Lily-Rose Depp’s Road to ‘Nosferatu’: “People Have Been Ready to See Me Fail”

Robert Eggers was left in tears by Lily-Rose Depp’s Nosferatu audition—over Zoom, no less. Maybe not what you’d expect from a spooky, unnerving reimagining of the iconic cinematic vampire, one that writer-director Eggers approached with rigorous reverence. But from her breakout in the French period piece Planetarium to her star turn in last year’s derided pop-star portrait The Idol, the 25-year-old Depp has proven herself as a performer of committed, near-operatic emotionality. When called to portray a 19th-century woman possessed by a demon, even through a grainy webcam, there was no doubt that Depp would dig deep and swing big.

Bill Skarsgård’s ghoulish antihero, all of that at once. Her physicality in the movie’s most demanding possession scenes defies basic description. Early audiences have marveled at the fact that the character’s movements weren’t sweetened by CGI; as Nicholas Hoult, who plays Depp’s naive husband in the film, said over the weekend, “Every detail of her performance is just astounding.”

Eggers (The Lighthouse, The Northman) cannily reframes the Nosferatu story to make Ellen its complex, tragic lead, and he needed someone uninhibited and fearless to take it on. Early in our conversation, Depp admits she had her doubts about winning the role: “I thought for sure it wasn’t going to go my way.” The daughter of actors Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis, Depp has consistently felt insecure about making her own way as an actor. Nosferatu surely affirms she’s got the goods—but even so, she feels like she’s got a lot more to prove.

Vanity Fair: How did you approach a Zoom audition for Nosferatu, where you had to let go and go so big? How did you set it up at home?

Lily-Rose Depp: Actually I was in the countryside in France; my family has a place over there. You hope that the person in front of you has the sensibility to know that Zoom is never going to be the best that it can be, because it’s Zoom, and everything is shitty about it quality-wise. Luckily, Rob did. When we had [our first] meeting, he had already said to me, “I’m sorry, I know Zoom auditions suck.” I was like, “I know.” [Laughs] Because this role was so emotionally charged, and also there was a very important physical aspect to it, I felt like my job was to show him that I could go there. If I get the job, we’ll fine tune the intricacies of it after.

The scene happens in a room where I’m throwing things and there’s a lot of space to play with—and of course on Zoom, you don’t have that space. I was just trying to, within the frame, make it known that I was creating a tornado of myself. I really like emotional scenes because they’re challenging. I feel stimulated by that. I like that type of work. It’s an emotional outlet for me—I feel like it helps me, I don’t know, heal things with myself, perhaps. I feel like a lot of us do this for that reason.

Once you land the part, obviously a lot of physical training goes into it. Walk me through that work—you trained in butoh, is that right?

Yeah. Butoh is this Japanese dance discipline, it’s fascinating. Rob was most inspired by the total abandonment of the self so that you can let something else enter your body, like another spirit. If you watch videos of it, you’ll see these people with the most blank stare—it really feels as though they are not there anymore. There is room for something else to come into them. That was a really important aspect of it. Then we worked with an amazing movement coach, Marie-Gabrielle Rotie. She is phenomenal, really helped me map it all out. Going into it I had thought that it was going to be maybe more improvisational; the physical parts were more vague to me in my head. I didn’t realize how choreographed it was going to be, but that helped infuse every moment with an intention.

Physical work lends itself to emotional work. They kind of go hand-in-hand: I guarantee if you start shaking your body like crazy, you’ll kind of want to cry.

Did you feel that way?

For sure. It’s very vulnerable. I was trying to make myself be there as little as possible and let whatever I was trying to summon overtake me completely. It’s a destabilizing place to be emotionally. That brings up a lot. It was definitely very physically and emotionally draining. Even just breathing really heavily, you’ll exhaust yourself. It was important for me to care for myself.

I had never worked this way before, where it almost feels like the camera is the main character. Rob and Jarin [Blaschke]’s storyboards are so clear. They know exactly what they want. You are working yourself into a framework that is very much already there, which is why you get the result that you do and why it looks so incredible onscreen. It’s not the kind of thing where you do whatever and the camera will come find you. It’s very technical, which I think brought a real feeling of all hands on deck. And a lot of scenes that are one take, one shot. So not only is it not just about me or whoever else is in the scene—it’s just as much about you as it is about the dolly grip, and the focus puller, and the cameraman. Nobody wants to be the one that messes it up for everybody, which brings this real team feeling. I felt a lot of support from everyone, especially in those scenes that were more demanding. It wasn’t lost on everyone around me, they’re seeing me go to a certain place emotionally and physically.

