Willem Dafoe will continue his relationship with The Lighthouse director Robert Eggers as Deadline has reported that the actor is in talks to join the cast of the director’s Nosferatu movie set up at Focus Features.
Should Willem Dafoe sign on, he would join Bill Skarsgård, Lily Rose-Depp, and Nicholas Hoult, who are already on board the Nosferatu movie. The new reimagining of the classic tale will be a “gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman (Depp) in 19th century Germany and the ancient Transylvanian vampire (Skarsgard) who stalks her, bringing untold horror with him.” Willem Dafoe has worked with Robert Eggers twice before, starring alongside Robert Pattinson in The Lighthouse and playing a supporting role opposite Alexander Skarsgård in The Northman.
It’s unknown who Willem Dafoe would be playing in the Nosferatu movie, but he does have experience playing creatures of the night. The actor starred in Shadow of the Vampire, a fictionalized account centered around the making of the classic 1922 Nosferatu movie. John Malkovich starred as Frederich Wilhelm Murnau, the director of Nosferatu, with Willem Dafoe playing Max Schreck, the actor playing Count Orlok, who just so happens to be an actual vampire. Willem received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting actor for his work on the movie.
Robert Eggers has been trying to get his reimagining of Nosferatu off the ground for many years. It came close several years ago when Anya Taylor-Joy and Harry Styles were expected to star, but Eggers was forced to hit pause on the project when Styles had to drop out, and Taylor-Joy could no longer hit the film into her schedule. Nosferatu had hit so many walls over the years that Eggers almost believed that Murnau was giving him a sign from beyond the grave. “It’s fallen apart twice. I’ve been trying to get the word out because the word did carry that Harry Styles was going to be in the movie,” Eggers said. “I’ve been trying so hard. And I just wonder if Murnau’s ghost is telling me, like, you should stop.“