In 2017,Bill Skarsgårdwent from being known asanother one of the Skarsgård brothersto the most famous member of the whole family when he was cast to play Pennywise inIt. He looked absolutely terrifying in the makeup, but it was his voice that really sold the character. WhileTim Currychose just to go a little deeper for his portrayal of the killer clown in the 1990 miniseries,Skarsgård lowered his voice dramatically to come across as more innocent and childlike. This was ideal, as it was needed to reel in his child prey, but it also sounded off-kilter enough to be menacing and unhuman.
ForRobert Eggers’Nosferatu, Bill Skarsgård was again lost behind some very impressive makeup (and that wicked mustache!) as the villainous Count Orlok, but just like with Pennywise,it was the voice that sold the performance. You can slap prosthetics on any actor’s face, but when Orlok spoke, that’s when the chills went down your spine.Nosferatuis one of Bill Skarsgård’s best movies, and also one of his most challenging, requiring the actor to think outside the box when it came to finding the character’s voice.
The Original Plan Was to Digitally Alter Bill Skarsgård’s Voice in ‘Nosferatu’
Focus Features made the wise decision to never show Bill Skarsgård’s face in any of theNosferatutrailers. They knew we’d be curious about what Robert Eggers' version of Count Orlok would look like, so to deny us the satisfaction only built the anticipation. What they did give us, however, was Orlok’s voice. We got a short snippet of Orlok hidden in the shadows, but his voice was loud and clear. And it was shocking!In the 1922Nosferatuwe never got to hear what Count Orlok sounded like because it was a silent film.In the 1979 version, Orlok is played byKlaus Kinski, but when he speaks it sounds just like the actor. That Orlok is a pitiful vampire who we sympathize with because it feels like he is suffering and doesn’t want to be a monster. However, in Eggers' take, Orlok most definitely is a monster to be feared. We hear it immediately in that released clip.Skarsgård’s voice was impossibly deep and intimidating, like an angry engine revving up. On top of that, Orlok slowly rolled his words, as if he were weakly singing and not simply speaking, a fishing pole slowly reeling in its catch.
Robert Eggers' ‘Nosferatu’ Does This Better Than Any Other Version
The visual display of Nosferatu’s influence creeps into the film’s DNA more potently than before.
Skarsgård’s voice is very impressive, but it almost never happened. In an interview withUSA Today, the actor said thatthe original idea was to make Orlok’s voice as creepy as possible by using modulation to lower Skarsgård’s range, but he was vehemently opposed, saying, “I was like, ‘Please, please don’t. You can amplify it and you can make it echo-y and you can project it more.’ But I wanted that piece of the performance to be me."
An Opera Singer Showed Bill Skarsgård How To Find His Voice for Count Orlok
So just how did Bill Skarsgård manage to do something which sounds so impossible with his voice, especially when he doesn’t sound anything like that in real life?You can hear a bit of who he is with Pennywise, but inNosferatu, the actor completely disappears. He told USA Today that finding Count Orlok’s voice was more all-encompassing than Pennywise because, “there was just a lot more factors going into it with voice work and voice warm-up and having everything prepared and being able to activate the character.”
To find Orlok’s voice,Skarsgård was sent to work with an opera singer from Iceland named Ásgerður Júníusdóttir, who told him to place his voice out of his forehead. He added that, “a lot of it was just the technicality of rooting the voice as deep as you can in your body and using your entire body to make the voice resonate."
Bill Skarsgård eventually found Orlok’s voice, but it wasn’t something easy he could turn on and off. you’re able to only imagine how much strain it put on his vocal cords to go that low. Every single day before shooting,he had to warm up his voice for twenty minutes, and then do vocal exercises between takes, which included, “a lot of Mongolian throat singing just to have it active and deeply placed.” It sounds intense perhaps, but it’sthe equivalent of a muscular actor in an action movieworking out to get a pump before a take. For Skarsgård, he had to pump up his voice.
Bill Skarsgård’s Voice Is What Makes Count Orlok So Scary
The introduction of Count Orlok is held off as long as possible. At first, he’s just a name, then a shadow, and then seen in glimpses.It’s not any different from the approach of the best monster movies, likeJaws, when the horror is in what we don’t see. When we do finally see him, it’s terrifying, because this isn’t the usual pale guy with bat ears and rat teeth. Orlok is a rotting mess. It’s a disturbing jolt, butnone of it matters if the voice doesn’t work.
Skarsgard toldParade, “The movie monster tends to not have much dialogue, but in this case he has a lot. So the voice became my way of expressing the character.” With Orlok often hidden, the voice is the character. It’s the sound of him and not the look of him we fear most. So much comes through in the vocal performance. He speaks slowly and wheezes after every sentence, showing us just how weak and sick he is, but with his guttural tone, we know he is still sure of himself and still a monster who can kill you at any moment and have fun doing it, no matter the pain he’s in. That deep, near singing of his words can be hypnotizing as well, which is necessary to lure in his victims,like he does with Ellen Hutter (Lily-Rose Depp). It’s the same as Pennywise being able to lure a child into a sewer drain by having a lighter tone.
In any monster movie, an actor has to slip into a costume of some sort, usually with makeup, prosthetics, certain clothing, or even a huge mustache. ForNosferatu, Bill Skarsgård had to do so much more than sit in a makeup chair and let someone else do all the work. He had to slip into a voice, and no matter how much training he got from an opera singer, only he could do it. In the end,his Count Orlok has become one of the scariest-sounding movie monsters you’ll ever hear.
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In Nosferatu, a reclusive vampire’s presence disrupts a small European village, drawing an unsuspecting young couple into a battle against an ancient evil. As fear spreads, the villagers must confront the terrifying legend and their own beliefs, leading to suspenseful confrontations and chilling revelations.
