Robert Eggers likes to go in cold.
I dont want to know anything about it.
I just want to watch the movie.
Director Robert Eggers on the set of his film ‘Nosferatu’Aidan Monaghan/Focus Features
This shit were doing here, right now?
Wouldnt want to read it.
He lets out a loud laugh.
Eggers lets out another laugh, shaking his head then shrugging.
Thatmaybe a pull for, like, getting folks into the theaters.
(It opened on Christmas Day, because the world loves a sick joke.)
Eggers has been obsessed with the film since he first saw F.W.
Murnaus symphony of horror as a nine-year-old, and once mounted a theatrical production of it as a teen.
Undead corpses, but corpses nonetheless.
Theyd look closer to cinematic zombies than, you know, Bela Lugosi.
That informed the hair, the costume, the fact that our Nosferatu has a mustache…
I dont know if people who havent readDraculaknow this, but the Count has a mustache in the novel.
And also make him look like hes literally just risen from a grave.
I stilldothink our Nosferatu is bit more handsome, though!
This is where the beautiful young guy enters the picture.
Then Eggers ran into a few roadblocks.
But I mean, in the end, thank goodness!
More importantly, I wouldnt have had the right cast.
Especially in terms of Bill.
Eggers ended up pivoting to the nautical-themed psychological thrillerThe Lighthouse(2019).
(Bills brother, Alexander Skarsgard, was already playing the title role.)
Then Covid hit, and he couldnt do it.
I have no regrets, because [actor] Gustav Lindh is great in the role.
Id never seen Lily carry a film before, the director notes.
Then she auditioned, and it was just as raw and intense as everything you see her doing onscreen.
She cameintothe film like that.
It was exhausting for her.
She just throws herself into everything.
(Case in point:this.)
It was going to behismovie.
I mean, Robert started out an actor, so he could have played him.
So it was like I was this sweet extension of Robert onscreen, in a way.
I felt like I was his agent inside the movie.
And therefore, the artifice was not so much there.
There are obviously beautifully restored versions now, and I love watching those, Eggers adds.
you’ve got the option to see Murnaus intentions so clearly.
But youd watch those old, faded, messed-up prints and Max Schreckseemedlike a real vampire.
The whole thing felt just kind of like this artifact that had been unearthed from the past.
To use a word that Im like sick of talking about it felt authentic.
And that was just really, really inspiring.
