Nicholas Hoult Says That ‘There Is Not Anything of Bill Skarsgård Left’ In His Performance in ‘Nosferatu’

We are just months away from the release of Robert Eggers’ “ Nosferatu ,” the reimagining of F. W. Murnau’s 1922 film, later remade by Werner Herzog in 1979. Star Nicholas Hoult , who plays Thomas Hutter, is teasing just how terrifying Bill Skarsgård is going to be as Count Orlok.

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“He’s terrifying, it’s not Bill,” Hoult told IndieWire at the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of “The Order.” “That’s what’s so worrying about it. He gives a truly transformative performance where there is not anything of Bill left and it’s scary and intimidating. His voice, his physicality, I mean the makeup he has, it’s really a wonderful character and he did beautiful character work with it.”

The film stars Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter, a woman whose soul is seduced by the Count while her husband Thomas Hutter fights to save her. The official description for “Nosferatu” reads: “Robert Eggers’ ‘Nosferatu’ is a Gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake.”

Skarsgård previously teased that the role “took its toll. It was like conjuring pure evil. It took a while for me to shake off the demon that had been conjured inside of me.”

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“I remember early on, him trying to talk to me about what it meant to be a dead sorcerer — and I’m into some pretty heavy occult shit, but he was on a different level,” Eggers added. “I was like, ‘This sounds accurate, but I don’t know how to converse about this with any fluidity.’”

“Nosferatu” was shot on film and marks Eggers’ latest collaboration with Focus Features after his 2022 Viking epic “The Northman.” “I do think that there hasn’t been an old-school Gothic movie that’s actually scary in a while,” Eggers told Empire magazine. “And I think that the majority of audiences will find this one to be the case.”

“Nosferatu” will be released in theaters on Wednesday, December 25.