While horror fans eagerly await the latest from Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Northman, The Lighthouse)—anticipation that’s been further excited by scary trailers and marketing materials—there’s one detail in his Nosferatu that isn’t going to become clear until audiences are actually watching the movie: what the titular vampire looks like.
It’s a tactic that worked superbly for this summer’s Longlegs, which shielded Nicolas Cage’s uniquely repulsive maniac until his on-screen appearance. And, based on the creep factor of Eggers’ previous films—and Bill Skarsgård’s; he plays Nosferatu‘s bloodsucking Count Orlok after vividly embodying It‘s Pennywise—one can assume the monster will be worth the wait.
But you don’t have to go on pure speculation for that. According to a new feature on the movie in Deadline, Skarsgård was so terrifying once he got into his costume and make-up that he freaked out his co-stars, including Lily-Rose Depp and Nicholas Hoult.
Speaking to Deadline, Depp recalled her first impressions after seeing Skarsgård fully vamped up. “I remember thinking, ‘This is genuinely scary as hell, to be just next to him in a room, so I can’t imagine how it’s going to read on screen.’ He was genuinely petrifying-looking, and then, once we started actually shooting the movie, it was otherworldly, because, like everything in a Robert Eggers movie, the detail—the way they made his skin look and feel, the costume, the whole thing—feels so real, and it feels like a total nightmare,” she said. “That’s what I think is so unsettling about it: it’s not just like looking at a monster; it’s like there’s something very human about him, which I think makes it all the more terrifying.”
Hoult, who first encountered Skarsgård as Orlok while filming the scene where their characters meet, had a similar reaction. “For that first interaction, we’re so far apart, he’s just a silhouette. And through that first scene that we do, when we walk into the castle, you don’t really see him. It’s kind of that thing where you’re like, ‘Oh, I know I feel uneasy,’ but [my character] Tom is too polite. He’s not the person that’s going to be like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up.’ It’s all kind of a weird fever dream, what’s happening, but it’s like, ‘Oh, I’ve got to continue this. This is what I need to do.’”
Head to Deadline to read more about the creation of Skarsgård’s mysterious monster (including the care that went into creating his voice), as well as more behind-the-scenes tidbits… unless you have a rodent phobia, because there’s some gleeful discussion of the 5,000 rats that participated in the filming.
Nosferatu hits theaters December 25.
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