Nosferatu: Bill Skarsgård teases a disgusting but sexy monster

“I don’t think people will recognize me.”

In 2017, the general public discovered the new adaptation of Stephen King's novel, That, and at the same time the one who succeeds Tim Curry under the red wig and clown makeup of Pennywise. Even without makeup, the strange upturned smile and wide-open eyes of Bill Skarsgard terrifies you. As a horrifying clown, the fourth son of the Skarsgård siblings is terribly gifted. Even though he himself doesn't like horror films! But for the actor who transforms himself for all his roles and deepens the psyche of his characters, there are no restrictions: “I want to explore my own limits.”

Continuing in the horrific register, the Swede pretends to be Count Orlok, a vampiric character in front of the camera. Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse, The Northman) for the much awaited Nosferatu. If the first images revealed here and there depict William Dafoe in a sort of Van Helsing, Nicholas Hoult playing husbands, Lily-Rose Depp as a tormented and frightened young woman, and a dark time, gothic atmosphere with isolated villages and foggy places, the sinister look of the creature played by Bill Skarsgard is still obscure. “I don’t think people will recognize me,” he teases.

Robert Eggers: “Willem Dafoe shot a scene with two thousand rats for Nosferatu”

While waiting to see with our own eyes the extent of the transformation, the actor gave some indications that are intriguing to say the least. Interviewed by Esquire, Skarsgård claims to have sent the director a video he had recorded of himself on Zoom in which he appeared with slicked back hair and long false nails on his fingertips while trying to modulate his voice. Robert Eggers told the American media:

“At the second makeup test, I said to myself : 'He became the character'. It was strange to see this in pictures. Everything he did, no matter where he turned his head or looked, we said to each other 'he got the thing'.”

Metaphor of death and love, the vampire is a passionate being, the sexiest monster in literature and cinema since the poem The Giaour written in 1813 by Lord Byron. And this vampire then, will he be sexy like Bela Lugosi in Dracula (1931) and Gary Oldman in the 1992 remake? Or scary like Nosferatu from 1922 – from which it draws its inspiration – or its 1977 remake?

“He is disgusting, the actor decides. But it is very sexualized. It's about playing with a sexual fetish about the power of the monster and what effect it has on you. I hope you'll be a little attracted to him and disgusted by your attraction at the same time.”

Perhaps then he would be close to Christopher Lee's interpretation in Dracula's Nightmare (1958)?

Also starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Bullet Train, Kraven the Hunter), and Emma Corrin (The Crown), Nosferatu by Robert Eggers will be released for Christmas, December 25, 2024 in the United States. No date has been announced for France.

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