Nicholas Hoult Teases Nicolas Cage's Original Take on Dracula in RENFIELD
When it was announced that Nicolas Cage would be playing Dracula in the upcoming horror-comedy Renfield, I couldn’t wait to see what his take on the legendary vampire would be! We’ve got a tease at his look and his voice, but it’s going to be a lot of fun when we actually see him in the role in the movie.
The film’s star, Nicholas Hoult recently talked about the movie and praised Nicolas Cage's performance as the iconic Count Dracula. He told The Hollywood Reporter:
"To get to work with him whilst he was playing Dracula, I don’t think there’s two more iconic things than Dracula and Nic Cage. As a person, he’s such a pure soul to be around, and I’m excited for people to see what he’s done. It’s original, but it’s steeped in a lot of history, Dracula history and folklore. So it’s exciting, even though it’s a very bizarre, elevated tone for an action-comedy."
Hoult plays Dracula’s unhinged henchman R.M. Renfield. In the original Dracula novel, Renfield was an inmate at a lunatic asylum who was thought to be suffering from delusions but actually is a servant of Dracula. The movie is believed to take place during the present day, and in it, Renfield decides to leave that life behind after falling in love with a traffic officer.
Cage previously shared the inspiration behind his version of the character, explaining that it will be a mix of David Bowie and his late father, August Coppola. He said: "I'm trying to become the Thin White Duke for Dracula," which is referring the persona that was adopted by Bowie in the mid-'70s, which was partly inspired by the character he played in The Man Who Fell to Earth.
When talking about his father, the brother of director Francis Ford Coppola, Cage said: "August Coppola's coming back, and he's coming back as Dracula."
Cage also said that his Dracula was inspired by James Wan’s Malignant, and explained: "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 — and even Ringu with Sadako [Yamamura] … I want to look at what we can explore with this movement and voice."
Chris McKay (The Tomorrow War, The Lego Batman Movie 1 & 2) is directing the movie and the script is based on an original story outline from The Walking Dead’s Robert Kirkman. Ryan Ridley wrote the most recent version of the script.
Renfield is set to hit theaters in North America on April 14, 2023.