How ‘Freddy Krueger’ actor Robert Englund surprised Filipina filmmaker Emille Joson on a US horror podcast
The photo was a surprise for Emille when she guested on a US horror podcast in 2021. She has kept it framed at home ever since.
Robert, now 79, has played Freddy for more than four decades. The character first appeared in the 1984 film A Nightmare on Elm Street, written and directed by Wes Craven. Freddy is the man with the burned face, striped sweater, old hat and bladed glove who attacks teenagers in their dreams. Whatever happens to his victims in a nightmare also happens to their real bodies, so the only way to survive him is to stay awake.
Wes originally wanted a big, muscular stuntman for the part. He ended up casting Robert, a classically trained stage actor, and the gamble paid off. Robert went on to play Freddy in eight films and also hosted the TV series Freddy’s Nightmares. Today, Freddy is named alongside Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees and Chucky as one of horror’s biggest icons.
The franchise also helped start the careers of some of Hollywood’s biggest names. Johnny Depp made his film debut in the 1984 original. Patricia Arquette made her feature film debut in the 1987 sequel Dream Warriors. A young Brad Pitt appeared in a 1989 episode of Freddy’s Nightmares. Wes later directed the hit slasher Scream. In 2022, Robert joined the fourth season of Netflix’s Stranger Things as Victor Creel. The show’s creators have said that season’s villain, Vecna, was partly inspired by Freddy.
Emille, born on October 10, 1992, grew up in Plaridel, Bulacan. She was only 19 when she made the horror short Adivino as a student of the Asia Pacific Film Institute. The film was among the entries in the student short film category of the 37th Metro Manila Film Festival in 2011. It tells the story of a tarot reader who fools her clients with fake readings until one of her made-up predictions leads to deadly events.
About a decade later, Adivino found a new audience on streaming as the #MeToo movement drew more attention to stories about women, and the short built a following abroad. Emille is also involved with the Alaga Producers Cooperative, her family’s agricultural cooperative, which does charity work.
According to Emille’s team, her podcast appearance took place on December 18, 2021. During the episode, she named Freddy Krueger as her favorite horror icon. She explained that supernatural villains hit close to home for Filipinos because of the country’s traditions and spiritual beliefs. That idea is easy to understand in a country where many people grew up hearing stories of aswang, manananggal and tikbalang from their lolos and lolas.
What Emille didn’t know was that the show’s producers had already reached out to Robert’s team. In the middle of the episode, they surprised her with a personalized photo from the actor himself.
Her team said screenshots of the moment spread quickly on Twitter, now known as X, and were shared by longtime horror fans and younger viewers alike. Emille later framed the photo together with a signed print sent by the show’s team, and she displays both at home. For her, the gift meant more than a fan’s souvenir.
“A Nightmare on Elm Street is deeply personal to me; it transformed my teenage traumas into a masterclass on bravery. Watching those heroines fight back taught me to face my own fears head-on,” Emille said in a statement. “It’s also incredibly comforting that the iconic Robert is one of the kindest guys you could ever meet in real life.”
Almost four years after that podcast, Robert received one of Hollywood’s biggest honors. On October 31, 2025, Halloween, he received the 2,826th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the Motion Pictures category. The ceremony was held at 6644 Hollywood Boulevard, in front of Larry Edmunds Bookshop, his favorite bookstore. Heather Langenkamp, who played the heroine Nancy in the original film, and filmmaker Eli Roth gave speeches. Robert also wore his famous Freddy glove for the occasion.
“I’m on my third generation of fans now,” Robert told ABC7.
According to her team, Emille was in the crowd that day with her British partner.
Emille has since stepped away from social media. In a September 2026 report by Tempo, she said the decision came after she and her partner, British businessman Louis Steffano Byron, talked about protecting their privacy. Louis works in his family’s winery business.
Since then, rumors have spread online that the couple secretly married in New York. Those rumors have not been confirmed.
—By Paolo Lim