Robert Eggers’ New Gothic Horror Gets a “Stunning” Early Reaction [Exclusive]

While directors will often work with a wide range of actors throughout their careers, the very best and most beloved in the industry often have one or more stars who are among their regular collaborators. Martin Scorsese most notably has Robert De Niro, Christopher Nolan has Cillian Murphy, and Wes Anderson has Bill Murray and many more. For maestro of the macabre Robert Eggers, that actor who’s on the same wavelength is undoubtedly Willem Dafoe. The pair have found success together in The Lighthouse, The Northman, and most recently, Nosferatu, and are again united on their fourth straight feature, Werwulf.

Releasing on December 25, Werwulf will see Dafoe playing a hunter taking aim at a monstrous beast stalking the lands of 13th-century England. Aaron Taylor-Johnson leads the film as a cursed farmer who is just trying to protect his family when myths of lycanthropy turn into horrifying reality, setting the stage for a gothic horror monster movie unfolding across the foggy countryside. Eggers has developed a certain folk-tinged style that Dafoe has gotten to see take shape and improve over the past eight years, and yet he never ceases to amaze the veteran actor. In an interview with Collider’s Aidan Kelley for his new films Late Fame and The Birthday Party, he opened up about what he appreciates most about working with Eggers and how that applies in his latest chilling effort.

Dafoe has seen just about everything in his career at this point, earning four Oscar nominations, starring as the Green Goblin in Sam Raimi‘s Spider-Man, standing out in classics like To Live and Die in LA and Platoon, and taking part in arthouse films like At Eternity’s Gate. Part of what impresses him about Eggers is that, to put it simply, “he’s a world maker.” He appreciates the effort the director puts into every aspect of making his fictional realities and testing his actors.

“He gets better and better. He’s just very committed. He’s smart. He knows his passions. He knows his limitations. He knows what he loves, and he knows actors. He was an actor. I love working with him because he gives me fun things to do, and he knows how to punch my buttons, and he’s a world maker, you know? And that’s what you want from a director. You want him to make the world, so when you enter that world, the world speaks to you. And if a great part of acting is reacting, that world tells you what to do, and you do it. It’s always in the doing — the quality of the doing, the authenticity of the doing, and as we know, he’s a nut about research and all that. It’s an ideal situation. I really love working with him.”

Dafoe Shares Why He First Wanted to Work With Eggers After ‘The Witch’

Dafoe went one step further, calling Eggers a “demanding” director who truly lives in the worlds he creates. He points to the research Eggers puts in as both a writer and a filmmaker as critical to getting actors to join him in those realities, whether that be by drawing from the Smalls Lighthouse Tragedy for The Lighthouse or referencing a multitude of Old Norse sagas and historical experts for The Northman. Even before working together, it was seeing his feature debut, The Witch, that spurred Dafoe to first reach out and learn about his process.

“But one thing that he does, that is the reason why I sought him out: I saw The Witch, and then I asked for a meeting with him, and then I’ve worked with him, I guess, four times now. A lot of particular period movies or elevated movies that aren’t naturalistic family drama, these sorts of things, he makes it so easy to enter the world because he doesn’t show. Like a good actor, he inhabits it. He creates things, not to tell you where you are, but because he wants to be there. He has such love for the material and gives you beautiful research that really makes you learn things and puts you in another head. So, that really makes a space. Once you learn those things, you want to pursue them, and that’s the road to inhabiting something. Because once you learn something, you become a different person, and that different person then becomes available to pretend to be this character. So, it’s a growth process. It’s a game.”

More than anything, Dafoe finds Eggers “fun to work with, and just committed and strong,” finding admiration for how totally he gives himself to his work. “He has collaborators that become extensions of him,” the actor continued. Perhaps what most impresses him is how in-tune the filmmaker is with all the people involved in bringing his projects to life from the bottom to the top. “There’s such understanding and such complicity that he doesn’t delegate anything. He’s everywhere, but he’s everywhere with the collaboration of a team. It’s a beautiful thing to work with him. Not always easy. It’s not a character thing. He just doesn’t sign things; he experiences them.”

Everything that makes Eggers such a special collaborator is translated into Werwulf, according to Dafoe. “For example, in the case of Werwulf, we’ve got a very, very full-on movie, and I think it’s going to be very beautiful,” he shared. “I haven’t seen it yet completely, but I have done some ADR, and just some of the visuals and some of the short little clips that I saw are just stunning. Stunning. Otherworldly.” He’s built up so much confidence in the director that he doesn’t have to see the finished project to believe it’ll be something worthy of the same acclaim that The Lighthouse and Nosferatu earned before it. It’s become genuinely hard for him not to root for such a kindred creative spirit. “I’m a cheerleader. What can I say?” he concluded with a laugh.

Dafoe Is Kicking Off August With Two New Films

Before the beloved actor scours the English countryside, he has two new movies releasing in theaters this month, starting with Late Fame on Friday, August 7. Directed by Kent Jones and penned by May December and Coyote v. Acme scribe Samy Burch, based on a posthumously published novella by famed author Arthur Schnitzler, the story casts Dafoe as an author who, years after his poetry collection is released, suddenly finds himself the subject of newfound attention and adoration by fellow artists. He feels his own passion rejuvenated, pulling him back into the creative world and into the path of Gloria (Greta Lee), a captivating actress who has taken an interest in him. Critics were impressed upon its debut at the Venice International Film Festival, giving it a strong 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, with high marks for Dafoe’s performance in particular.

The Birthday Party, meanwhile, bows on August 14 and sees Dafoe instead playing a gloomy Greek billionaire trying to host the perfect 25th birthday for his daughter on his private island. That is, until unforeseen events occur and the day spirals out of his control, shaking the very foundations of his life and power. Miguel Ángel Jiménez directed the feature, which is based on Panos Karnezis‘ acclaimed 2007 novel and features a starry multinational cast including Vic Carmen Sonne, Joe Cole, Emma Suárez, and Christos Stergioglou. Its release comes a full year after it debuted at the Locarno Film Festival.

Werwulf tears into theaters on Christmas Day. Stay tuned here at Collider for more on Eggers’ latest gothic horror as it nears.