NOSFERATU Featurette Offers First Official Look at Bill Skarsgård's Count Orlok Design
Director Robert Eggers' Nosferatu is a great horror film that is a must watch for horror fans. The design of Bill Skarsgård's Count Orlok has mostly been kept hidden, but Focus Features recently shared a first official look at the vampire.
Yes, there have been several leaked shots, which I included below, but this new featurette offers an official look, and while it does keep Orlok in the shadows, it does feature a brief full look at the end.
This new take on Orlok has been divisive, but I liked it and Eggers previously explained that he wanted to change up the classic creature design for something that more closely resembled an "undead nobleman."
The filmmaker previously said: “What would a dead Transylvanian nobleman actually look like? That was basically where I started from, and I wanted to still acknowledge Max Schreck’s makeup design.”
Makeup designer David White elaborated, saying: "It was always going to be new and fresh because we had Bill Skarsgård to work with. Bill has a great bone structure and wonderful expressive eyes, and is such a great actor.
“There are echoes of the original Max Schreck version in the look, but only fleeting echoes. I feel our Orlok gives a much deeper, more visual interpretation, and is definitely standalone."
As for Skarsgård he initially wasn’t convinced with the design, but he eventually came around. Eggers recalls: “Bill sees the sculpt of the bust and he freaks out, and he’s like, ‘That doesn’t look anything like me, this guy didn’t look like me when he was even alive.
“'What the f*ck?’ He wasn’t mean, but he was alarmed. And I was like, ‘Well, that’s the point, that you’re totally transforming into somebody else.’ And then, he’s putting the makeup on and he’s like, ‘Ugh, I look like a goblin. This is terrible.’
“And then, once they put the hair on, even though the makeup wasn’t totally finished, I saw the first moment when he was like, ‘OK, this is cool. This is a person.’ I started to see him in the mirror, playing around, trying to do something."
Nosferatu continues to perform very well at the box office, and has now passed $135 million worldwide.