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As proven by The Witch, The Lighthouse and The Northman, Robert Eggers doesn’t skimp on the historical accuracy, and the same is evidently true for his upcoming Nosferatu, which opens in theaters on December 25.
In a new interview with Total Film, Eggers reveals that his take on the menacing Count Orlok, played by Barbarian and It‘s Bill Skarsgård, is going to be a far cry from the slinky, sexy vampires we’ve come to know and love in the post-Twilight era:
“We’ve gone all the way to Edward Cullen, where vampires are not scary. So how do we go in the complete opposite direction of that? Vampires were scary enough that people used to dig up corpses and chop them into bits and set them on fire. […] I think we deserve a scary, smelly corpse again,”
However, that’s not to say that Eggers and Skarsgård’s vision of the bloodsucking beast is going to be chaste, oh no. Skarsgård has previously gone on record as saying that his Orlok is “gross, but sexualized”, hoping that viewers will be simultaneously revolted and attracted. In a true display of method acting, Skarsgård is even said to have worked with an opera coach to lower his voice by a full octave.
Previously, speaking to Empire, Eggers told more of the transformation:
“I’ll say that Bill has so transformed, I’m fearful that he might not get the credit that he deserves because he’s just… he’s not there. He felt like honoring who had come before him. It’s all very subtle. But I think the main thing is that he’s even more a folk vampire. In my opinion he looks like a dead Transylvanian nobleman, and in a way that we’ve never actually seen what an actual dead Transylvanian nobleman would look like and be dressed like.”
Wisely, Eggers and the marketing team at Focus Features have kept the new design of Orlok firmly in the shadows, with neither trailer revealing any more than a wizened claw and ominous stalking shape in the dark.
Total Film also provide a sneak peak of star Nicholas Hoult (Renfield, The Menu) in his role as Thomas Hutter, a real estate agent from F.W. Murnau’s 1922 expressionist original, who in turn is based on the character of Jonathan Harker from Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula.
Lily-Rose Depp plays Hutter’s wife, Ellen, a young woman who attracts the attention of Skarsgård’s slathering beast.
Also starring in Nosferatu are Willem Dafoe, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin and Ralph Ineson.
Read the full interview with Eggers in the next (and final) issue of Total Film magazine.
