A Nightmare on Elm Street’s Heather Langenkamp Details Favorite Off-Camera Moment With Costar Johnny Depp
A Nightmare on Elm Street star Heather Langenkamp shared in an exclusive E! News interview that her favorite off-screen memory from the 1984 classic was a day she spent with costar Johnny Depp.
Heather Langenkamp‘s onscreen love interest was far from a nightmare to work with.
In fact, the A Nightmare on Elm Street alum shared that Johnny Depp—who played her character Nancy Thompson’s boyfriend, Glen Lantz, in the 1984 horror movie—was involved in one of her favorite behind-the-scenes memories from working on the film.
“Once he had been cast, I called him on the phone,” Heather exclusively told E! News in honor of the movie’s 40th anniversary, “and I said, ‘Let’s spend the day together. I’d love to get to know you before we start our first day of work.’”
The pair quickly discovered they had a mutual love for the 1955 teen drama Rebel Without a Cause starring James Dean and Natalie Wood, which wound up inspiring both their dynamic in the film and their offscreen hangouts.
“We went to the Griffith Observatory because both of us were big lovers of James Dean and Natalie Wood,” Heather continued. “And I was kind of envisioning us in that kind of a situation. We walked, and we just had a lovely time getting to know each other.”
As for what the 60-year-old learned from the experience? Johnny—who made his big screen debut in A Nightmare on Elm Street—was a “very easy person” to talk to.
“He’s very kind,” Heather shared. “And he’s not a showboat or, you know, he doesn’t have a big ego.”
Of course, Johnny wasn’t the only incredible actor that Heather met through the film, which also stars Robert Englund (who played Freddy Kreuger), John Saxon (Donald Thompson), Ronee Blakley (Marge Thompson), Amanda Wyss (Tina Gray) and Jsu Garcia (Rod Lane).
Moviestore/ShutterstockThe actress also recalled spending quality time with one of her onscreen parents.
“I did the same thing with Ronee Blakley to try to figure out what our mother-daughter relationship was going to be like,” Heather said. “And those two days—the one with Ronnie, the one with Johnny—actually are some of the most memorable times I had doing the movie.”
New Line/The Elm Street Venture/Kobal/ShutterstockBut the entire movie—directed by the late Wes Craven—was a highly collaborative effort, with the New Nightmares star particularly noting how much work went into shooting Nancy’s iconic bathtub scene.
“It was one full day,” Heather recalled. “I got there, and we were moving so quickly making the movie that they mentioned the night before that they had this tank that they had rigged so I could sit in there.”
Recounting that the crew worked hard to keep the bubbles from “dissipating” and constantly heated tea kettles to warm the water, she went on to praise Wes and the rest of the production team with being “so patient” through the whole process.
“People really had to come together to put that scene together,” she continued. “There’s a lot of different ideas, and it was perfect emblem of a great scene being accomplished through the efforts of everyone working really hard to get it done.”
Albert L. Ortega/ShutterstockIn the end, it wound up being one of the most terrifying scenes in the movie—at least for Heather.
“I always remember the bathtub scene so vividly because there was the hot water, there’s the bubbles, there’s the glove coming up between my legs, which is so horrifying to me,” she explained. “It had just so many aspects that I found, personally, really scary.”
And while getting a good scare is certainly part of the franchise’s appeal, Heather is also excited for the next generation of teens to take a larger message away from the original when it’s released on digital and 4K UHD for the first time in honor of its 40th anniversary.
“They’re movies not only about Freddie,” she explained. “They’re a lot about teenagers and what they go through. And it takes their problems really seriously.”
