Jackie Earle Haley on the 3D Elm Street Sequel: 'Maybe I Should Call the Producers!'

You've been to Comic-Con twice now?

I think three times.

I mean, talk about confronting that fanboy audience head-on. Last year, there were tons of people dressed in Watchmen costumes, too -- especially as your character, Rorshach. What is that like for you?

Aw, it was incredible. When I went there last year, it was actually sort of mind-boggling, because I was being handed from department to department. I did a movie day for Nightmare on Elm Street, and then the next day we did a television day for Human Target, which is comic-book-based, and then in the evening, Zack held a screening of the director's cut of Watchmen where everyone was linked up on video for the Blu-ray. It was cool as s**t.

You said there's a drawback to how proprietary fans can be. How often did you feel that on Watchmen and Elm Street?

Hmm. Wow, man. In both cases, there's a sense of excitement and so much trepidation. It's exciting to work on a character and a property that's so beloved by many, but it's daunting. No matter what you do as an actor, you don't want to be stuck with something people hate, especially if they're all madly in love with the characters. It's a scary thing, but at the end of the day you have to stop and tell yourself, "You're an actor. Let it go." A futility starts to kick in at a certain point. There's a healthy pause for thought and then there's unhealthy worries, so you try to ride that balance. All worthless worry does is gnaw at your guts.

I saw some scenes in the trailer that I didn't see in the final cut, like a pool party sequence that I heard was supposed to open the movie. Were there a lot of reshoots?

We did do some reshoots. One of those was for the opening sequence, and they placed it in a diner [during reshoots]. I think it played a lot better.

After having done Rorshach and Freddy, do you feel like you're flexing a different set of acting muscles to compensate for the fact that your face is so obscured?

Not really. Rorshach mad a mask over his head so the face was completely obscured, and it took me a while to realize, "Just do the work as an actor. Do the work internally, and the outside will take care of itself. The I would go look at the monitor, and about one percent of the time, I'd go, "Wow, what I'm doing isn't coming through," and I would animate the suit a little bit, you know what I mean? For Freddy, the makeup was actually very articulate.

Were there any limitations to those Elm Street prosthetics? Any time where you felt there was a wall you hit?

Yeah, drinking, or biting into things. Like, if I had a burger, I'd have to cut it up into bite-sized pieces and use a fork. Everything I drank had to be through a straw. If the makeup guys would catch me sipping something not through a straw, I'd get in trouble. They'd send me into the boiler room, and they wouldn't let me come out until somebody fell asleep. [Laughs]

It's interesting, your very first role was a voice role on the cartoon Wait Til Your Father Gets Home. Did that teach you something about how to use your voice so well?

It is an odd coincidence. The first work I ever did was voice-over, and then the first on-camera work I did was on a Jonathan Winters special. I was a 10-year-old boy, and I was playing the sheriff in this cowboy town full of kids, but Jonathan was doing all the voices. We were all lip-synching.

What have you heard about Human Target coming back?

No -- it's about time, though. I think we're gonna hear something within the next couple weeks. I'm curiously awaiting that, because that's going to dictate my schedule.

You've been working virtually nonstop over the past few years. Are you happy to have some t
ime off between projects again, or do you feel anxious?

It's actually really nice. Literally, sometimes you go months without being home. It's just nice to be home.

[Lead Photo Credit: Jordan Strauss/WireImage]

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