Universal unveiled a few months back that actor Nicolas Cage will be starring as one of the most famous characters to date: Dracula. Cage will be taking on the classic vampire role in the upcoming movie titled Renfield, and it appears James Wan's Malignant inspired the actor's take on the character.
The Universal film also stars Nicholas Hoult in the title role of Renfield, a character who actually stems from Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. In the novel, Renfield is described as “a patient in an asylum, obsessed with drinking blood, deluded into thinking he will find immortality. He bows at the feet of Dracula.”
Although the description that has been taken from the original novel sounds joker level dark, it’s supposedly hinted at being much more comedic in tone than fans imagined. During an interview with Variety's Awards Circuit podcast, Cage revealed that he happens to be a big fan of the novel himself and drew great inspiration from it in order to tap into his role as the iconic vampire. Stepping into such a well-loved and known character such as Count Dracula is no small battle.
However, Cage also shared that being able to tackle a character who has been done so many times before does come with it’s own advantages. He spoke about his preparation for the role involving a lot of re-watching and studying previous actor’s interpretations of Dracula. He stated, “I looked at Bela Lugosi’s performance, and then I looked at Frank Langella’s performance. And of course, there’s Gary Oldman in Francis Ford Coppla’s 1992 version.”
Yet, Cage ultimately spilled that he got most of his inspiration and creative ideas from the 2021 horror film Malignant. He expressed, “I want it to pop in a unique way from how we’ve seen it played. So I’m thinking to really focus on the movement of the character. You know, I saw ‘Malignant’ and I thought what she did with those moves, even ‘Ringu’ with Sadako Yamamura - I want to look at what we can explore with this movement and voice.”
It seems as though Cage intentionally wanted to watch previous Dracula films in order to avoid re-creating a performance that becomes too tired. One that quickly becomes overdone and saturated to audiences, possibly even boring. The comedic undertones of this film will be interesting to see Cage play with, as he seems to be submerging himself deep into the horror aspects of the role. Production for the Renfield film is set to start sometime early into the new year, making the film’s release most likely not until 2023.
Renfield is currently in pre-production.
Source: Variety