Robert Eggers had worked with Alexander Skarsgard for The Northman, but now he’s moving over to brother Bill Skarsgard for Nosferatu.
Bill Skarsgard has actually played another iconic movie monster with Pennywise the Clown in the IT reboot movies, and Eggers says it was his look in IT: Chapter 2 that got him interested in Skarsgard for Orlock.
During a talk with Konbini (via @CultureCrave), Eggers explained, “The scene where he played Pennywise as a man … that was heavy, and I believed it … I thought this guy could play Orlock.” It was this scene in particular that had Pennywise taking on a more human form with Skargsard’s face:
A lot of hype has been surrounding Skarsgard’s performance as this version of Count Dracula, and even Eggers himself has been geeking out about his transformation in the movie. In an interview with Empire November of last year, Eggers said, “I’ll say that Bill has so transformed, I’m fearful that he might not get the credit that he deserves because he’s just… he’s not there.”
For now, Nosferatu is getting acclaim at the box office and has already become one of Eggers’ highest-grossing movies. After the commercial disappointment that was The Northman, Eggers fans can breathe a sigh of relief that he won’t be going to ‘Director Jail’ anytime soon.
Hopefully that rumor about him taking on a Labyrinth movie is true because I would absolutely love to see this auteur take on some fantastical creature work after all his period dramas.
Catch Nosferatu now in theaters.
