Heather Langenkamp

Heather Langenkamp
Langenkamp at a celebrity autograph collector's convention in Burbank, California, 2008
Born	Heather Elizabeth Langenkamp (1964-07-17) July 17, 1964 Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S.
Other names	Heather Langenkamp-Anderson
Occupation(s)	Actress Composer Make-up artist Director Producer
Years active	1983–present
Spouse(s)	Alan Pasqua (1984-1987) David LeRoy Anderson (1989-present)

Heather Elizabeth Langenkamp (born July 17, 1964) is an American actress, singer, producer and director. She is best known for her role as Nancy Thompson from the A Nightmare on Elm Street films and she served as executive producer and narrator to the documentary Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy. She is also known for her role as Marie Lubbock on the sitcom Just the Ten of Us and has had numerous television guest appearances. In 2011, she released I Am Nancy which focuses on her iconic role as Nancy Thompson.

Life and career

1964-83: Early life and career beginnings

Langenkamp was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her mother, Mary Alice (née Myers), is an artist, and her father, Robert Dobie Langenkamp, is a petroleum attorney who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy in both the Carter Administration (where he was largely responsible for realizing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) and the Clinton Administration (where he was largely responsible for privatizing Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 1), and as Director of the National Energy & Environmental Law & Policy Institute of the University of Tulsa College of Law. She has German, English, and Scottish ancestry. Langenkamp attended Holland Hall School in Tulsa. She graduated from The National Cathedral School for Girls in Washington, D.C. Langenkamp's first acting venture was in her late teens: a small part in Francis Ford Coppola's The Outsiders (1983), filmed to a large extent in her hometown of Tulsa and in Rumble Fish. She managed to be an extra in both films but her scenes were cut out of both of the final films.

1984-88: A Nightmare on Elm Street and early success

Langenkamp later starred in Nickel Mountain (1984) which gained mostly positive reviews. While she was studying at Stanford University, Langenkamp rose to prominence when Wes Craven cast her as teen heroine Nancy Thompson in the hugely successful A Nightmare on Elm Street, the first film in the series as he wanted someone very 'non-Hollywood' to play Nancy. He believed that Langenkamp met this quality. For the part she beat out more than 200 actresses. The film follows the story of a group of teenagers who are killed in their dreams one-by-one by a supernatural serial killer. The film was a slasher film. This film rose Langenkamp to prominence and is credited for launching her career.

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Langenkamp in A Nightmare on Elm Street

The film introduced the iconic villain Freddy Krueger, played by Robert Englund. Langenkamp was cast along with Johnny Depp, in his feature film debut, played Nancy Thompson's boyfriend, Glen Lantz, and Veteran film actor John Saxon who played Nancy's father, police lieutenant Donald Thompson. The film was both a critical and commercial success, earning a total of $25 million at the American box office. In 1985, she received the Best Actress Award at the Avoriaz Film Festival for this role. She also became one of the original scream queens. Many critics praised Langenkamp's role as Nancy due to the smart and independent nature of the character that made her different from most heroines in horror films released at the time.

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Langenkamp in a promotional photo for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.

Langenkamp reprised her role as Nancy in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), in which she co-starred alongside Patricia Arquette and Laurence Fishburne. The film gained generally positive reviews and was a commercial success. John Saxon and Robert Englund also returned with Langenkamp in Dream Warriors. The film focused on the survivors of Freddy Krueger and was Patricia Arquette's debut film.

In between starring roles, she played Marie Lubbock on the television series Just the Ten of Us, which received critical acclaim and has gained a cult following. It was a spin-off of the popular situation comedy Growing Pains (on which Langenkamp guest-starred), from 1988 to 1990. That same year, she and her castmates were nominated for a Young Artist Award for Best Young Actor/Actress Ensemble in a Television Comedy, Drama Series or Special. She has also made numerous other guest appearances on television. In 1989, she had a cameo role as a victim in Wes Craven's Shocker. The film was a moderate commercial success despite negative reviews. Craven intended for Shocker to launch a new franchise but due to negative reviews and a middling box office performance, plans for a sequel were quickly dismissed.

1989-present: New Nightmare and continued success

In 1994, Langenkamp returned to the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise when she starred as herself in the critically and commercially successful film Wes Craven's New Nightmare alongside Robert Englund. Although New Nightmare is the seventh film in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, it is not part of the series continuity, instead portraying Freddy Krueger as a fictional movie villain who invades the real world and haunts the cast and crew responsible for his films. While the canon Nightmare on Elm Street films are about dreams overlapping reality, this film is about films overlapping reality. In this film, Freddy is depicted as closer to what Craven originally intended, being more menacing and less comical, with a updated attire and appearance. Over the years, New Nightmare has often been referred to as the prelude to Scream, which went on to become a huge success.

Langenkamp and her husband, David Leroy Anderson, own and operate AFX Studio, a Special F/X Make-Up firm that is credited with the special make-up for many successful films such as Dawn of the Dead, The Cabin in the Woods, Cinderella Man, Dogtown and Z-Boys, Frost/Nixon, Bruce Almighty, Evan Almighty, Dragonfly and Angels and Demons. She also starred in, executive produced, and narrated the 2010 documentary Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy, which was directed by Daniel Farrands and Andrew Kasch. In 2010, Langenkamp made her documentary entitled I Am Nancy, which was a critical success. I Am Nancy focused on Langenkamp's role as Nancy from the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. In 2013, Langenkamp had a supporting role in the film, Star Trek Into Darkness which was critically and commercially successful. She is set to star in the upcoming movies, Home (2014) and Getting the Kinks Out (2015).

Personal life

Many elements of the plot for Wes Craven's New Nightmare are based on an incident in Langenkamp received numerous threatening letters from an obsessed fan after the cancellation of "Just the Ten of Us".

