After 102 years, this terrifying creature may return to the cinema, this time in the role of Mads Mikkelsen.

Robert Eggers’ remake of Nosferatu is currently a sensation, enjoying huge worldwide success, but the film could have been very different if the director’s original plans had gone ahead. About ten years ago, when Eggers decided to revisit the horror classic, Bill Skarsgård was not his first choice for the role of Count Orlok.

In an interview on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast, Bill Skarsgård said that actors such as Mads Mikkelsen and Willem Dafoe were originally considered for the role of the Millennium Vampire. At the time, Skarsgård was in the running for another role, that of Thomas Hutter, which eventually went to Nicholas Hoult.

Indeed, Skarsgård remembers meeting Eggers in New York almost a decade ago, when the latter had just finished The Witcher and was about to make it. Nosferatu His next project.

“I met him almost ten years ago in New York and he was preparing Nosferatu. This was supposed to be his next film a magician. I read the script and it blew me away. I was like, “It’s amazing, it’s the same and it’s so big.” And the story didn’t change so much as enhance his vision. I read for the role of Aaron Friedrich Harding in the film, and then he thought it would be good for Thomas Hutter. I read and booked for that, so I got to be Thomas in that movie ten years ago.“

He originally auditioned for the role of Frederick Harding, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson in the last feature film, but the director later considered him for Thomas Hutter. That’s how they attached it to the project before it was shelved.

After this postponement, Robert Eggers Directed by The Lighthouse and The Northman. Bill Skarsgård Also should have appeared initially man of the north along with his brother Alexander Skarsgård, but delays related to the COVID-19 pandemic forced him to drop out of the film. “It was devastating. I was really excited to do it“, he admitted.

Years later, when Nosferatu Development resumed, with most of the roles already taken. But Eggers had a new plan: Skarsgård as Count Orlok. “At night he contacted me and said: ‘I think you can play Orlock“, the actor recalls.

the result? Regardless Mads Mikkelsen and William Dafoe could play the interesting Count Orlok, Bill Skarsgård Delivered an excellent performance as the iconic vampire.

NosferatuIn which he is surrounded by Lily Rose-Depp, Emma Corinne, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Nicholas HoultReleased on December 25th and still showing, at the time of writing, in 666 cinemas in France: we’re worried enough…

Check out the full interview with Bill Skarsgård in the video below: