‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ at 40: Looking Back on Johnny Depp’s Film Debut and His Now-Iconic Crop Top in the Horror Movie

• Nov. 9, 2024, marks 40 years since the release of A Nightmare on Elm Street
• The horror classic, starring Robert Englund and Heather Langenkamp, also marked the film debut of Johnny Depp
• Here, Englund, Langenkamp and Depp reflect on the film and its impact

Ever since the 1984 release of A Nightmare on Elm Street, murderer Freddy Krueger has been terrorizing audiences. While Robert Englund rose to fame for portraying the sadistic child killer who stalked teenagers — notably the movie’s final girl, Nancy Thompson, played by Heather Langenkamp — in their sleep, the now-iconic first installment in the long-running horror franchise also marked Johnny Depp‘s film debut.

In the movie written and directed by the late Wes Craven, Depp — famously donning a No. 10 jersey cropped at the bottom, exposing the actor’s midriff in one scene — played Nancy’s boyfriend, Springwood High student Glen Lantz. [Caution: spoilers ahead] Despite having a series of terrifying nightmares, Glen refuses to believe they’re being haunted by the spirit of Freddy — who was previously killed by Glen’s parents in the aftermath of a series of childhood murders — before he is killed himself after dozing off while watching TV.

According to a 2014 oral history with Vulture, it was revealed Charlie Sheen was initially cast in the role. But then he proved to be too expensive, forcing Craven to find an alternate actor. Depp, now 60, was in a band at the time and recommended by another cast member who passed his headshot along to the filmmaker. After auditioning the musician, it was Craven’s 14-year-old daughter who ultimately picked him to play Nancy’s boyfriend, with the director recalling her saying, “He’s beautiful.”  

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At the time of filming, Depp — who has gone on to star in a number of Tim Burton films and earn three Best Actor Oscar nominations for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Finding Neverland and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street — was just 21 years old. And according to Langenkamp, 60, he was very green on set. 

In the same Vulture interview, Langenkamp, who was 20 years old when the movie was first released, recalled that “Johnny was very nervous,” and that “he got flustered by all the sound cues” at one point during filming. 

Having worked in the industry before Nightmare, Langenkamp also joked to PEOPLE that she felt like a veteran compared to Depp. “When I got on Nightmare on Elm Street, I had done several TV movies of the week and smaller projects. So I had been on sets before. And I always think about my experience versus Johnny Depp, who literally was on his very first job ever,” she recalled. “And so I felt like the seasoned pro next to him because he really had never been on a set.” 

Despite any nerves, Depp bonded with Englund, who told Vulture that “Johnny Depp was the most polite young actor I’ve ever worked with.”

Later, while speaking with PEOPLE, 77-year-old Englund remembered how the two unwittingly scared a restaurant employee during a lunch break on set. After getting “sick of the catering,” the pair went out to eat. “We just couldn’t do it anymore. No more peanut butter and jelly and macaroni and cheese,” Englund said, revealing that the two of them “went across the street to a Thai restaurant.” 

The issue was that Englund was still in his full Freddy costume. “We went into this darkened Thai restaurant and we were sitting there, we were in the back towards the kitchen and a guy came from the back kitchen area,” he recalled. “I remember it had a porthole window in the door and I had taken off the hat and the door opened and that fluorescent lighting from the kitchen spilled out and illuminated me. And I just sort of looked up at the guy and I wasn’t thinking — I was playing with my chopsticks, I think — and the poor guy dropped his whole tray of food for this other group of people that were there waiting to be served. And he ran back into the kitchen.”

When it comes to Depp’s famous death scene, the production team used a contraption that rotated the bedroom set before spilling tons of blood into the room. It was something that he described as an “unbelievable effect” during an on-set interview with Entertainment Tonight, saying even though “the room was spinning” that it “was no big deal.”

Of course, that was when Depp was seen wearing his now-iconic crop top, a fashion trend that has since re-emerged decades later. In 2023, NSS magazine noted that “if it weren’t for Gen Z, who now love the squared-off silhouette of the crop top again, it would have been forgotten.” Additionally, GQ reported around the same time that “cropping your T-shirt has become a central theme in recent months,” with their modern take on the look sported by Depp and other ’80s stars “a more advanced version of the ribbed white tank top” but still “complete with a host of hot cultural references.” 

And in the world of horror, Depp’s signature outfit still remains in the pop culture zeitgeist, with nods to his shirt appearing in Scream — another Craven slasher classic — as well as Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and most recently, Agatha All Along on Disney+. 

In 2015, following Craven’s death at 76 years old, Depp reflected on his time making A Nightmare on Elm Street. Per Variety, when asked about the director during a Q&A at the time, the actor said, “Wes Craven was the guy who gave me my start, from my perspective, for almost no reason in particular.” 

“I read scenes with his daughter when I auditioned for the part. At the time, I was a musician. I wasn’t really acting. It was not anything very near to my brain or my heart, which is pretty much how it remains to this day,” he continued. “But Wes Craven was brave enough to give me the gig based on his daughter’s opinion. I guess she had read with a bunch of actors, and after the casting sessions, she said, ‘No, that’s the guy.’ ” 

Depp added, “I always think of her for putting me in this mess, and certainly Wes Craven for being very brave to give me this gig. But he was a good man — so rest in peace, old Wes.”