'Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare' star Ricky Dean Logan on being Freddy's favorite kill

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare star Ricky Dean Logan shares his memories of working on the movie and talks about how his role was important for representation.

Video Transcript

- Maybe you don't hear so good. Maybe I clean out your ears for you.

KEVIN POLOWY: How did Freddy's Dead first come into your life? I mean, these movies were so huge. This had to feel like a pretty golden opportunity for you.

RICKY DEAN LOGAN: Back when I read for this they were actually offering me the part of John, the lead in the film. I got the script, and I read the script and I just felt something for Carlos. He was hearing impaired and he was still doing his thing. That didn't affect who he was as a person.

And so when I went into the reading and I said, listen, I really want to play Carlos. And they said, well, you know, he dies first, right? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I am cynical. Back then I was like, yeah, that's OK. It's not about all of that for me. It's about the character and being able to do something to tell the story and I just felt really close to him.

KEVIN POLOWY: Were there ever moments where it was actually scary for you on set or is the filmmaking process so methodical that it's easy to separate that?

RICKY DEAN LOGAN: I can tell you this, and my-- my supporters know this, I have never seen A Nightmare On Elm Street though. I had no idea about Freddy Krueger, who Freddy Krueger was. When I got to the set I didn't get to see Robert Englund at all until we shot our first scene. And we were in this warehouse place with all the pipes and all that, and yeah, it was scary for me. I mean, when Robert popped out for the first scene and he was there, it was just like, oh man, what is this thing? You know.

And then Robert was so great because he's such a-- he's such a great actor and so much fun to work with. You know, when you're doing films and they sent you where you're going to stand and Robert's going to come from your right, and he block everything, and Robert was so fun. I would be expecting him over here and he'd pop up over on my right side and scare the shit out of me.

KEVIN POLOWY: You're explosive death is very very famous in this franchise. Freddy manipulates Carlos hearing aid, amplifying sounds to unbearable levels and scratches his razor fingers on the chalkboard and still Carlos's head explodes. It's pretty unforgettable stuff.

- I'm hearing from you, Carlos.

KEVIN POLOWY: Take us through the filming of that.

RICKY DEAN LOGAN: John Buechler and I worked really close together because this wasn't green screen back then. We weren't doing green screen and you place everything. But when the head is blowing up on the chalkboard there's six guys behind me and there's tubes running out my back into all these prosthetics, and they're squeezing stuff and I have to work at it. I think that's why it looks so great, you know, because it really was not a bunch of special effects. It was really us working with what we had at the time.

KEVIN POLOWY: What was that like to watch your own head explode for the first time?

RICKY DEAN LOGAN: Yeah, you know, to this day, my wife and my kids they won't watch it. They just won't watch it. And I understand that. My kids especially, you know, they go, I don't want to see you die daddy. I was like, OK.

KEVIN POLOWY: Robert told us at one point that this was his favorite killer.

RICKY DEAN LOGAN: Oh, he did [INAUDIBLE]? Awesome.

KEVIN POLOWY: He loved that it showed Freddy was this equal opportunity killer. Your personal involvement aside, were you surprised yourself that Freddy was going to kill this kid who is hard of hearing? Like did that feel bold to you at the time?

RICKY DEAN LOGAN: It did, and I'll tell you back then it was like if you had hearing issues or you had any kind of disability you were considered not the same as anybody else. I wanted the deaf community to really feel like man, and now, which is great to this day when I go to shows or I get to meet my supporters, I have a lot of the hearing impaired community come up to me and go, hey, you know, when I was younger and I watched that film, you made him so like just normal and great and it made me feel normal and great. And I think that's-- it's kind of why we do-- do what we do. And so yeah, I'm-- I'm pretty happy about how everything turned out with that.

- Yeah, well, the map says we're--