Apparently, I'm not the only one who failed to clock that the titular "Nosferatu" (Romanian for "vampire") was none other than Skarsgård. "It was probably more difficult than anything I've done," he exclusively tells Parade, comparing Nosferatu's Count Orlok with his other roles. "In terms of a transformative performance, I think this is miles and miles further away from me than even [It's] Pennywise. I've been saying this is as transformative as I will go. This is my limit, and that's also the reason people don't believe I'm in the movie."
Of course crafting a new version of Dracula/Orlok was certainly a momentous task. Skarsgård's been told there were already over "170 different adaptations" of the character prior to his own. He's humbly giving much of the credit for his own transformation to Eggers' screenplay, though.
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Bill Skarsgård as Count Orlok standing in the shadows in 'Nosferatu'Focus Features
Step one in the transformation was the voice. "I was really enamored by Orlok's language," Skarsgård says of Eggers' script. "He's technically speaking German in the movie, but it's English. I think he's learned German just from reading all of these texts and old books. It's this awkwardly constructed English that came out of that."
The deep gravely voice in the film was the product of acclaimed Icelandic opera singer Ásgerður Júníusdóttir. "We explored the voice together, but also the technicality of using your entire body when you speak and placing the voice as low as you can in your body," Skarsgård says. "It's a new world for me, and I love voice work. I was just absorbing all of these tools that I'm going to use as my career progresses."
While Focus Features is keeping Orlok's appearance under wraps for as long as possible, you can see the massive fur coat Skarsgård donned in the shadowy poster.
'Nosferatu' posterFocus Features
Perhaps the most impressive element of Skarsgård's transformation, however, was David White's prosthetic makeup, which took hours to apply each day, was difficult to act through and painful to wear. When I ask if he was able to cheat on days he was in the shadows, Skarsgård says no with one exception: "Every single shadow in this movie is also me puppeteering behind camera. That was the only time where I didn't need to have the full regalia on."
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'Nosferatu'Focus Features
"I don't know her perspective on, 'I'm going to kiss this monster,'" Skarsgård says about his (fully clothed? skinned? suited?) sex scene, "But for me, when we shot, I was Orlok, and I really, really, really wanted to devour her."
The most difficult day on set for Skarsgård, however, involved a sequence filmed on a boat during Orlok's transfer from his castle in Transylvania to the German harbor he plans to terrorize next. In one scene that involved "pretty tricky advanced camera work," a seaman descends into the hull of the ship to "rid the boat of this demon." As the camera follows the sailor, Skarsgård's Orlok is initially seen behind the man in the shadows.
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Bill Skarsgård's hands in 'Nosferatu'Focus Features
During the 12 hours running around the hull of a ship, Skarsgård remembers thinking, "I don't know what's happening, but my body is not doing well."
Obviously, Skarsgård did not die of heat exhaustion in a latex Dracula suit like that one cameraman in the 2022 film Babylon.
Skarsgård compares the agony of the shoot with what he thinks childbirth would feel like. "They're not on the same level, of course. I've seen childbirth, but it's as close as I can get to giving birth as a man, as these f--king monsters I'm portraying," he says.
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