Bill Skarsgård has seemingly sworn off any future horror roles in the wake of his latest film, Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu.

Eggers’ latest film, a remake of the 1922 silent movie by gay filmmaker F. W. Murnau, which is itself an unauthorised and unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker’s legendary novel Dracula, has been almost ten years in the making.

The film follows naive solicitor Thomas Hutter (The Menu’s Nicholas Hoult) who, in an attempt to score a promotion, agrees to travel to Transylvania in the Carpathian Mountains to meet the enigmatic Count Orlok (IT star and horror staple Skarsgård). 

Hutter’s wife Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) urges him not to make the trip, but he stands firm, leaving Ellen with his friends Friedrich and Anna Harding (played by 28 Years Later heartthrob Aaron Taylor-Johnson and non-binary Deadpool & Wolverine star Emma Corrin, respectively). 

Yet the strange Orlok is, as horror fans will be well aware by now, a terrifying vampire who has been haunting Ellen’s nightmares and sexual desires. Already a feared name in his town, he aims to bring his evil into central Europe via the German town of Wisborg and plans on turning the centre of his infatuations, Ellen, into the victim of his bloodlust. 

The upcoming gothic horror movie remake has already seen early rave reviews, especially of queer star Depp’s “magnificent” performance. But it’s Skarsgård’s performance of Count Orlok which has appeared to be the final nail in the proverbial coffin for his love of the horror genre.

Despite previously depicting Pennywise in the It franchise, as well as appearances in The Crow, Boy Kills World, John Wick: Chapter 4, and Barbarian, the actor said after filming wrapped for Nosferatu, as per Empire, “I never want to play something this evil again. I never want to put on prosthetics again.”

He said that it “was a relief” to be done with shooting the film, ahead of its impending release. “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,” he told the outlet.

The star utilised a plethora of prosthetics to get himself into character and even enlisted the help of an opera singer to lower his voice an entire octave. “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].”

Nosferatu will be released on 25 December in the US and 3 January in the UK.

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