One of he surprise hits of the holiday season so far has been Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu, a retelling of the vampire myth that stars Willem Dafoe, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Nicholas Hoult, and Bill Skarsgård as the titular creature. I say “surprise” hit not because it’d be expected that the movie be bad by any stretch. Quite the contrary. Our Nosferatu review was a positive rave, and Eggers tends to deliver moody, sprawling epics. But a vampire romance thriller released during Christmastime is counterprogramming at its finest, so we’re a little shocked – but still thrilled – to see that audiences are flocking to theaters to see the movie. Because now we are able to talk about it.
Specifically, that gonzo finale.
We are about to get into spoilers for Nosferatu, so only proceed if you have seen the movie.
Robert Eggers’ critically acclaimed movie ends with Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) and Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) consummating their condemned attraction, as part of a larger plan Ellen participates in to rid her land of Orlok and his plague. Basically, the vampire finally is able to feast on the woman who summoned him in a dream, years prior. And it’s the most shocking appearance of Skarsgard in the Nosferatu makeup. It really is something to see.
Skarsgård and Willem Dafoe appeared as guests on CinemaBlend’s official ReelBlend podcast to talk about the making of Nosferatu, and we asked the IT star about the makeup process. Specifically, we asked about the amount of sweat that’s generated by the prosthetics Skarsgård was required to wear to become Orlok. And he told us:
In terms of the sweat? Not on the face. There was nothing on the face. Everything is like, I'm covered in latex, full body. The only surface of ME is my eyeballs and the soles of my feet. That was the only thing. Everything was covered. And when we were doing the finale, the final moment of the movie, we did 30 takes of it. Without spoiling it, it's a lot of physical performance. So you're completely exhausted, and you're sweating through. What started happening, because there was nowhere for the sweat to escape, it just created this giant bubble on my stomach. It started growing like a tumor. And then between takes, they had to pierce it. … And then on top of that, fake blood and sweat and saliva. It was a gory mess.
So nasty. Beyond nasty. Once you have seen the sex scene between Ellen and Orlok, you won’t ever forget it. As it turns out, a lot of aspects of Nosferatu ended up being unforgettable. Like working with prosthetics, makeup, and latex. Nic Hoult knows all too well how that process goes, having endured it for years to play Beast in the X-Men films. He remembers the complicated process, and was there for his Nosferatu co-star in his time of need.
As Bill Skarsgård told ReelBlend:
He's such a sweet guy. When we were on set, on the first or second day of shooting, it was the long scene where (Hoult’s character) Thomas is introduced to Orlok. And he would just go, ‘Hey, Bill…’ between takes. ‘Where's your hole?’ (laughs) ‘I know how uncomfortable this is.’ He was very compassionate about what I was going through. And I was just sitting there looking (menacing). ‘Do you want to use a water, Bill?’ And I'm like, ‘Noooo!’ But he was very sweet about it because, yeah, he had done it, and so he knows how uncomfortable it can be.
It was all worth it in the end. The Orlok character is truly remarkable, and is one of the reasons why Nosferatu has been so well received. Here’s the full conversation with Bill Skarsgård and Willem Dafoe on ReelBlend:
And make sure to see Nosferatu in theaters. If it plays to your sensibilities, then you can start to plan out future trips to the movies with our list of upcoming horror movies, all arriving in the next few months.
