Bill Skarsgård Says His ‘Gross’ Nosferatu Character Plays With a ‘Sexual Fetish’ About Monsters

Bill Skarsgård’s vampire character Count Orlok in the upcoming Nosferatu remake is hyper-sexual to the point of fetishizing monsters, the actor says.

“He’s gross,” Skarsgård recently told Esquire of Count Orlok. “But it is very sexualized. It’s playing with a sexual fetish about the power of the monster and what that appeal has to you. Hopefully you’ll get a little bit attracted by it and disgusted by your attraction at the same time.”

The new Nosferatu remake is directed by Robert Eggers, who previously worked with Skarsgård’s brother, Alexander Skarsgård, in 2022’s viking action movie Northman, as well as Anya Taylor-Joy in 2015’s puritanical horror The Witch and Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe in 2019’s seaside fantasy-horror The Lighthouse.

The original silent film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror came out in 1922, directed by F. W. Murnau as an unofficial take on Bram Stoker’s famous 1897 novel Dracula.

Skarsgård plays the lead, Count Orlok, in Eggers’ remake. That’s the vampire’s actual name — not Nosferatu, which is a common misconception not unlike Victor Frankenstein’s monster being misidentified as Frankenstein. In the original 1922 silent film, Orlok is a strange looking bald guy with long nails and raised eyebrows. Like Dracula, he’s from Transylvania and drinks people’s blood. His origins are that he was created by the demon Belial.

Nosferatu ‘Took Its Toll’ on Bill Skarsgård

But preparing to play the demon-spawn Count Orlok “took it’s toll” on Skarsgård.

“It was like conjuring pure evil. It took a while for me to shake off the demon that had been conjured inside of me,” he said.

Eggers attested to just how much Skarsgård put into the role.

“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 said. “I was like, ‘This sounds accurate, but I don’t know how to converse about this with any fluidity.’ ”

Though his Count Orlok look hasn’t yet been revealed, Skarsgård predicts that audiences will be surprised.

“I do not think people are gonna recognize me in it,” he said.

Also Read: 5 Horror Movie Remakes That Improve on the Originals

Skarsgård will also soon appear in Rupert Sanders’ The Crow. He’ll play Eric, a role previously played by the late Brandon Lee in the original 1994 movie The Crow. Lee tragically died in 1993 after being accidentally shot with a blank bullet from a prop gun. The Crow was released the following year.

The new The Crow, which is based on the original graphic novel by James O’Barr rather than the 1994 movie, follows Eric, a man who is murdered but comes back to life as a supernatural crow to avenge his fiancée. The new The Crow is set to be released by Lionsgate on August 23, co-starring FKA Twigs as Eric’s fiancée, Shelly.

In press notes for the new Crow, Skarsgård said he hopes to “stay true tot he spirit” of the original movie as well as the source material from James O’Barr’s comic book.

“I was a huge fan of the original film growing up as a kid and was so honored to take on the role of Eric Draven. But really what drew me to it was what Rupert Sanders wanted to do with it,” Skarsgård said. “He wanted to completely reimagine the story and the character and tailor it towards a modern audience. It’s a character that I know many revere and have a strong connection to – he is unlike any I’ve ever taken on before,” he said.

“Working with the remarkably talented FKA Twigs was magical. I felt a responsibility to Eric’s story and endeavored to stay true to the spirit of the source material; I can’t wait for the world to see the film, and hope it resonates with audiences as strongly as it did with those of us involved.”

Main Image: Bill Skarsgård speaking at the 2018 San Diego Comic Con International, for “Assassination Nation”, at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California.