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Robert Eggers on Making Count Orlok - aka Nosferatu - a True Monster Again
Nosferatu writer/director Robert Eggers explains the design behind his Count Orlok.
Whether it originates from Bram Stoker's Dracula or director F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, a vampire is a vampire, for the most part. The idea of a mythical undead creature that feeds off the essence of the living dates back millennia. But our modern notion of a vampire comes from European folklore that was reimagined and popularized in 18th and 19th century poetry and fiction.
Today, the vampire is so ubiquitous in pop culture that it's claimed its own horror sub genre which continues to permeate fiction, film, and television. On film, the creature's first lasting incarnation came in 1922, with Count Orlok in Murnau’s Nosferatu, which itself was the unauthorized, unofficial adaptation of Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. In the 102 years since, there have been countless portrayals of vampires, with many that stray into the realms of comedy, romance, and farce.
While the creativity around the expression of a vampire has kept the concept ever-evolving and fresh for audiences, writer/director Robert Eggers told SYFY WIRE that his long-gestating version of Nosferatu (in theaters on Christmas Day) is all about going back to the vampire's frightening essence.
Nosferatu's Robert Eggers on making vampires scary again
As someone fascinated by vampire lore going back to his youth, Eggers said he spent the last two decades gaining the directorial skills and experience to be ready to finally create his adaptation of Nosferatu. He was also observing the presentation of vampires on film and assessed that the threat inherent to cinematic vampires had been diminished.
"From Max Shrek to Bela Legosi to Christopher Lee all the way to Edward Cullen, vampires aren't scary anymore," Eggers told SYFY WIRE. "And by the way, all of that stuff comes from John Polidori's [short story] 'The Vampyre' and his Lord Ruthven, who is the first handsome, aristocratic, pale-skinned, sexy guy. But the vampires of folklore that were told by the people who believed in vampires and thought they were real, [for them] it's a putrid corpse."
Eggers spent a lot of time thinking about and conceptualizing an iteration of Count Orlok that was directly tied to the creature's European folklore origins. He said he imagined: "What does a dead Transylvanian nobleman look like?"
"He's wearing this 16th century Hungarian finery with impossibly long sleeves," Eggers detailed. "He has a mustache, there's just no way around it. He's got one. And this interesting hairstyle that was exciting to me because I feel like it is very grounded and it's the first time that a Dracula portrayal is portrayed the way Dracula as a vampire might have actually looked."
Eggers then cast actor Bill Skarsgård to transform into this era-accurate Orlok.
"It was so exciting, because it was a massive transformation for Bill," Eggers said. "When he first saw the sculpt of the prosthetic makeup, he was intimidated. He said, 'Rob, this guy didn't look like me when he was alive.' And I said, 'I know, that's the point.'"
By Skarsgård's third camera test in full makeup and wardrobe as Orlok, Eggers said, "I saw Bill just disappear and Orlok was standing there. We were all around the monitor like, 'Yeah!'"
Nosferatu hits theaters Christmas Day. Get tickets at Fandango.
