‘Nosferatu’ director Robert Eggers said he knew Lily-Rose Depp was his star “as soon as I met her”

Many films have taken on the classic Dracula In the new story, a woman takes center stage for the first time Nosferatu film. Lily-Rose Depp plays a newly married woman who is haunted by a vampire.

“As soon as I met her it was clear. She really understood the script. She really understood the character,” writer-director Robert Eggers told Yahoo Entertainment. “Then she auditioned and it was just as powerful as I expected and just as raw and wild as you see on screen. I’m so proud of what she achieved in this film.”

Eggers worked on this film for so long that the cast changed a few times. But when Depp auditioned, he knew she was his star. Her first appearance moved him to tears – as did the casting director and the videographer.

Depp told Yahoo Entertainment that she “really, really, really wanted” the role, so she gave it her all.

“Auditions are always strange, especially over Zoom. It’s not the ideal lens to show someone your best work,” she said. “You just try to throw things at the wall and hope it sticks… so I thought the least I could do is get there emotionally and physically. Somehow it worked!”

To say the role is physical is an understatement. Depp’s character, Ellen Hutter, is often emotional – she is devastated when her new husband leaves her amid horrific travel nightmares, and then is plagued by mysterious seizures that leave her in full-body convulsions, screaming and crying with her eyes rolled back in her head .

Depp prepared extensively with movement coach Marie-Gabrielle Rotie, who helped her “find those movements” and “make sure they tell a story.”

“As the story progresses, Ellen’s situation changes and what she’s going through… her inner war, if you will,” the actress said. “We wanted to make sure that these physical movements not only looked physically right on camera, but that they also told the viewer something about what was going on. In a way, physicality and emotions went hand in hand.”

Eggers said that the 1922 version Nosferatu focuses on Ellen at the end, but he felt it was important to follow her perspective from the start. The very existence of Count Orlok is frightening to the viewer.

There was a “long journey” through “the development of the cinematic vampire,” Eggers said. He named a whole bunch of them: Max Schreck, who starred in the 1922 film Nosferatu; Bela Lugosi, who portrayed the titular vampire in 1931 Dracula Film; Christopher Lee, star of the 1958 film Dracula; and Robert Pattinson’s Edward Cullen from the dusk Book and film Franchise.

For Eggers’ vampire, played by Bill Skarsgård, he wanted to deviate from the typical screen adaptation and focus on “folkloristic vampires” to create a new villain.

“They are putrid, decaying corpses. So the question is: “What would a dead Transylvanian nobleman look like and how would he behave?” he said. “That influenced the design of the makeup, the costume and Bill’s performance.”

His Count Orlok has a pronounced mustache like Vlad the Impaler, although vampires often have bare faces on screen. Eggers said he had to “tip his hat” to Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel for this – the original Dracula had a moustache.

Nosferatu is now in the cinema.