We talked with actress Lisa Wilcox, best known for her role as Alice in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) and A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989), about her amazing career — A Nightmare on Elm Street and beyond!
Horror Geek Life: Lisa, what inspired you to become an actress?
Lisa Wilcox: Believe me, it wasn’t my token of choice, but they say it bites you, and it does. I moved to California with my family due to my father’s business. My friend was going for an audition at The Buddy Ebsen playhouse in Newport Beach. My friend invited me not to audition, just for the company.
The producer, Jane Nye, I’ll never forget it, kept saying, “You’re auditioning, right?” I was sitting in the theater in the audience chair, and I’m like, “No, no, no, I’m just here for my friend.” She was like, “You really need to audition.” Finally, because she kept bugging me to audition (laughs) I did. I got the lead role in the play. The play was called The Hot L Baltimore, written by Lanford Wilson, who was a huge Broadway playwright. I got some things called Drama-Logue Awards, they don’t have those anymore, but it’s kind of like getting an award from Variety.
Horror Geek Life: So, that is how you got your footsteps into the film industry?
Lisa Wilcox: Yeah! I’ve also always loved to read books, I loved story-telling. I’ve always loved reading out loud in class, which sounds really silly, but I always had my hand up to read in English class from a book or whatever. I was born in Missouri, we had a basement, which all Missourians do. I was always making up plays and shows, and Mom would always give us a big box of clothes she was getting rid of. I was always dressing up my sister into some type of character. So, it was probably innately always a part of me to be an actress.
Horror Geek Life: One of your most iconic roles was in A Nightmare on Elm Street. What was it like playing the character of Alice?
Lisa Wilcox: The interesting thing is that when I look at the body of work I’ve actually done… none of it was horror. It’s soap operas, sitcoms, episodic, ya know? A lot of that I did do after A Nightmare on Elm Street, but some of it I did before NOES. There are some roles that you will never forget auditioning or reading for, whether you get them or not, you are intrinsically entranced by the writing and the role that you’re going to portray and go to an audition for. Alice was a character that was just totally me growing up.
As I mentioned before, I always loved reading books, I was very antisocial basically, I preferred imagination and fantasy in my basement and my books in my room. We also moved a lot, so I always had to reintroduce myself at school and this and that, it wasn’t very fun. That’s why I took more to want escapism, which was Alice. So, to me, the role of Alice was totally me in grade school and junior high. It was a role that I was able to identify with because by the time I auditioned for the role of Alice, mind you, I was 24 years old, and I played a 16-year-old. We had moved to California, and I had started doing theater, so I had broken out of my shell and found other talents that I didn’t even know existed. So when the role of Alice came it was perfect timing.
Horror Geek Life: What was it like working with Robert Englund?
Lisa Wilcox: Robert Englund is incredibly intelligent, very clever, and a fireball of energy. For that man to be sitting in a chair to have four hours of makeup put on him… God bless him, haha! He knows anything about history, tile, grout, decorating, authors, and film, he is just an abundant person and just so fun. He’s also incredibly caring as an actor.
When we’re on set and being blocked, there’s no favoritism or anything, he wants the scene to be as good as possible. And he works with you, we work together, and I saw this with myself and anyone on set with him. That’s why doing Fear Clinic was so fun, and ya know, not being in the Freddy makeup, right? We had this nurse-doctor relationship thing. In the end, we all have a crush on Robert Englund.
Horror Geek Life: If given the opportunity to play a role in a future A Nightmare on Elm Street movie, would you take it?
Lisa Wilcox: I certainly would, actually. It’s interesting because there was a long period of time where I went, “They never ended Alice’s story.” So many supporters have been like, “What happened to Alice?” Alice was 4 and 5, and then the rest had nothing to do with her, and her name was never brought up again. It’s weird because so many people bonded with her, right? So, I would totally come back and play the role of Alice.
What happened to Jacob, my son? I’m pretty sure Alice became a doctor, or a judge, or something like that. I think she went on with the help of her father, who recovered from his alcoholism, yay! And probably did great things in her life.
Horror Geek Life: Beyond that, what has been your favorite thing you’ve done so far in your film/television history?
Lisa Wilcox: It’s hard to choose, however, I love this role in Texas Walker Ranger, which is an episodic show. I play a nun, and I have a brother who went the other direction. He was in prison, escapes, takes over the church, and I’m the nun there. Just the spiritualness of it was really beautiful, and how we connected. He actually does die, he gets shot, but it was such a beautiful story about forgiveness, and I love the story of that.
Another one that stands out in mind was playing Florence Henderson and Carol Brady in Unauthorized Brady Bunch: The Final Days. Over a decade ago, 20th Century Fox did these shows, where they showed the behind-the-scenes of what was happening with the cast, actors, producers, and directors on these really successful shows like The Brady Bunch. So playing that role was absolutely amazing because I got to be Carol Brady and Florence Henderson and to be on the set of the Brady Bunch – they pulled out the kitchen, the eating area, and the stairs, and it was amazing because I grew up on the Brady Bunch – so it was pretty thrilling.
