Latino Review visited the Chicago set of “A Nightmare on Elm Street” and have just posted their experience, which includes interviews with Rooney and other cast and crew members. And remember we have a new trailer and some new TV spots to look forward to this week!

Seated towards the middle of the factory and away from the sights and sounds of filming, we wait around the table for cast and crewmembers to speak with us.

One of the first is Rooney Mara, who, fresh from shooting a scene, walks across the factory in impossibly high boots that would surely pose a problem when running from Freddy Krueger. Her cheery disposition stands in contrast to her character Nancy Thompson, who moments before was yelling at her friend and love interest Quentin to wake up or risk a showdown with the nightmare-stalking Krueger.

“She’s described as ‘goth,’” explains Mara, but “She’s goth in the sense that she’s, quite obviously, disturbed and quiet and keeps to herself and can’t really open up to people or connect with people. And she feels really alone in the world because of things that happened to her when she was younger. But throughout the movie you see that change, and you see her grow, so it’s a good arc.”

Today, every bit of Nancy’s character design and Mara’s look reflect that realness and depth. Nancy isn’t a token hot teen in the latest fashions despite her boots. She wears dark colors, purple nail polish, and a baggy cardigan that seems to swallow her slight figure. And while there’s no denying that Mara is a gorgeous woman in real life, as Nancy her eyes are darkened and her hair stringy from depriving herself of sleep.

“Rooney was someone who, to us, embodied that kind of natural, real girl thing that Nancy had in the original,” says Fuller. “Freddy Krueger is the star of the film, and everyone else has to be able to have the chops to keep up with him, but that’s the star of the movie. For all of the actors, we tried to find kids who had the chops to be really good.”

And those chops extend to emulating her character’s self-imposed insomnia.

“If we have a really intense scene, I try not to let myself get more than three hours of sleeps, and after a few days that’s quite draining,” she tells us. “Last night when I went home I was like a wreck. I was really spent, because yesterday was really intense, because it was all day one of the most intense scenes in the movie, crying the whole day. Seventy-five takes of just bawling my eyes out.”

Source (full feature): Latino Review