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Nosferatu could have had a very different cast if Robert Eggers' original plans had crystallized. When the director first planned to helm the horror remake a decade ago, Bill Skarsgård was far from being the first option for the titular role of Count Orlok.
In an interview for the podcast Happy Sad Confused, Skarsgård revealed that Mads Mikkelsen and co-star Willem Dafoe were among the main options to play the vampire, while he was attached to play Thomas Hutter (played by Nicholas Hoult in the movie).
"I met him [Robert Eggers] in New York almost ten years ago, and he was doing Nosferatu. That would be his follow-up movie after The Witch. I read the script, and the script blew my mind. I thought: 'This is incredible, it's so him and so great'. And the script didn't change all that much, it was solidified, his vision. I read for Aaron's [Taylor-Johnson] role, Friedrich Harding, in the movie, and then he thought I could be good for Thomas Hutter. I read for that, and I booked that, so I was supposed to be Thomas in this movie ten years ago," he explained.
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However, the movie ended up being shelved, and Eggers went on to do The Lighthouse and The Northman.
Skarsgård was supposed to star in The Northman alongside his brother Alexander, but the delays in production caused by the COVID pandemic forced him out of the project. "It was devastating. I was really excited about it", he said during the interview with Josh Horowitz.
After that, the actor heard Nosferatu was back on the table. The roles of Friedrich and Thomas were already attached to other names, but Robert Eggers had a new idea. "Out of the blue, he did reach out, and he said: 'I think you can play Orlok'", the actor remembered.
The rest is (recent) history, with Skarsgård delivering a phenomenal performance as the big villain in Nosferatu. The movie, which also stars Lily Rose-Depp and Emma Corrin, was released on December 25 in the US, and on January 1 in the UK
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Nosferatu is out now in theaters. For more, check out our picks of the best upcoming movies on the way in 2025 and our guide to the new year's biggest movie release dates at a glance.
Mireia is a UK-based culture journalist and critic. She previously worked as Deputy Movies Editor at Digital Spy, and her work as a freelance writer has appeared in WeLoveCinema and Spanish magazines Fotogramas, Esquire, and Elle. She is also a published author, having written a book about Studio Ghibli's 'Kiki's Delivery Service' in 2023. Talking about anime and musicals is the best way to grab her attention.
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