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Robert Eggers is one of only a few directors in the past decade to capture the attention of horror fans. He practically put A24 on the map with The Witch and The Lighthouse. Those two films were niche crowd pleasers which became the touchstone of A24’s future content.
It wasn’t until The Northman that Eggers went pseudo-mainstream, but 2024 put him front-and-center in the big leagues of Tinseltown with his vampire opus Nosferatu, a major awards contender with critics and fans putting it at the top of their “best of” lists.
iHorror talked to Eggers the day after Nosferatu hit the home entertainment digital market and just ahead of the announcement of his next project Werwulf which will reportedly open on Christmas Day 2026.
The 41 year old is wonderful to talk to in person and if I had more time, rather than the allotted 10 minutes in which to conduct the interview, we might have gone on for another hour. He is candid, laidback and humble. We mostly talked about Nosferatu, but I was surprised at one of his answers concerning future projects.
iHorror: When did you realize you wanted to retell the Nosferatu story?
Robert Eggers: It was about 10 years ago and thankfully it took 10 years for it to be green lit because I needed the time to reevaluate my capacity to do it. I’ve grown a lot as a person—as a filmmaker, and my collaboration with my heads of department have become more fluid over the years and it’s easier for us to articulate our creative vision and get what’s in our heads onto the screen, so I’m glad it took a long time.
Lily-Rose Depp was incredible. Did you have to pull that performance out of her or was that all on her own?
I mean, look, Lily’s an incredibly talented and intuitive performer, and she really understood this role. And when we had our first meeting it was clear that she just got it. And then you know she gave an audition that was tremendous and just was like raw, ferocious and brave at what she does on screen. But obviously like there was work, you know, she spent months working on an accent, she spent months working on the physicality and all the body work, you know, you need to have discipline to make it work on screen, but she had the raw material and the talent and the fire to do it, and the discipline to perfect it over time.
I feel like The Northman was a pivotal moment in your career. It was a grander scale than what you’re used to. What did you learn about moviemaking after completing that film?
I mean, you know, the book would be 100 volumes long. I mean, honestly I think your point is absolutely correct, but it’s almost it’s too much to to get into.
You know, some of the Northmen press I was like whinging about that kind of thing, and I regret doing that because that’s just part of making a movie at that scale, you know. And I’m sure directors who’ve been through that before are like, ‘look buddy like welcome to Hollywood.’ On [Nosferatu] I had Focus Features and they were so incredibly supportive the whole way through and I’m proud to have made a movie with like total creative control.
What was it like working with so many rats in Nosferatu?
Yeah, I. mean, we, we were working uh with the Bareš family and Oda Bareš like trained the fox to say chaos reigns and anti-Christ, so they, they really know what they’re doing, and I have a ton of respect for rats. They’re incredibly intelligent, like, 200 or something of the 2000 rats we had were trained to enter on cue is quite impressive. But yeah, when you have like thousands of them at one time—we’re using plexiglass barricades to keep the rats in frame and safe—it can be a little bit a little bit more challenging.
Like what Spielberg did for his snakes in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Well, you know, it was funny because we actually watched that scene and said they’ve gotta be up against Plexiglass—that’s gotta be what it is.
Period pieces are what you do and I don’t want to pigeonhole you into that, but would you do a future film that takes place in the modern world?
I wouldn’t, you know, I’m just not interested. I wouldn’t wanna have to photograph cars and cell phones and other…firing objects.
Do you have any ideas for your next project? Can you talk about it?
I can’t wait to start shooting the next thing, but yeah, I’ve got a bunch of stuff in development. I’m always working on multiple projects, so we’ll see what’s next, but I’m excited about all of the various prospects.
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