How Nicholas Hoult and Bill Skarsgård faced their fears filming Nosferatu

The Independent

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00:00You all right, buddy? You all right? Yeah, give me five.

00:06I'm fine, Bill. Stop patronising me.

00:09Bill and Nicholas, hello. How are you both doing today?

00:11Good, thank you.

00:13Having deja vu?

00:14Still okay?

00:15Still good.

00:16Huge congratulations to you both for this film.

00:18I absolutely loved it. It was incredible.

00:21One of the most profoundly terrifying things I've seen in years.

00:26I haven't slept in a week.

00:28Then we succeeded.

00:29Yes, well done.

00:31You're saying it with a smile, so you appreciated the fear.

00:33I've become desensitised to the horrors of the world now after this.

00:37If I can get through that, I can get through anything.

00:40Come to me.

00:46Were there any moments on set that sort of frightened you?

00:50Or is it kind of a case of when you're on set and filming something,

00:54is it like seeing how the sausage gets made?

00:56The only moment I remember being like,

00:57I wonder what happens in this scenario,

00:59was there's a scene where these wolves are chasing me.

01:03And they had these Czech shepherd dogs that I'd been introduced to before.

01:07Were they like wolfhounds?

01:08Yeah, and they were like, they're just like normal dogs, they're fine.

01:11But then when you'd go to touch them, they'd be like, don't touch them there.

01:13And then they'd be like, give them the treat, give them the treat straight away.

01:16So it was like, they're normal dogs.

01:17But then also like, don't behave like they're normal dogs.

01:20And then they were like...

01:21Just don't look them in the eye.

01:21And then on the day, they were like spray painted black.

01:24And I think, like, I don't know how they performed,

01:27but they were like riled up.

01:29And I was like running on the spot and like trying to get out of breath

01:31and like get into the physicality of the scene.

01:34And they'd be like held back across the room from me on leashes.

01:38But like, when I would start going, they'd like get wound up

01:41and like barking like intensely at me and staring at me

01:44like I was a juicy little snack.

01:46And then they'd call action and I'd take off running

01:50and try and climb out this window.

01:51But there was one time where I slipped

01:52and like I made it out the window before they got there.

01:55But there was part of me that was like,

01:56oh, I wonder what happens if they do get to me.

01:59There is a devil in this world and I have met him.

02:02There is some adorable behind the scenes footage from It

02:06when you're in the full Pennywise get up

02:08and you're kind of checking that the kids are OK after every scene.

02:12Yeah.

02:12Was there any safeguarding like that in place for this between you guys?

02:16Or was it like, no, you know what?

02:17No, they're all adults in this movie.

02:18We're all grown ups, we can just let it go.

02:20He didn't care.

02:22He didn't look after us.

02:23You all right, buddy? You all right? Give me five.

02:29I'm fine, Bill.

02:29No.

02:30Stop patronising me.

02:32You OK?

02:33You OK?

02:34That scene where you two meet for the first time,

02:36it's so visceral and terrifying.

02:39Was that the first time that you saw Count Orlok

02:42like with the prosthetics and the makeup?

02:44I think fully, yeah.

02:45I'd heard a recording of your voice and we'd rehearsed,

02:48but you weren't in the full prosthetics when we rehearsed everything.

02:50So that was the first time that it was all kind of put together.

02:52And then it was completely immersive

02:54because, you know, the sets that Craig designed

02:57and the way that Jarren lights them

02:59and the way that Rob creates an atmosphere on set,

03:01he plays music and stuff,

03:02so it feels already like a very imposing place to be.

03:04But then you've got this brilliant performance by Bill

03:06playing this terrifying character in there as well.

03:09And it is a heightened reality

03:11that is very easy then to be scared within.

03:16Standing before me was...

03:21Death.

03:22But I'd never been so happy.

03:24It wasn't my first rodeo with prosthetics.

03:27And I'd seen...

03:29Robert, he actually made sort of a digital painting,

03:32a drawing of Orlok that he shared with me.

03:35But then, you know, I saw what David White,

03:38the prosthetic designer, did.

03:41I just saw the bust of it.

03:42Like, they built it off of your face mold.

03:45And I was like, OK, well...

03:47I don't think this guy looked like me when he was alive.

03:49Like, he's a undead sorcerer vampire.

03:54And then once they started blending the pieces

03:57and the hair and the moustache came on,

03:59I saw him come alive.

04:00And I can also see how I could make...

04:04how I could make this face come alive.

04:08But you study yourself and you go, like, OK,

04:10so there's, you know, how, where do I put,

04:14like, how do I shape my mouth and my eyes?

04:18And you find different...

04:20Like, oh, it doesn't look good here, but looks great here.

04:22And, like, all that kind of stuff.

04:23So you're very self-conscious in studying it.

04:27And then you have another test.

04:29And then on the third test, the actual camera test,

04:32was the first time where I felt that the character came through me.

04:37Come to me.

04:40How did the voice come to you?

04:42Because that's such a huge part of this performance

04:44and it's what makes you so transformative in it.

04:46Yeah, yeah. Well, the voice...

04:48The voice was a lot of...

04:51A lot of work.

04:52And that was, like, leading up to the shoot.

04:55You know, I worked with an opera singer, also Youn's daughter,

04:58an Icelandic opera singer,

04:59to find sort of the different placements in the body of the voice.

05:04I was also losing a lot of weight for the character,

05:07which is not helpful because the bigger you are,

05:09the more of a chest you have that resonates.

05:13So I was like, OK, this is counterintuitive

05:14to get the voice as deep as possible.

05:18But... So there was a whole technical aspect of it.

05:20And then it was just me recording myself,

05:23listening back, recording, listening back, recording, listening back.

05:26And I noticed that I could...

05:28Because I recorded myself so many times,

05:30I knew when I was like, OK,

05:32now I'm in a place where I can easily access the voice.

05:36And then certain times I'm like, oh, now I'm tight.

05:38So why am I tight?

05:39And why isn't the voice coming out the way I want?

05:42So I built this sort of routine for myself,

05:45a 20-minute routine to get us relaxed.

05:48Like, you can massage your larynx.

05:50You can do all these little exercises to kind of be relaxed.

05:54And you get deeper and you get deeper.

05:57And I would do sort of breathing exercises,

06:02like three rounds of breathing exercises.

06:04And that opens the chest up.

06:06And I really needed to be so relaxed

06:10and not tense for it to be activated.

06:12You will obey this, my council.

06:15But, my lord...

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