Robert Eggers credits Lily-Rose Depp for her dedication to dipping into the undead.
Eggers told Vanity Fair that while filming his Gothic fable “Nosferatu,” Depp gave a staggering performance that left her exhausted. Due to how “physically demanding” the role was, Eggers limited his takes on set.
Depp plays Ellen Hutter, a woman with whom the titular bloodsucker, aka Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård), becomes obsessed.
“It was very physically demanding on her,” Eggers said of Depp’s performance. “I tend to do a lot of takes, but there are some times when you realize we only have so many takes because it’s just so exhausting for her to do that. That’s her. We didn’t spruce it up with CG. She is doing those movements.”
Anya Taylor-Joy was originally cast in the Ellen Hutter role in 2016 after collaborating with Eggers on “The Witch” and “The Northman.” The “Furiosa” star exited the project due to scheduling conflicts.
Eggers explained that the Ellen character is a foil to Skarsgård’s Nosferatu.
“Ellen has always understood and sensed the other, and she’s highly tuned into the otherworldly,” Eggers said. “She’s a deep person, but she doesn’t have the language to talk about this stuff. As a young woman in this period, she also doesn’t have any authority. So she’s being called melancholic and crazy, and so forth. And so she’s a very misunderstood character.”
He continued, “So as much as Orlok is a demon, there is also something that he offers. Until she meets [Willem Dafoe’s] Von Franz, no one else is able to even possibly communicate with her. Sometimes that’s how toxic relationships can survive in the real world, even though they’re completely horrible and damaging in reality.”
Eggers added that “Nosferatu” is not a twisted love story but rather a study in consuming infatuation.
“The archetypal motif is a demon lover story,” Eggers said. “It’s not so much love, it’s obsession. And I think that that’s the nature of this relationship.”
Lead actor Skarsgård previously told Esquire that playing Nosferatu also “took its toll” on him, in part due to the “sexual fetish” of the blood-thirsty monster.
“It was like conjuring pure evil,” Skarsgård said. “It took a while for me to shake off the demon that had been conjured inside of me. It’s playing with a sexual fetish about the power of the monster and what that appeal has to you. Hopefully you’ll get a little bit attracted by it and disgusted by your attraction at the same time.”
