How an Iconic ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s 2’ Sound Got Its Spooky Origins

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 may have had an uneven response from critics, but that didn’t stop the film from spooking up $109 million around the world on its opening weekend. To celebrate, io9 got to chat with voice actor Kellan Goff, who played fan-fave Foxy in the first film, and returns to voice Toy Freddy, the Fazbear variant who dominates the sequel.

Goff is seasoned at donning many Fazbear top hats within the Five Nights franchise since he started, having answered a mysterious casting notice a friend sent his way years ago. “‘Costumed entertainer’ was the code name for it. And it would turn out to be Funtime Freddy in Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location, which would be my first foray into the franchise,†he shared. “Scott Cawthon and I just sort of clicked, and he has thankfully kept me around since.â€

Goff has been working on Five Nights at Freddy’s, across its video game and now film iterations, for the best part of a decade, building up a rapport with its creator. “Scott is kind of an elusive man,†Goff continued. “He likes stuff to be ambiguous, in that mystery is unsettling to the human mind and can intrigue people of all ages, I feel like. And surely, you know, seeing animatronics from, like, real-life animatronics from years past. They also tended to unsettle the minds of all ages, right? So it was kind of a genius ramp into horror that he made there, and I still laud him for that to this day.â€

There’s always been a creep factor to mascots, no matter how beloved, but Five Nights at Freddy‘s tapped into both the nostalgia people have for pizza-and-animatronic-laden entertainment venues and that underlying creepiness to kick off a whole new trend of mascot-based horror. “[It] makes it even more unsettling—it’s the empathy; you can put yourself in their shoes,†Goff explained, before revealing that one of Foxy’s breakout moments from the film came from a moment of experimental improvisation.

Foxy’s introduction in the first Five Nights at Freddy’s is heralded by a haunting melody, buh-dum-dumming from the dark that clued audiences into there being something sinister happening—and things were about to get real. But Goff says that the creepy sound wasn’t originally planned.

“That was me in the first film, and that was fun because we did that remote,†the actor explained. “I was out in the middle of Massachusetts at the time, and all I had was my phone, but [the filmmakers] were like, ‘Yeah, go for it.’ So what I recorded on my phone is what you hear in the movie.â€

Foxy’s little creepy jingle has become synonymous with the film adaptations, a hallmark melody that can set the hairs on the back of the fandom’s neck tingling whenever they hear it—and is something the actor is proud of contributing to. “I have been part of this family since 2016. And even before, I was a fan of the franchise. It’s inspiring to see how brightly this love for this franchise still burns,†Goff reflected. “Engineers and artists from all over, FNAF tends to be just a common creative outlet for all of us. It’s conglomerated a glob of us nerds into a big old happy family.â€

As well as voicing the returning Foxy, Goff also got the chance to play another animatronic in the sequel: Toy Freddy, one of the redesigned Freddy Fazbear variants that becomes a major antagonist in the series. “It was a few bits of dialogue that we recorded. Toy Freddy already has a voice by Darren Roebuck, brilliantly played in Ultimate Custom Night. So we tried an homage to that, but then we tried what you hear in the movie today, which is a whole lot scarier. It was very fun working with Emma Tammi on all that.â€

But beyond lending his vocal talents, for the second film, Goff actually got to make it onto the screen as well—in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment for FNAF fans, you can see the actor behind Toy Freddy once the animatronic arrives at FazFest, a community-run festival celebrating the Fazbear brand.

“I was at a convention in New Orleans at the time when it was filming, and Scott allowed me to have an onscreen cameo in it. If you look really close behind Toy Freddy in FNAF 2, you can see me walking behind [him],†Goff revealed. “I only got to be on set with Toy Freddy, but man, was that enough. Jim Henson’s workshop does immaculate work. It’s almost one-to-one with the games. It’s kind of unreal to have seen [it] in real life.â€

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is in theaters now.

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