Nosferatu Remake Director Hopes to Have Willem Dafoe Star

Reports about The Witch director Robert Eggers reviving Nosferatu seemed like a perfect fit for the material, with his various projects enlisting the talents of Willem Dafoe leading many to hope the actor could take on the role of the iconic Count Orlok, as Eggers himself recently teased that he also hoped to bring Dafoe into the project. Eggers, however, played coy about the project and joked that, while he hoped to feature Dafoe in the project, it wouldn’t necessarily be to play the famous monster. The project recently lost Harry Styles due to a scheduling conflict, putting the project back into limbo.

“Nosferatu is such an incredibly important film and story for me, so it’s always percolating. If Willem … if Nosferatu is made, Willem better damn well be in it because I just love working with him,” Eggers confirmed with /Film. “But, you know, maybe he would play Ellen? Who knows.”

Adding an extra significance to these remarks is that Dafoe has already played one version of Count Orlok, thanks to the 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire. That film served as the fictional account of director F.W. Murnau (John Malkovich) filming Nosferatu, only to find out that star Max Schreck (Dafoe) was an actual vampire. In this regard, Dafoe has already proven himself well equipped to take on the role, though with a slightly different perspective.

Sadly, these plans of Dafoe taking on the famous figure might never come to fruition, as Eggers himself recently pointed out that Styles dropping out of the production might mean the revival is doomed.

“Dude, I don’t know,” Eggers shared with IndieWire when asked about the status of the project. “It’s fallen apart twice. I’ve been trying to get the word out because the word did carry that Harry Styles was going to be in the movie. I just want to be clear that he was going to be Hutter and not Nosferatu himself. “

He added, “I’ve been trying so hard … And I just wonder if Murnau’s ghost is telling me, like, you should stop.”

Frequent Eggers collaborator Anya Taylor-Joy is also attached to the project, though her role in the endeavor hasn’t been revealed.

Stay tuned for possible updates on the Nosferatu remake.

Would you like to see Dafoe take on the role? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!