Horror Geek Life: Wow, that would be pretty amazing. Who have you enjoyed working with the most?
Lisa Wilcox: Mark Hamill! I did this film based on the novel Watchers by Dean Koontz. The interesting thing is, I’m doing A Nightmare on Elm Street 4, and I was talking to Howard, who did the makeup for Robert, about books, and he said I needed to read Watchers. I read it, and it was an amazing novel. Fifteen years later, I get called to audition for Watchers, and it happens to be the fourth one, which has been also called Watchers Reborn. Mark Hamill is the other lead in it, and I can’t tell you how nervous I was. I mean, I’m sorry, this is Luke Skywalker!
I auditioned, had a callback, got the role, and my first day of filming was with Mark. I had all these lines to do, but I was a silly willy because I was with Mark Hamill and completely freaked out because I had such a girl crush on him. And he was the most lovely man to work with as an actor and as a person.
He loves The Simpsons, and he’s done a lot of voice-over work as well, including Batman, but he really loves The Simpsons. What we would do in between takes while waiting for the scene to be set up and ready is he would bring The Simpsons from his home, and we would watch it in the trailer together. Later on, when the movie (Watchers Reborn) was finished, he was so lovely, and he invited me, my husband, and kids to his house, and we swam in the pool. I have another fun story to tell, do we have time?
Horror Geek Life: Of course!
Lisa Wilcox: My sons are four years apart. I want to say they were 6 and 2 years old at this time. My youngest son was sitting on the patio with Mark, who has kids as well, and there was this big bowl of cherries he was eating. Before I know it, he’s eaten half of the bowl of cherries. Well, something happened, he started to get a little sick, and he barfed all over Mark Hamil’s patio. Mark was like, “No problem, happens all the time.” Meanwhile, he’s pulling out the hose and spraying the down the patio, and it was like nothing ever happened. He’s a totally cool guy.
Horror Geek Life: Sounds like it! On that note, who would you like to work with in the future?
Lisa Wilcox: I just got back to acting full-time, and I’m just now learning about all these shows. I’ve been completely jonesing on Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, and The Walking Dead. I had my boys, got divorced, and was in the corporate world for about twenty years, in between two different companies. So, I was completely out of touch with all the new actors and such.
I’m going to have to go old school and say I’d love to work with Al Pacino, that’d be awesome. Katey Sagal is amazing. She’s so funny in Married with Children, but her work in Sons of Anarchy, oh my gosh! And she’s an amazing musician, which I’m just now learning about, and she plays at Molly Malone’s, which is just a few blocks from me on Fairfax. My eldest son is a musician as well, and he’s gonna be playing there on June 11th and he actually just got audio play in Los Angeles too. So yes, Al Pacino and Katey Sagal!
Horror Geek Life: Do you have any future projects you’d like to talk about?
Lisa Wilcox: I did a film called Clinger, it’s not a large role, more comic relief, actually a comedic horror film. Totally fun, and I was really proud that it got accepted into the Slamdance Film Festival last year, which is not an easy feat because they get thousands of submissions. And Mystery Spot, I play a journalist photographer, and I’m really excited to do that role. I have another one, Red Hallow, and that’ll be in Canada, where I play a judge, and another called William Frost, where I play a doctor. They’re all intrinsic roles in telling the story of the film, so it’s kind of awesome to be back doing this and playing very smart, independent women. I’m so happy to be rejoining this lively hood with some really fun shoes to fill.
Everyone should definitely check my website, lisaewilcox.com. You can see my reel, the work I’ve done with John Stamos in You Again and General Hospital, and all the different things I used to do. Definitely a Throwback Thursday. I’m happy as well to be back with social media, I mean, the industry has changed so much from when I started in the ’80s and ’90s. I’m really enjoying having more contacts, and I had no idea that so many people had followed Alice and Nightmare on Elm Street 4 and 5.
Horror Geek Life: The fans are so glad you are back. You’ve had a huge career, doing over a hundred projects, is there anything you would like to do that you haven’t done yet?
Lisa Wilcox: I want to take Alice another degree further, and I want to be like the kickass Katey Sagal in Sons of Anarchy-type of woman – riding a motorcycle and swinging swords or any other weapons. I want to be that kickass woman who is 52 years old, yes ladies and gentlemen, that’s my age, but I totally don’t look it, and I don’t care. So yes, I want to be that woman who is like, “bring it on!” Oh, and a vampire, I’d love to play a vampire. I love all vampire books, the first novel I ever read was Dracula by Bram Stoker, and if you guys haven’t read it, you need to! It talks about the original Dracula, and it’s amazing!
