Nosferatu: Bill Skarsgård says he “never wants to play something this evil again”

Bill Skarsgård has played some dark and twisted characters throughout his career, but it seems that Count Orlok in Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu might be the limit.

While speaking with Empire, Skarsgård sounds like he wants a break from portraying such nefarious characters. “When we were done with it, I was like, ‘I never want to play something this evil again. I never want to put on prosthetics again’,” he said. “It really affected me. Orlok is an occult sorcerer, and it did a number on me in terms of just trying to inhabit that space.“

We still haven’t seen a full image of Skarsgård as Count Orlok, but it’s said to be quite the transformation. The actor even worked with an opera singer to lower his voice by a whole octave. “The voice was the thing I worked the hardest at,” he said. “For a month-and-a-half leading up to the shoot, I didn’t do much else than just record myself. And on set, I would keep doing these exercises. It sounds kind of like Mongolian throat-singing. It’s [insane].“

Written and directed by Robert Eggers and starring Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, and Willem Dafoe, 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.

Our own Chris Bumbray is a big fan of Nosferatu, calling it the “scariest vampire movie in ages” in his review. “This is one of the most lovingly made horror films in some time, with Eggers likely having set out to create a definitive version of the tale,” Bumbray wrote. “It’s long been his passion project, and you can tell. For me, this is up there with the best films of the year, and probably the only horror film I’ve seen recently that sent a true chill up my spine. Of all the films I’ve seen this year – and there have been a lot – this one seems to have the best chance of becoming a classic.” You can check out the rest of his glowing review right here. Nosferatu will hit theaters on December 25th.