Leave it to Bill Skarsgård to completely traumatize us – but his latest villain in Nosferatu is even scarier than Pennywise the Clown.
In the new horror movie directed by Robert Eggers, Skarsgård plays Count Orlok, who is the Germanic equivalent of Dracula. After Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp) reawakens his spirit, he hides in the shadows until he can regain full control of her.
It’s true that the most terrifying things in life are the ones we cannot properly see, and Skarsgård takes this to an entirely new level. His character is over seven feet tall with a deep, growling voice… yet we hardly see him at all.
You’ve likely seen the actor before traumatizing kids by hiding in drains throughout the It movies – and now we know which of his iconic villains will keep you up at night.
Count Orlok is almost “too real” for his own good in Nosferatu
In an interview with Dexerto, Skarsgård and co-star Nicholas Hoult revealed Count Orlok is more terrifying than Pennywise because he’s a villain who could genuinely be real.
“I think it’s Orlok” Skarsgård confirms. “I think Pennywise is really terrifying because kids seem to be drawn to him. It’s a clown thing, it’s different.”
“What’s so scary about your performance in this is it feels so authentic and real, and it’s grounded in the history,” Hoult adds. “Obviously all the elements of the emotion and physicality of the performance are scary. But then on top of that, it’s not something where you go, ‘Oh, that’s kind of removed from reality.’
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“You sit there and you go, ‘Oh, this feels very much like something that could have existed in that time, and maybe does exist.’ That’s why it’s so scary for me.”
In the new movie, we follow Orlok from a distance as he tries to buy property from Thomas Hutter (Hoult), a real estate lackey who’s being unknowingly set up by Orlok’s faithful servant. Thomas is merely a tool to get to Ellen, and nothing will stop our villain from getting what he wants.
This leads to plenty of explosive and gory scenes, but the experience of being an all-consuming evil was “physically exhausting” for Skarsgård.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been that exhausted because for me it was such a physical thing to do,” he explains. “We were doing 30 takes of some of those scenes, and it was completely exhausting. You’re so committed to this physically, my entire body was sore because I was doing all of these contractions and screaming at the top of my lungs.”
Nosferatu is in US cinemas on December 25, and in UK screens on January 1. In the meantime, check out the scariest horror films based on true stories, the best horror anime, and horror movies for kids to get into. You can also catch up with more new movies streaming this month.