The Only Actor To Play Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, And Leatherface

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Once upon a time, the most popular monsters of filmdom were linked to certain actors. Though other individuals would play these roles over time, ask any movie buff to name the performers best known for portraying Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy and the Wolf Man, and they'll fire back with, respectively, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Karloff again, and Lon Chaney Jr. But while these roles were spoken for in the public's consciousness, one of these actors was famous, at least among seriously committed horror fans, for having played all four of Universal's marquee monsters – and that actor was Chaney Jr.

Nearly 40 years after these fearsome characters' heydays, a new batch of beasts sprung up to terrify audiences the world over. These were the slashers, the most prominent being Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Leatherface, and Freddy Krueger. Combined, these characters have appeared in, to date, 42 movies. Yet while these murderous fellas were iconic in their own right, most casual moviegoers wouldn't be able to name the actors best known for portraying them. They might be able to summon up Robert England as Freddy Krueger, but the other three will probably prove elusive. Nick Castle as Michael Myers? Gunnar Hansen as Leatherface? They might have originated the roles, but it's the actors who played the final girls that viewers are likely to remember.

And then there is Kane Hodder. The longtime stuntman was 33 when he first stepped into the boots of Jason Voorhees. The film was 1988's "Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood," a fairly awful film that started the franchise on its ignominious journey to getting mothballed. But while most of the "Friday the 13th" films Hodder appeared in are considered some of the franchise's worst, his portrayal as Jason is considered strangely definitive. What's more, he was so adept at portraying monsters that he wound up hitting the slasher trifecta by playing three of the aforementioned characters. How did he pull this off?

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Born on April 8, 1955, Kane Hodder got his first credit as a stuntman on the Chuck Norris-David Carradine action extravaganza "Lone Wolf McQuade." He worked frequently in horror, performing stunts in films like "The Hills Have Eyes Part II," "House" and "House II: The Second Story" before serving as stunt coordinator and murderer of carousing teenagers in "Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood."

Hodder would quickly become a fan favorite thanks to features in magazines like Fangoria, and it's not hard to see why — that is, if one knows what they're looking for. Hodder's Jason is, performance-wise, the first iteration of the character to register as more than an unstoppable killing machine. Just look at what would become one of Jason's signature kills, the smashing of a camper against a tree in their sleeping bag. There's something undeniably humorous about the way he drags the poor woman out of her tent, hauls her with noticeable labor toward the tree, and completes his rather inventive kill. After seven films, it's as if the task of keeping Crystal Lake clean of fornicators and pot smokers has turned into work for the big guy.

Hodder would go on to appear in "Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan," "Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday," and "Jason X" before being replaced by Ken Kirzinger on "Freddy vs. Jason." While Hodder expressed regret that he didn't get to go toe-to-toe with his buddy Robert Englund in the long-awaited slasher brawl, he could take comfort in knowing that he was the only actor of this killer crew that played three of the genre's terrifying titans.

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Just three years into his tenure as Jason, Hodder, by now a slasher icon, donned flayed human skin as Leatherface in "Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III" (Bloody Disgusting has photographic proof). Okay, the chainsaw-wielding killer was actually portrayed by R.A. Mihailoff in the 1990 film, but Hodder did double the actor for all of his stunts. Since stunts are an integral part of getting the hulking, limb-rending character right, this more than counts as a performance. Furthermore, Hodder also played Leatherface in the 2023 "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" video game.

Even the most dedicated horror fans might be wondering when and how Hodder played Freddy Krueger, but, rest assured, it really happened. Hodder's moment as the dreamworld menace came on "Jason Goes to Hell," when, in the final minutes, Krueger's claw breaches the soil to drag Voorhees' mask down to hell. The man manipulating the clawed glove was not Robert Englund, but Hodder pulling double slasher duty. And that is how, over the course of his still-slaying Hollywood career (he originated the role of newfangled slasher Victor Crowley in Adam Green's "Hatchet" movies), Kane Hodder played Jason Voorhees, Leatherface, and Freddy Krueger.