The look of Count Orlok has been hidden from all marketing for Nosferatu, even weeks after its release in the United States. Robert Eggers, a huge fan of historical accuracy, was never going to deliver a sparkling vampire like one that his previous leading men had portrayed on screen, but with so many versions of Count Orlok and Dracula in cinema, no one knew what to expect. Offscreen Central had the incredible opportunity to chat with prosthetics make-up designer David White about how he and Eggers initially spoke of the Count Orlok design, that mustache, honoring the original adaptation, and so much more.

This interview contains descriptions of the appearance of Count Orlok in the 2024 adaptation of Nosferatu.

Kenzie Vanunu: Congratulations on the film! I’ve seen it a few times and it’s just absolutely a masterwork.
David White: Thank you. It’s great, isn’t it? There’s always something new to see, isn’t there, every time you see it?

Kenzie Vanunu: Yeah, it’s crazy. Every time I’ve noticed something different. I’m going again with my family on Christmas, so I’m very excited to see what else I can uncover.
David White: I hope your family likes it.

Kenzie Vanunu: I know this film was such a long time dream for Robert Eggers, and I assume a very big part of it relied heavily on getting the perfect look for Count Orlok himself. So at what point did he approach you and start discussing the look for him?
David White: Yeah, well, we’d done The Northman together, and the year after that, when it was going to kick off, Robert gave me a call and said, I’ve got something special coming. I hadn’t read the script, and he said, “it’s going to require a lot of work from you. It needs a lot of thought, and it’s highly intense, and it’s going to be very special. Are you up for it?” I said, “yeah, sure.” Then he told me what it was, and I said, my gosh, that’s a lot to deal with. It was terrific. We had an initial conversation. He outlined the vibe he was heading for, the age bracket of the guy, and the nature of him. He should have a certain amount of nobility and power and strength, and he has to be very appealing to the lead actress also. So, there was a lot going on there, to be able to put it into one character, i.e. Bill Skarsgård. There’s a lot going on.

Kenzie Vanunu: Yeah, it’s a lot for one person. I love that he looks so different from any other vampire in general that I’ve seen on screen. He’s an old, dead, rotting human. You can tell he’s been rotting in that sarcophagus for quite some time. I love when you see the back of his head, and even his back. You can tell that he’s been laying on his back. Was that something in the script?
David White: Robert said he’s going to be charismatic and noble, and we’re going to have all this strength. On the other hand, he’s also going to be decaying. It’s like, how on earth does this work? The idea was, Robert said, have the decay at the back of the head. As soon as he said that, I started mocking up a sculpted version on Bill, and saw what we could get away with in terms of the decay, which you don’t see at the beginning of the movie, where he’s introduced to Thomas. It was interesting, because Robert would then say, take a little off the cheek, add a little more here. It was very tailored specifically to his requirements. Obviously, Robert’s got everything in his head. He knows how he’s going to shoot and everything. It worked really well.

Kenzie Vanunu: I loved that when we first see him, he just looks like a man, and then you slowly start to see…
David White: Something’s not right.
Kenzie Vanunu: He uses his cloak to cover his face a little bit. It’s so interesting. I love that his ears are a little pointed, like a little nod to the 1920s’s version.
David White: Absolutely, which is also down to the rot and decay. It’s not like he’s not born with pointy ears, which is really cool. It was quite an experience. Also, once we had that kind of theme, where we knew it was going to be decayed on the back of the head. Obviously, my mind’s running crazy, because I know he’s going to be naked in that sarcophagus. I’m thinking, oh my God, that means the rest of his underside of his body is going to be decayed, which is terrific. It’s all under his arms and under the backs of his legs. Also, when you’ve got that, it’s like, well, we’ve got a color situation here. His coloration is going to be really different. I had these different ways of giving him and introducing this really cool blood pooling color, where the sinking dark tones in the base of the sarcophagus around him on his underside. Then he’s really milky and sort of waxen on top. That kind of worked really well.

Kenzie Vanunu: It’s amazing. The last scene, when you see his back and kind of hear it when her fingers are touching it, I was like, oh my God.
David White: Gross!
Kenzie Vanunu: It was gross! Amazing, but gross.
David White: Yeah. In fact, that scene, that final scene, is a different paint job. It’s a little more sedate and not as visceral as the first time he comes out of the coffin. That was just to give it some sort of sense that there’s some kind of twisted romance going on here, in a way. It wasn’t just grossing everyone out. It’s quite delicate. The beats that Robert’s looking for, he’s very good at pacing those things.