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1984	Nickel Mountain	Callie Wells
1984	A Nightmare on Elm Street	Nancy Thompson
1987	A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors	Nancy Thompson
1994	Wes Craven's New Nightmare	Heather Langenkamp
1995	The Demolitionist	Christy Carruthers
1999	Fugitive Mind	Suzanne Hicks	Video
2007	The Bet	Heather Langenkamp
2012	The Butterfly Room	Dorothy
2013	Star Trek Into Darkness	Moto
2014	Home	Heather	Post-production
2015	Getting the Kinks Out	Esther	Pre-production

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1984	Passions	Beth	TV film
1985	Suburban Beat	Hope Sherman	TV film
1986	CBS Schoolbreak Special	Erica	Episode: "Have You Tried Talking to Patty?"
1986	ABC Afterschool Special	Paula Finkle	Episode: "Can a Guy Say No?"
1986	Heart of the City	Audrey	Episode: "Of Dogs and Cat Burglars"
1987	The New Adventures of Beans Baxter	Tracy	Episode: "Beans Goes to Camp"
1987	Hotel	Monica	Episode: "Desperate Moves"
1988	Growing Pains	Marie	Episodes: "How the West Was Won: Parts 1 & 2"
1988-1990	Just the Ten of Us	Marie Lubbock	Main role (47 episodes)
1990	Growing Pains	Amy Boutilier	Episodes: "Let's Go Europe: Parts 1, 2 & 3"
1994	Tonya & Nancy: The Inside Story	Nancy Kerrigan	TV film
1997	Perversions of Science	Lou Ann Solomon	Episode: "Ultimate Weapon"
1999	Partners	Suzanne	Episode: "Always..."
2002	JAG	Janet Thompson	Episode: "Odd Man Out"

Other works

Year	Title	Notes
2004	Dawn of the Dead	Production crew
2005	Cinderella Man	Makeup artist
2007	Evan Almighty	Makeup artist
2008	Prank	Director
2010	Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy	Executive producer
2011	I Am Nancy	Producer
2012	The Cabin in the Woods	Makeup artist
2013	Star Trek Into Darkness	Makeup artist

Legacy

Langenkamp has been regarded as one of the most influential actresses of the horror genre due to her role as Nancy Thompson from A Nightmare on Elm Street. This role was praised by critics due to how the character differed from other females in horror films that were released at the time. Alison Nastasi of Flavor Wire said, "Most famous for her role as Nancy Thompson in the Nightmare on Elm Street series, Heather Langenkamp looked like the typical girl next door. Director Wes Craven considered her the heart and soul of the suburban nightmare tale. While most scream queens of the 1980s exuded sex, Langenkamp played against type as the virginal, resourceful, intelligent young women — and she was believable. Nancy was a worthy adversary for child killer Freddy Krueger. She didn’t wait around for any man to save her and dove right into Freddy’s dream world to face him head-on."

When asked if she was nervous about filming A Nightmare on Elm Street, Langenkamp said, "Oh, I’m sure John Saxon thought we were all just ridiculous teenagers, but John of course was so experienced. He had really been part of the Hollywood studio system, so I was petrified of him because I did think that he probably was judging us quite harshly for techniques or being late or whatever, lack of professionalism. I’m always concerned that I’m insulting the elder statesmen on the set by my crass behavior. I always feel like we owe those folks so much respect. I was very afraid of John, and needlessly so, because he’s probably one of the sweetest men who ever walked Hollywood Blvd.

And then Ronee Blakley was also very worried about my relationship with her, because having a mother on screen is always tough. You want it to be just right, that relationship. So we went to the mall together to shop for a prom dress one day, which was really fun, just to get to know each other. And boy, I mean, she carried it to the nth degree. We went to the Galleria, which back then was like “the” mall in Los Angeles. So she would take me into stores and we would get into fights about the color, and she didn’t want me to wear strapless. We just had this great mother-daughter afternoon shopping for this imaginary prom dress and we really bonded that day. She just was a fantastic woman. She just was a fantastic woman who had so many Hollywood stories, and the Hollywood of the Seventies when everyone was kind of crazy. She’d just been hanging out with the coolest people like Bob Dylan and Wim Wenders, so I just sat and wanted to be her.

Then everyone else was pretty well established. And there’s me and Johnny [Depp], and I’m like, I’ve done maybe one or two little movies of the week and Johnny’s done nothing. He and I, we really felt like the newbies and I would give him little hints that I just learned the week before. I’d be like, “Johnny, that thing up there is the microphone!” [Laughs] Can you imagine how intimidating it was for him? So I pretended that I knew what I was doing and we all got alone just great.

Oh yeah, and there was Nick Corri, who now is called Jsu Garcia. I don’t know if he had had many parts before, but he was one of these kinds of kids who… I don’t want to say “living on the street,” but he was couch surfing, definitely. He was chasing his dream as well. All of us were. It was a time when you could kind of just come to Hollywood and sleep on your friend’s couch and then get a part in a big movie. It happened all the time."

RayZor of NightfallUnlimited said, "She played Nancy, basically three times over the course of seven films. She was so great that they brought her back in Dream Warriors. I believe she is the toughest of Freddys foes and he may have had a few nightmares about Nancy. Although her complete body of work isn’t to glamorous. She will always be remembered as Nancy Thompson from the Nightmare series. But did you know she did some screaming as Nancy Kerrigan, in a made for tv film about the figure skater? The coolest thing about Heather Langenkamp, she has come to embrace the role of Nancy. Her personal website is www.iamnancy.com and she frequents horror concentions".

External links

• Heather Langenkamp at IMDb
• Heather Langenkamp at the TCM Movie Database
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