Nosferatu‘s Count Orlok Is So Scary He Freaked Out Co-Stars on Set

While fearfulness 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 1 item successful his Nosferatu that isn’t going to go wide until audiences are really watching the movie: what the titular vampire looks like.

It’s a maneuver that worked superbly for this summer’s Longlegs, which shielded Nicolas Cage’s uniquely repulsive maniac until his on-screen appearance. And, based connected the creep origin of Eggers’ erstwhile films—and Bill Skarsgård’s; helium plays Nosferatu‘s bloodsucking Count Orlok aft vividly embodying It‘s Pennywise—one tin presume the monster volition beryllium worthy the wait.

But you don’t person to spell connected axenic speculation for that. According to a caller diagnostic connected the movie successful Deadline, Skarsgård was truthful terrifying erstwhile helium got into his costume and make-up that helium freaked retired his co-stars, including Lily-Rose Depp and Nicholas Hoult.

Speaking to Deadline, Depp recalled her archetypal impressions aft seeing Skarsgård afloat vamped up. “I retrieve thinking, ‘This is genuinely scary arsenic hell, to beryllium conscionable adjacent to him successful a room, truthful I can’t ideate however it’s going to work connected screen.’ He was genuinely petrifying-looking, and then, erstwhile we started really shooting the movie, it was otherworldly, because, similar everything successful a Robert Eggers movie, the detail—the mode they made his tegument look and feel, the costume, the full thing—feels truthful real, and it feels similar a full nightmare,” she said. “That’s what I deliberation is truthful unsettling astir it: it’s not conscionable similar looking astatine a monster; it’s similar there’s thing precise quality astir him, which I deliberation makes it each the much terrifying.”

Hoult, who archetypal encountered Skarsgård arsenic Orlok portion filming the country wherever their characters meet, had a akin reaction. “For that archetypal interaction, we’re truthful acold apart, he’s conscionable a silhouette. And done that archetypal country that we do, erstwhile we locomotion into the castle, you don’t truly spot him. It’s benignant of that happening wherever you’re like, ‘Oh, I cognize I consciousness uneasy,’ but [my character] Tom is excessively polite. He’s not the idiosyncratic that’s going to beryllium like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, backmost up.’ It’s each benignant of a weird fever dream, what’s happening, but it’s like, ‘Oh, I’ve got to proceed this. This is what I request to do.’”

Head to Deadline to work much astir the instauration of Skarsgård’s mysterious monster (including the attraction that went into creating his voice), arsenic good arsenic much behind-the-scenes tidbits… unless you person a rodent phobia, due to the fact that there’s immoderate gleeful treatment of the 5,000 rats that participated successful the filming.

Nosferatu hits theaters December 25.

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