Kenzie Vanunu: Yeah, it’s amazing. I love that he doesn’t have eyebrows, but he has hair and then the mustache. It was a very big discussion online with the two seconds you can tell he has hair in the trailer when it came out. People were like, oh my God, he has hair. What were the conversations like about the hair Orlok has?
David White: Well, it was something I think Robert had in his mind all the time. It was something because of it was to do with the fact that in folklore and the fact that at that time, that kind of character would exist. That sort of nobleman would have a forelock and a big mustache. It’s quite apparent looking at all the illustrations that Robert provided and different kind of design influences I got hold of, that that was the case. So it’s historically accurate. And then it is kind of crazy when Rob brought it up, ‘oh by the way, he’s got a mustache’. And the funniest thing is that Bill, it just doesn’t look right when you remove that mustache. It just doesn’t have ‘it.’ The mustache gives him an extra kind of boost.
Kenzie Vanunu: Yeah, I love it so much. Because you can’t really see him fully at first. And then the first time you really see him at that table sitting and you see the mustache, I was taken aback. I loved it so much. It was such a good detail.

Kenzie Vanunu: His hands are obviously a very iconic cinematic figure through each reimagining of this tale. And his nails are… I have very long nails myself. We have the same nails. I love the shape of his nails, but also just his hand is such a moment in the film. Can you talk about just creating those hands and working with Bill and how he could use them? Because he’s still doing so much with them, and it’s not holding him back at all or anything.
David White: I had used those kind of finger extensions on other projects. But this is different because it has to be really tight to his skin and feel really delicate. And so when we’re making them, you can add half an inch or a quarter of an inch to the end of his real finger. But then you’ve also got the nail, which is another half inch or three quarters. So it’s quite long. And Bill’s got to work with these. He has to actually manipulate objects and open boxes and the locket and all sorts of things. So it has to be practical as well. And the other thing with those nails and the fingers is that when Bill was trying them on, I noticed he was tip-tap-tapping with his fingers like this. And he’s basically seeing how much sensitivity he’s got using them. And we found that the stronger and the denser the material, he could feel and hear even more. He can sense even more through those fingers. So it’s really weird. He’s using everything in a really natural way. And he’s reaching out with these prosthetics and manipulating things and being really dexterous with them.

And also, they had to work as shadows as well. It was very, very important for Robert because he had to use them. We would get Bill made up just with the hands for certain shots. And they had to be completely right to be able to get all the lovely shapes that he needed. So there’s an awful lot of shadow work going on there as well.

Kenzie Vanunu: Yeah. I went to CinemaCon where they debuted the trailer months before it came out online. And seriously, two months we were talking about the shot of the hand all the time. It is just so amazing. And I was like, I can’t wait to see what the hand and the rest of him actually looks like. And that was all we got for a while.
David White: Robert wanted them a little arthritic and kind of gnarly. If you look at the nails closely, a lot of them are broken. Each individual nail is kind of worn and tired. But they’re actually quite elegant. Or they suggest that, you know, he could he was once quite an elegant creature with these fingers and nails, so it’s kind of cool.

Kenzie Vanunu: I love it so much. It’s like a like a it’s just so beautiful the way it’s done. And it feels fresh, but still honoring what came before. It’s a really great adaptation of it.

I had actually read a few pieces with both Robert and Bill discussing Bill’s initial reaction to the bust and what he was going to look like. And he was talking about how it caught him off guard because he didn’t he didn’t look anything like that. What was it like the first time you got him in the full makeup?
David White: The first test we did in England in Shepperton Studios. He he loved it. Bill’s very charming and charismatic and he’s a very sweet guy and he’s got a great sense of humor. And we got him in the chair and we’re working on him and all the pieces are slowly. He trusts us to kind of put this kind of work together. And he’s sitting there and slowly, he’s beginning to disappear.

And as he does, he’s beginning to sort of warm to it. And you can see him looking in the mirror and he’s turning his head and he’s beginning to use the lighting and figure out and move forward and check out the eyes. He’s very instinctive and he was beginning to kind of really get it.

