Many films have taken on the classic Dracula tale, but a woman is at its center for the first time in the new Nosferatu movie. Lily-Rose Depp stars as a newlywed who is haunted 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 every bit as powerful as I expected and just as raw and ferocious as you see on the 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 switched around a few times. But as soon as Depp auditioned, he knew she was his star. Her initial performance moved him to tears — as well as the casting director and the videographer.
Lily-Rose Depp in “Nosferatu.” (Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection)
Depp told Yahoo Entertainment that she “really, 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 things to the wall and hope it’ll stick … 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’s devastated when her new husband leaves her amid horrific nightmares to travel, then wracked with mysterious seizures that leave her in full-body spasms, shrieking and crying with her eyes rolled back in her head.
Depp did extensive preparation with movement coach Marie-Gabrielle Rotie, who helped her “find those movements” and “make sure they were telling 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 those physical movements not only looked right physically on camera, but that they were … telling the viewer something about what’s going on. In a way, the physicality and emotion kind of went hand in hand.”
In the film, Depp’s character is haunted by a vampire. (Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection)
Eggers said that the 1922 version of Nosferatu shifts its focus to Ellen at the end, but it was important for him to follow her perspective from the beginning. Count Orlok’s mere existence is terrifying for the viewer.
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There’s been a “long journey” through “the evolution of the cinematic vampire,” Eggers said. He named a wide range of them: Max Schreck, who starred in the 1922 film Nosferatu; Bela Lugosi, who portrayed the titular vampire in the 1931 Dracula film; Christopher Lee, star of the 1958 film Dracula; and Robert Pattinson’s Edward Cullen from the Twilight book and movie franchise.
For Eggers’s vampire, played by Bill Skarsgård, he wanted to depart from the typical onscreen adaptation and focus on “folkloric vampires” to create a new villain.
“They’re putrid, 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 like Vlad the Impaler, though onscreen vampires are frequently bare-faced. Eggers said he had to “tip [his] hat” to Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel for that one — the original Dracula had a mustache.
Nosferatu is now in theaters.
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