Nosferatu is so terrifying that its star ‘never wants to play something this evil again’

Actor Bill Skarsgård plays Count Orlok in Nosferatu, a vampire horror film remake 102 years later (Picture: Mike Marsland/WireImage)

Nosferatu star Bill Skarsgård has hit the limit of his capacity for portraying wickedness with his latest movie, proclaiming he ‘never wants to play something this evil again’.

In the upcoming horror film, directed by Robert Eggers and which has earned rave reviews and currently sits on an impressive 94% on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, the 34-year-old plays a decaying and cursed vampire.

‘When we were done with it, I was like, “I never want to play something this evil again. I never want to put on prosthetics again”,’ he revealed to Empire magazine.

Based on the classic 1922 silent German Expressionist film, directed by FW Murnau and starring Max Schreck, Nosferatu was an unauthorised adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula with Count Orlok as the terrifying antagonist.

However, Orlok is a world away from the debonair image of Dracula in popular culture, who is normally seen as seductive and handsome – and possibly even dressed in black tie and a cape.

Skarsgård is fully unrecognisable as Orlok, who is thought to have been spawned from the seed of one of Stan’s lieutenants, with the actor’s grisly transformation deliberately being hidden from audiences in Nosferatu’s trailer and publicity images.

With such a demonic background to his character, the Swedish star – who has already previously immersed himself in dark horror roles courtesy of this year’s remake of The Crow and his breakthrough as clown Pennywise in 2017’s It – said that it was ‘a relief’ once the film shoot was over as it had ‘really affected me’.

‘Orlok is an occult sorcerer, and it did a number on me in terms of just trying to inhabit that space,’ he added.

Skarsgård is a horror regular, having played Pennywise in It as well, but has vowed not to play a character ‘as evil’ as Orlok in Nosferatu again (Picture: Warner Bros/Everett/Rex/Shutterstock)

As well as his jaw-droppingly scary appearance, Skarsgård also sounds totally different – and frankly, demonic – as Orlok.

According to Skarsgård, his voice was the aspect of the part he worked hardest at, spending six weeks before shooting not doing ‘much else than just record myself’.

He undergoes a huge transformation in Nosferatu, which is being kept hidden in the trailer and publicity images (pictured with co-star Nicholas Hoult) (Picture: Aidan Monaghan/Focus Features)

‘And on set, I would keep doing these exercises. It sounds kind of like Mongolian throat-singing. It’s [insane].’

I can confirm Skarsgård’s description after seeing Nosferatu myself, with his vampire voice deep, growling and heavily accented with loud, punctuated by shuddering breaths, after he worked with an opera singer to lower his voice an entire octave for the role.

In my glowing review of the movie for Metro, I observed of our introduction to Orlok: ‘Eggers consistently keeps him in the shadows or out of focus, so we can only grasp at an impression from his rattling breathing, booming voice and looming bulk.

The Swedish star also has a chilling voice as Orlok (Picture: Getty)

‘You would never recognise [Skarsgård] – already known for scaring fans as everyone’s nightmare clown in It – as Orlok, thanks to the gruesome and rotten-looking prosthetics he is covered in, from his forehead to a hump on his back and a moustache that will surely go down in cinema history as one of the most terrifying.’

I also described the film as ‘a gothic symphony of blood and sex that revels in its palpable and unsettling sense of dread throughout’ and promised that it ‘could easily haunt your nightmares’.

So consider yourself warned.

Nosferatu hits UK cinemas on January 1, 2025. It’s released in the US on December 25.

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