‘Nosferatu’ | Anatomy of a Scene

“Hi, I’m Robert Eggers, the writer and director of “Nosferatu.” Nicholas Hoult is on a journey to Castle Orlok, and he is stopping in a Transylvanian village that we built in the Czech Republic outside of Prague. We went to a lot of vernacular architecture museums in Romania, in Transylvania, to study what we would be building, and this is based on all that. It was a very difficult sequence to cast. We have Roma non-actors and Roma musicians and dancers from Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Romania. It was challenging to work with everyone speaking a different language, but also very enjoyable. These musicians are from Romania, so it was the woman who was just clapping with the red kerchief on. You may have noticed, or maybe not, that this is all one shot. This sequence was very carefully choreographed and rehearsed ahead of time in a warehouse in Prague. And then we had to bring everyone here and get it right. And I think we did about 30 takes of all of this. This guy Radu, is a dancer who does kind of traditional Roman dance combined with hip hop. But here he’s just doing the traditional thing. And this gentleman with the Golden tooth is Jordan Haj, a Czech pop star. Why are they laughing at him. Is it the hat or is it something else. But it certainly is meant to make you feel uneasy as an audience member, because he doesn’t know why they’re laughing at him.