Do you need to go a little method, or stay in character at all, given that intensity? How did you take care of yourself between takes, or after a day of shooting?

I don’t intend on being method because I wouldn’t know how to—I’m too attached to my life, I feel like. [Laughs] But I commend that style of acting. That’s a beautiful commitment. But I need to be able to call my friends at the end of the day and be myself.

This movie had such an immersive energy about it that I do think I brought the darkness home, for sure. Not that it wasn’t an enjoyable shoot, but after we finished, I felt like, “Oh, I’m releasing something now.” I was carrying her with me when I was at home. Also, Rob really creates an environment where he’ll sometimes play music that’s very ominous. You really feel like you’re in the movie. He would have this big speaker, playing really loud, atmospheric, scary music in this very dark set.

I was able to let go to the degree that I’d call my family and chat jovially with them and everything. I noticed it after—now I feel like I was releasing something that had been with me, and I don’t really know how to describe it other than this heaviness.

Can you say a little bit more about that heaviness?

She is a person who really carries a lot of darkness within her, and has since she was a child, and that has isolated her a lot. Every element of the shoot made it so that I felt very much in her skin. When we finished the movie, I felt that heaviness release from me. I can only identify it now as an utter, complete togetherness with the character. I don’t want to sound too actor-y or anything, but I felt that completely.

In one of the scenes they say, “Make sure you tie her corset tighter at night,” and that’s because they would do that to calm the womb. They actually believed that if a woman was exhibiting signs of hysteria or “craziness,” quote-unquote, that it might be because her womb might be floating throughout her body. Which now we know is not possible. [Laughs] So they would tie the corset even tighter to keep the womb where it’s supposed to be, which is insane. We rehearsed a lot in the corset because it changes everything about how you feel, how you move, how you breathe. Especially if you’re having a panicky moment—which I obviously was in a lot of the scenes—you cannot breathe as much as without one on. That makes you feel 10 times more panicky.

Thinking of these last two roles of yours, Nosferatu and The Idol, you definitely gravitate toward bigger, emotional characters. Has that always been appealing for you?

Honestly, yeah. I was 15 when I started working, which is crazy—I can’t believe that it’s been so long. I feel like I’m still starting out. At the time, I maybe wasn’t thinking that way because I was a kid and I didn’t know what the hell was going on.

I gravitate more toward bigger, emotional performances because I like the challenge of it. I like to get in there. I come away with more of a lesson from it. Every role that I have been lucky enough to do has taught me something, and I get to come away with something. I also just feel like I’m better at crying than laughing, which—I don’t know what that says about me as a person. [Laughs] I laugh a lot in my own life. I’m a happy person, so I like to explore the underbelly of that at work.

How do you reflect on The Idol? There was a lot of noise around that show last year. Where do you sit with it now?

I love it. Honestly, I love it. [Laughs] You make something and you hope that people like it, and you hope that it resonates with people. But we always knew some people were not going to like it and that it was going to be too much for some people. But I stand by it. We made a choice and we went for it.

I love it when people do come up to me and they’re like, “I love The Idol.” And I’m like, “Thank you. You get it!” It’s okay that it’s not for everyone. That’s a beautiful thing about it. I’m very close with Sam and Ashley [Levinson]. They’re like family to me. I’m excited to get to work with them again one day. And I loved the experience of making it—that was a huge turning point for me. I learned so much about myself, and I got to progress so much in my own work. I learned how to dance, and sing, and do all these things that I had never done before. It was a real growing period for me. So I look back on it and I can only think fondly, and I’m really proud of what it is.

When you’re in an HBO show, and you’re the lead, there’s a level of exposure that comes with that. Did you tune out what people were saying? How much did you see or engage with the chatter?

A lot of it was hard to escape, because obviously, it was a big topic of conversation—but I was always prepared for it. We knew what we were doing, intentionally touching on things that were supposed to be shocking, and crazy, and of its own world. So when people were like, “This is so crazy,” we were like, “Ha ha ha. It is super crazy.”

I like to do things that maybe not everybody’s down to do. No matter what the project is, you go there and you try to give your heart and your best and everything, and then it goes and it gets edited, and you have nothing to do with that, and then it gets received in the world, and you also have nothing to do with that. And also, I’m not an internet rat like that. I’m not on Twitter. I’m not reading stuff.

That’s healthy.

