycho. He has continued to voice Roger since in various short films, TV specials and other Disney releases, and his voice acting work has continued in films like We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story, Rango, and The Polar Express. He's also an acclaimed stand-up comedian, and his interest in science led him to host a streaming web series called Fleischer's Universe, as well as author a paper on gamma-ray bursts in 2012.

Lin Shaye's role in A Nightmare on Elm Street is small enough that her character doesn't even officially have a name. She's credited only as "teacher" and appears briefly in Nancy's classroom scenes. Between this film and an appearance in Alone in the Dark two years earlier, though, Shaye was perhaps unknowingly laying the bedrock for what would become a career as a scream queen that's only grown in recent years.

After Nightmare became a hit, Shaye was cast as Sally in Critters, a role she reprised in that film's sequel. She also picked up supporting horror roles in Amityville: A New Generation and played a small role in Wes Craven's New Nightmare. In 1998 she received a Blockbuster Entertainment Award nomination for her performance in There's Something About Mary, and in 2003 she again gained horror prominence with an acclaimed supporting role in Dead End. The real hit, though, came in 2011, when she played demonologist Elise Rainier in Insidious. What started as a supporting role soon became a starring one, as Shaye returned for three more sequels in the Insidious franchise, including Insidious: The Last Key in 2018. More recently, she added to her horror credentials with a role in the Grudge reboot.

Jsu Garcia (then credited as Nick Corri) made his feature film debut as Tina's boyfriend Rod in A Nightmare on Elm Street, witnessing her supernatural murder at the hands of Freddy and then getting blamed for it before becoming Freddy's victim himself. The role got Garcia noticed, and it translated to steady acting work throughout the remainder of the decade in films and shows including Wildcats and Miami Vice. He returned to the franchise in 1994 to play a version of himself in Wes Craven's New Nightmare.

Garcia has continued acting regularly in everything from We Were Soldiers to Along Came Polly to Che, but his career has also gone hand in hand with a deep interest in spirituality. Garcia worked with and was taught by his friend mentor John-Roger, founder of the Church of the Movement of Inner Spiritual Awareness, for 26 years, until John-Roger's death in 2014. In 1998 they formed Scott J-R Productions together and produced short and feature films, including Spiritual Warriors in 2007 and The Wayshower in 2011. In 2017, Garcia published a book based on his journey with John-Roger titled The Love of a Master.