A Macabre Love Triangle: Robert Eggers and Lily-Rose Depp Discuss the Sensuality of ‘Nosferatu’

Bill Skarsgård is playing Nosferatu/Count Orlok in Robert Eggers’ (The Witch, The Lighthouse) new movie Nosferatu, and audiences can see the vampire’s appearance on the big screen on Christmas Day. But there’s a lot more to Count Orlok than a surprising visage.

Releasing in theaters on Christmas, Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu is a gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman in 19th-century Germany and the ancient Transylvanian vampire who stalks her, bringing untold horror with him.

Lily-Rose Depp stars as Ellen Hutter, the woman who unwittingly summons the beast and finds herself locked in a dark love triangle that also includes her pure-hearted husband Thomas (Nicholas Hoult).

“What’s really interesting about their dynamic is that it’s not so straightforward as she’s being pursued by this disgusting beast that she wants nothing to do with,” Depp told Bloody Disgusting about Ellen and Orlok’s relationship. “There is a real yearning and connection that goes both ways between the two of them.”

Depp continues, “That was an interesting line to toe because Rob [Eggers] wanted there to be, especially, without giving anything away, a real palpable sensuality in those [late] scenes, which I think makes everything all the more terrifying and complex and fascinating to watch. Because he also represents the darkness within her that she’s trying to come to terms with. Again, without giving anything away, I think indulging in that also represents accepting within herself.” 

Eggers dove deep when researching for Nosferatu, pulling from folklore for his central antagonist. In other words, he had a specific vision in mind for Count Orlok. Yet Skarsgård still brought something unexpected to his performance that surprised the director and added depth to the vampire’s connection to Ellen.

Eggers tells us about his Count Orlok, “I mean, I suppose it is in the writing. I was thinking back to [George Gordon] Byron’s poem, that was potentially one of the first or second times that a vampire is mentioned in English language literature, and even there, the vampire, in the Anglo-literary tradition, has some melancholy and some pathos. So I suppose I was thinking about that.

“But I was so obsessed with making him a villain that I sort of forgot about it. And Bill brought that pathos. It was really important because it’s obviously Ellen’s story; she’s the victim of this vampire, and she’s also the hero of the story. But Orlok is just as alone as she is.“

It’s that strange loneliness of both characters that’s at the heart of Nosferatu. I wrote in my review, “Nosferatu isn’t a love story in the conventional sense – this demonic Strigoi isn’t capable of such an emotion – but it does depict one of the most riveting and macabre love triangles in cinema. Thomas and Ellen’s love is pure and wholesome and occasionally even raw, but Ellen remains an irresistible siren to her violent, evil ex-lover. One willing to destroy everything.”

My 5-star review for Bloody Disgusting continues, “It’s a grotesque twist on a love triangle, one that Eggers fearlessly pushes into revolting territory thanks to his eponymous vampire.“