I try to maintain my sanity. I’m on Instagram, which is already too much. I try to protect myself from all that, just because I don’t feel the need to engage with it. It’s not that interesting to me.

Were you disappointed that you didn’t get a second season?

I mean, I would’ve loved to have worked with Sam again. And I loved the character profoundly. She is the woman that I wanted to be when I was five. I was the little girl who was wearing my mom’s heels—she is the femme fatale fantasy of who I wanted to be when I was a kid. So I would’ve loved to explore that character further. But I know that we’ll do something again together one day, and I’m excited for that day. Everything happens for a reason.

You mentioned that you didn’t expect to get the Nosferatu part. Have you struggled with insecurity in this business?

Absolutely. Somebody asked me the other day what was the hardest part of the role, and I said, “Getting over the imposter syndrome of, like, ‘Why am I here and why do these people think that I can do this?’” Getting to a place where I felt confident enough within myself to be like, “I can do this and I am here for a reason,” I definitely have struggled with that. Humility is incredibly important, especially in this business. In a way, I always want to feel like I’m just starting out and like I still have so much to learn—which is how I do feel.

I feel like people have been ready to see me fail, in a way, since I was a kid. That has made me only want to work harder and prove people wrong. Not in a vindictive way at all, but just in a sense of, like, fuel to my fire. I do want to prove that I’m a hard worker and I’m not here for anything else but to work hard. But Rob was one of my bucket list directors. I didn’t think I would get to work with him so soon, so early in my career.

And it’s such an amazing part.

And I’m surrounded by all these amazing actors who I’ve always looked up to. I definitely was walking in being like, “Oh my God, I am so out of my depth.” But you just have to be like, “You know what? I may feel this way, but I have to go to work tomorrow.”

Sensing some people wanting to see you fail, though—that’s quite a thing to have in the back of your head, as someone trying to just make their own career.

Yeah, but it just is what it is. It’s been my life. I come from a family of artists. Both of my parents are these incredible artists and I have grown up with that. Respecting them both so much and what they do, and trying to find my own identity in this world, has been interesting when everybody’s thinking that you’re here for the wrong reasons or that you don’t deserve to be here. You either can sit there and cry about it and be like, “This isn’t fair!” or you can be like, “Okay, I’m just going to work really, really hard and do the best that I can.” That’s all I can do at the end of the day, is do my absolute best, and do this job for the right reasons, which is that I love what I do. I love acting. If people still want to talk shit or see me in a certain way, then that’s not my problem. I’ve had to grow into that feeling as well.

What other directors are on the bucket list?

I would love to work with Jonathan Glazer. I’m obsessed with his movies. I would love to work with Yorgos Lanthimos. Another amazing world-builder. I would love to work with Justine Triet who made Anatomy of a Fall. I also would love to work with Halina Reijn who made Babygirl. Have you seen Babygirl?

I have.

I love her. I saw her the other night at the Governors Awards. She’s such a cool person. Babygirl was so good. I know they’re our competitor, but Halina and I were saying the other day we’re going to be like Baby-ratu—we’re going to be the new Barbenheimer.

Nosferatu and Babygirl are a great Christmas double feature. Was that your first Governors Awards? Did you see anyone else?

Yeah, it was really overwhelming. The press tour is so cool. It means that there’s support behind the movie, which is great. It’s my first time doing all this bigger stuff. It’s a lot. It’s crazy, but I’m excited. I kept saying to Rob and Nick, “I’ve never done this, you guys!” I felt like I was their little sister walking around. I was like, “I don’t know anybody here!” Who else did I see? My friend Margaret Qualley, who also has an amazing movie out this year. I loved The Substance. Did you see it?

Yes, it’s great.

The Substance is wild. I watched it at home and my body was filled with stress. Honestly, one of the hardest things I’ve ever watched. I really don’t do well with skin-tearing and anything that has to do with bodily harm. I’m not good with that kind of stuff. It was a very hard watch for me. I loved it, but there are some gnarly scenes in there. I mean, there’s a lot of blood in Nosferatu.

I was about to say—

A lot of scenes where I had to have this eye-blood in my eyes, and my eyes are very sensitive. So whenever I had the eye blood, I was like, “Oh!” It was very “dead” makeup every day. What was funny is that I had finished shooting The Idol only two months before. I was going from The Idol, getting to look super hot and glam every day—spray tan, my blonde hair, very LA, definitely feeling myself—to then looking like a corpse every day. [Laughs] It was a workout for my self-esteem.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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