Robert Eggers’ reimagining of Nosferatu charts a similar path to F. W. Murnau’s 1922 silent film, following a real estate agent who goes to visit the mysterious Count Orlok in the depths of Transylvania. There, he learns that the ancient vampire actually harbors a deep, secret obsession with his wife, Ellen, and will stop at nothing to get to her.
Lily-Rose Depp plays Ellen in this iteration, alongside Nicholas Hoult as her husband Thomas Hutter and Bill Skarsgård as Orlok. Speaking to GamesRadar+ about the dynamic between the three characters, Depp explains how they wanted to dive deeper into aspects of desire and love.
“I think in a lot of ways, he’s almost a symbol of the things that you don’t want or that you shouldn’t want, and yet you are so drawn to,” she explains. “I think a lot of what Ellen is going through is an internal battle between all of this darkness that she’s always had within her, and then the light that she’s trying to cling to. I think he, of course, is the manifestation of that, of that darkness.”
She adds: “We definitely wanted it to feel like a love-triangle in a lot of ways and it’s a love story in the end. I think she really loves Thomas and I think she does though have this twisted yearning for this darker realm, and I think [Orlok] is the embodiment of that.”
As Ellen’s connection to Orlok grows in the movie, she experiences more intense visions of him, leading to some terrifying possession scenes. Depp admits these were extremely “physical” to perform, but really helped her get into character too.
“It was fascinating working on that aspect of the character because, in a way, it was a way into her emotionally,” she adds. “Because all of those moments are in the end like a manifestation of what she’s going through, the torment that she’s going through internally. And it’s bringing that internal torment to the outside. I worked with an amazing movement coach who helped me tremendously, but we also approached it from a real emotional place, to ground it in a real feeling. I think also, because a lot of those physical scenes are also quite emotional, the two started to go hand in hand.”
For director Eggers, Ellen was a key reason that he wanted to revisit the famous story of Nosferatu at all. “It was what I discovered was the reason to tell the story again. For my own love of the story, it wasn’t enough and so I had this pull to Nosferatu, like Ellen does, this obsession, like Ellen does,” he explains to us. “And then I realized, yeah, well, if it’s her story, then we have a whole new way into exploring the world, exploring the mythology and making something that is a bit more hopefully emotionally connective. And the characters can be richer because we’re exploring their inner lives and their psychology. Mina and Lucy are just necks that happen to be close by when Dracula moves to England, but he’s after Ellen from the beginning here.”
Nosferatu is released in US theaters on Christmas Day and UK cinemas on New Year’s Day. Read our Nosferatu review here. For more scares, check out our guides to upcoming horror movies and the best horror movies of all time.