And he really loved it at the end of it. He felt very confident, which is really, really important. That’s like the most important thing is that he he knows that he can use it and sell it and work with this material that’s all over his face. You know, it’s not easy. I can’t imagine. Bill’s very obviously used to prosthetic work. He’s been there. He’s seen it, done it. But he really manipulated everything we had to his advantage.

Kenzie Vanunu: Yeah, he’s so good at this. I love how lightweight it looks around his eyes. Like it doesn’t like he’s like it’s very thin on his face, where I think in a lot of other things, it looks a little heavy. It’s really true that he’s been decaying for all this time.
David White: You know, that is the trick! This is very unusual, because for me, I’ve seen a lot of these kind of makeups where they’re slightly heavy in the sculpting and it’s almost like a signature that people can put on these things. And the idea was to strip it clean and let Bill come through so he hasn’t got like big eye bags, and he hasn’t got hoods over his eyes. Like you say, it’s very thin there. And that’s because I wanted Bill to be able to work it and do what he does. So it was a dream, working with him, because of that, it’s terrific.

Kenzie Vanunu: It’s amazing, because he’s got such expressive eyes. And it was so great you could really still see them and the emotion in them. Especially since his eyes are distorted a little bit.
David White: Yeah, he’s got these really youthful eyes. But it doesn’t look wrong with everything else. It kind of feels right. You know, it’s very odd. And there’s so many close ups. It’s terrific.

Kenzie Vanunu: Yeah. Was that intimidating knowing there were going to be a lot of close ups?
David White: A little. I mean, it always is. You’ve got to be on your toes, you know. My on set team are ready to pounce on anything that doesn’t look correct. But with Robert’s testing at the beginning, they could find out how close they could really get, and how confident everyone felt with that. And if there were any issues, then I’d have them corrected. But no, it was, it was good. It felt good.

Kenzie Vanunu: Amazing. I wanted to ask about the fangs. They’re very different from any vampire fangs I’ve really seen before. Can you talk about creating those and what Robert asked for in all the research for that?
David White: Yeah. I mean, I was thinking, is this going to be, you know, standard two big fangs? And in the script, it’s really cool, because when the captain gets bitten, and he’s in the morgue on that table on the slab, they discuss what kind of an animal has done this, so there’s an indication there that it’s not like two puncher marks, it could be almost be like a giant rat. Robert was saying, ‘make them kind of gnarly and nasty and rat like and sort of twisted,’ and so that was really the focus was to get them interesting, a little jagged, but not classically, two prongs.

Also, if you notice the mustache, I had it made thinner around this area, and it’s all kind of twisted, and sort of spiky, so that you get to see a little extra through there. And it’s like a grid before you get to the teeth. This is horrible kind of mishmash of textures.

Kenzie Vanunu: I did noticed! I loved it. I noticed it really in the final with the scream that he does. You can really see it all there.
David White: Yeah, he’s got four dentures, top and bottom dentures.
Kenzie Vanunu: I hope Bill got to keep those dentures!
David White: Maybe. I don’t know. That’s a question for Bill.

Kenzie Vanunu: Did you get to keep anything of this creation? You need the fingers. It’s gonna go down in history as one of those iconic vampire silhouettes.
David White: I know. I know. But it’s nice to just see it on on the screen. To be honest, it’s kind of captured in this moment in time.

Kenzie Vanunu: Awesome. Well, it was so wonderful to speak with you. And I’m so excited that the movie is finally out and more people are going to see your incredible work. And we can talk at length about Bill’s look online. We’ve kept it a secret for everyone, which I’m happy for everyone. But it’s like all of us just want to talk about your work. And it’s impossible without spoiling.
David White: It’s very lovely and flattering. But I mean, it’s a little crazy, too. It’s a bit of a whirlwind. This whole thing is really intense.

Kenzie Vanunu: You’re going to have a second wave because everyone’s gonna get to talk about it openly now!
David White: I know. That’s when it really hits.

Kenzie Vanunu: Well, it was amazing to talk to you. And I love your work in this film and your work on previous projects before as well. So terrific.
David White: Thank you so much!

Nosferatu is currently playing in theaters.
You can find our review of the film here.