This Christmas, there are plenty of options at your local cineplex. There are lions, hedgehogswitches, demigodsand so on. But the coolest option, the sexiest option, is the vampire. this week, filmmaker Robert Eggers released Nosferatua long-awaited, highly anticipated film inspired by the iconic 1922 film by FW Murnau. Bill Skarsgård stars as the evil Count Orlok, creeping his way the lives of newlyweds Thomas and Ellen (Nicholas Hoult and Lily-Rose Depp).

It’s a dark, atmospheric, but entertaining film from a filmmaker who, even with only three films under his belt, has built a very well-earned reputation. With The WitchThe Lighthouseand The NorthmanEggers has cemented himself as a meticulous, visual filmmaker with a flair for the historical and gothic. Nosferatu is probably his most “Eggers” film yet, but it also comes out at Christmas, a commercial time.

io9 spoke with Eggers via video chat a few weeks ago and that struggle between art and product is where our conversation began.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Germain Lussier, io9: I love your movies because they’re not just fun, they’re intricate, beautiful, and often just plain weird. I wonder, at any point in the process did you struggle between artistic impulses and commercial viability?

Robert Eggers: Well, this film from the start was meant to be my most “approachable movie.” You may or may not know this but its main creative producer is Chris Columbus of Home Alone and Harry Potter fame. And Chris has been a mentor to me since we met during post-production on The Witch. But he knows we’re different filmmakers and that’s part of why we get along creatively, and I think it’s a great match. And Jarin Blaschke, my DP and I, we meticulously storyboard the movies. Well, we work with a storyboard artist, but we plan all the shots very carefully. And Chris goes around the storyboards, looks at them all carefully, and sometimes says, “Where’s this story that’s in your script? You need it here. ” And Chris, who is a master of orthodox Hollywood storytelling, is often like an antidote to me and Jarin’s art-farty inclination to tell this story as I want, because he was there to make it the best Robert Eggers movie ever made. , don’t Chris Columbus-ify it. But also, with this film, I got incredible support from Focus Features, who gave me tons of creative control.

io9: And I think we got a hint that it was supposed to be more commercial because a year ago when the film was announced, Focus was like “Robert Eggers, Nosferatufrom Christmas Day.” And that’s always a big deal, a Christmas release. Are you part of that conversation, and does a major release date like that change your thinking?

Eggs: Yes, I mean, I was part of the conversation, but in the end that was the date they pointed to me, and I accepted it with great enthusiasm. Obviously the movie takes place, in the middle, during Christmas, and there’s a Christmas tree, and there’s conversations about Christmas, and there’s a scene where there’s a music box playing the “O Tannenbaum” and it originally played like a Mozart piece. , and when we got the Christmas release date, I said, “Let’s put ‘O Tannenbaum’ in there.”

io9: That’s great. Now, Willem Dafoe is in the film you worked on before. He is obviously unique but he also has a history in this world Shadow of the Vampire. Have you talked about that before and how many conversations are there in this movie?

Eggs: I love that movie, and it’s a great movie, but they’re unrelated. But obviously, we know it’s equally cool for audience members to know that he knows he’s looking for himself in this movie.

io9: Is there anything in this film that you can be proud of, or that was more difficult, even technically in terms of story and tone?

Eggs: I mean, there are many things. One thing, for me personally, I don’t know how the audience will experience it, but I feel that the long uncut, the “owners” of this film, are not too heavy and small which cannot be seen. That’s my impression, maybe I’m wrong. I am very proud of the atmosphere in the cemetery. That was something I really wanted. One of the few things that had Focus rubbing their hands was my insistence on never shooting anything but dark weather because we were standing around waiting for a cloud cover and that can be very stressful. But the cemetery is an example of the need for such a way of working. And the scene in the Transylvanian village is very complicated in the casting and the costume and the block. There are some actors, mostly non-actors, some professional dancers, and everyone speaks a different language from another country. It’s very complicated, but I like how it turned out.

io9: That’s great. I also know you love to do research and that plays a big part in all your films. How deep did you dive into the Count’s backstory, both for yourself and for Bill? Do you know how and when he changed, how he developed his powers, or are those things unnecessary?

Eggs: No, no. In trying to make this story my own—this story that has been told so many times—I wrote a novella in an attempt to break the script and the novella has a lot of backstories to learn about different characters. And the epilogue is a long Orlok backstory that I gave Bill as part of his preparation. That won’t be shared because the mystery of the enigma is better for an audience, but it’s important for Bill to have that history.

io9: So never thought to put that in at all?

Eggs: No, I mean, even if it puts things that Murnau’s film doesn’t say, a certain level of mystery is important.

io9: It’s a story you’ve wanted to tell for a long time and are still getting close to a certain point. What about this version today is different from a version you might have created later The Witch or earlier in your career?

Eggs: You know, my intentions never changed when I wrote the novella and once I broke that script. The script became tighter and more refined, but my “vision” of what the movie was about didn’t change. But I’m glad it took longer. I’ve grown a lot as a person, certainly as a filmmaker. My collaborations with my creative head of departments have become more fluid and we are more extensions of each other. And again I ended up with this absolutely amazing cast.

io9: Oh an amazing cast, which is something that makes all vampire movies amazing. It’s also one of those genres that, you know, we have vampire comedies, we have vampire horror, vampire drama, we have everything. What is it about the genre that makes it malleable and what do you love about it?

Eggs: Yeah, I mean, it’s crazy how malleable the vampire is and how there’s room for Anne Rice and room for Blade and room for Count Chocula and room for all of this. But I have been asked this question many times, but the best I can think of is sex and death. It is a combination of sex and death.

io9: Last thing, just Focus, revealed a $20,000 Nosferatu coffin bedwhich I’m sure you know. Do you have one? Do you want one? What would you say to someone buying one? What are your thoughts?

Eggs: Um. (Laughs, thinks, stops). “Congratulations.”

io9: (Laughs) Right. Well, congratulations to you, sir, on a wonderful, beautiful movie.

Nosferatu is in theaters on December 25.

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