Many films have adapted the classic Dracula story, but the new one focuses on a woman for the first time Nosferatu film. Lily-Rose Depp stars as a newlywed couple chased by a vampire.
“As soon as I met her, it was clear. She really understood the script. She really understood the character,” writer-director Robert Eggers told Yahoo Entertainment. “Then she auditioned, and it was just as powerful as I expected and just as raw and ferocious as you see on screen. I’m so proud of what she accomplished in this film.
Eggers has been working on this film for so long that the cast has changed a few times. But as soon as Depp auditioned, he knew she was his star. Her first performance brought him to tears, as well as the casting director and videographer.
Lily-Rose Depp in ‘Nosferatu’. (Focus Features/Courtesy of Everett Collection)
Depp told Yahoo Entertainment that she “really, really wanted” the role, so she gave it her all.
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“Auditions are always weird, especially over Zoom. It’s not the ideal lens to show someone your best work,” she said. “You just try to throw stuff at the wall and hope it sticks… so I thought the least I can do is get there emotionally and physically. Somehow it worked!”
To say the role is physical is an understatement. Depp’s character, Ellen Hutter, is often emotional: she is devastated when her new husband leaves her to travel amid horrific nightmares, and is then beset by mysterious seizures that leave her in full-body spasms, screaming and crying with her eyes rolled back in her head.
Depp prepared extensively with movement coach Marie-Gabrielle Rotie, who helped her “find those movements” and “make sure they told a story.”
“As the story progresses, so does Ellen’s situation and what she’s going through… her internal war, if you will,” the actress said. “We wanted to make sure that those physical movements not only looked physically good on camera, but that they… told the viewer something about what was going on. In a way, physicality and emotion went hand in hand.”
In the film, Depp’s character is chased by a vampire. (Focus Features/Courtesy of Everett Collection)
Eggers said the 1922 version of Nosferatu eventually shifts the focus to Ellen, but it was important for him to follow her perspective from the beginning. Count Orlok’s very existence is terrifying to the viewer.
There has been a “long journey” through “the evolution of the cinematic vampire,” Eggers said. He mentioned many: Max Schreck, who starred in the 1922 film Nosferatu; Bela Lugosi, who played the titular vampire in 1931 Dracula film; Christopher Lee, star of the 1958 film Dracula; and Robert Pattinson’s Edward Cullen from the Twilight book and film franchise.
For Eggers’ vampire, played by Bill Skarsgård, he wanted to deviate from the typical on-screen adaptation and focus on “folkloric vampires” to create a new villain.
“They’re rotten, rotting corpses. So the question is: what would a dead Transylvanian nobleman look like, and how would he behave? he said. “That’s what informed the design of the makeup, the costume and Bill’s performance.”
His Count Orlok has a distinct mustache, as does Vlad the Impaler, although on-screen vampires are often naked. Eggers said he should leave a tip [his] hat” after Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel for that one – the original Dracula had a moustache.
Nosferatu is in theaters now.
