Last Updated on February 24, 2025 by Angel Melanson
Bringing the strange and meticulous period-accurate worlds of Robert Eggers' mind to life on screen in everything from The Witch to The Lighthouse and, most recently, Academy-Award nominated Nosferatu relies on creating a space first and foremost grounded in reality. Long-term collaborative artisans Costume Designer Linda Muir, Production Designer Craig Lathrop, and DP Jarin Blaschke craft the tangible elements of a world we recognize before launching us into utterly fantastical places. We caught up with the Academy-Award-nominated team on the black carpet at their premiere late last year. To celebrate Nosferatu landing on Blu-ray and the upcoming awards, we're revisiting our time together.
Oscar-nominated Nosferatu Costume Designer Linda Muir has worked with Robert Eggers on every one of his feature films. Having worked on so many costume designs together, Muir rightfully cannot choose a favorite.” I love them all,” said Muir. “You know I do because they each required their own journey. Their own journey of research, their own journey of working with the actors that were wearing them and the shoot and creating that part of the story.”
Muir has already taken home a Nosferatu win this awards season, snagging the Costume Designers Guild award for Excellence in Period Film, along with multiple nominations from the Academy to BAFA and Astra.
In Eggers' version of the tale, Count Orlok's look is specifically inspired by Transylvanian noblemen, draped in a luxurious fur coat with a hat to match. “Robert knew from day one what he was going for, and that's one of the reasons I absolutely love working with him. He is so involved in every aspect of the filmmaking,” said Muir.
There's a lot that goes into crafting a period-accurate world, “In addition to looking at everything that I'm working on, he's looking at everything [Production Designer] Craig Lathrop's working on, everything props are doing, everything that everyone's doing,” Muir shared. Adding, “How cigarettes were made at the period, he just is absolutely meticulous.”
In spite of so many moving parts, Muir points out the fact that Eggers is always readily available: “If I run into something that is problematic or suddenly we find that we've continued researching and our research has turned out something that's quite different than what perhaps we expected, then we have to incorporate that and change our work a little bit. He's always up for that, he's always interested in that, so he's pretty amazing to work with. That's why I keep coming back.”
All three of these Oscar-nominated individuals are longtime collaborators of Eggers. Cinematographer Jarin Blaschke has been working with Eggers since his second short film, “It's all just very comfortable, you can just give yourself, and there's no judgment,” Blaschke commented. “A crazy idea with him that maybe I might be slightly afraid of with someone else. Generally, I try to just say it regardless, but the comfort and the friendship kind of push things further.”
In 2019, Blaschke won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Cinematography for another Eggers collaboration — The Lighthouse. For their latest collaboration, Blashchke has already taken home at least eight Best Cinematography Awards, including the Critics' Choice Award, and over a dozen nominations.
After a decade of discussing the project with Eggers, Blaschke explained that the two had reached a level of a certain mutual understanding, “I think at this point, we sort of understood. You just knew. He said ‘romantic‘, and I'm just thinking of romantic paintings that I like, and the ones he likes are different, but we get it. We were working on it for so long that ten years later, you don't know what's a reference and what's just coming out of you in a pure way.”
Production Designer Craig Lathrop has worked with Eggers on every one of his feature films. When it came to crafting the world of 1830s Germany, and the abode of an ancient Transylvanian nobleman, Lathrop shared one of the more challenging aspects was getting Orlok's castle right.
“We looked at a lot of castles with the idea that we might find one that we liked. I went to a lot of castles in Prague,” Lathrop said. “We went to Corbin Castle in Romania, which is where we shot the one shot of that castle just as you approach it from the outside going over the bridge. That's Corvin Castle.”
In a land rich with castles, there was one major issue. They were too pristine. “The problem with most of the castles was that they've all been gussied up,” said Lathrop. “They're beautiful. They've been whitewashed and they're pristine and ready for tourists to come through. I needed something grotesque and decaying. I mean, he doesn't have a maid. We needed it to be Orlok's castle, so it was great to be able to do the scale of the castle with all the other sets. It's really important just to get the finishes right so it feels like it's a real castle. So hopefully, when you see the film, you think you're in a castle.”
Lathrop has already won several awards for his Nosferatu Production Design from various Critics Associations, again with over a dozen Best Production Design nominations.
Judging by the plethora of nominations, I think it's safe to say Lathrop, Muir, Blaschke, and the entire Nosferatu team have excelled at transporting us to the fictional German town of Wisburg circa 1838. Nosferatu is nominated for a total of four Academy Awards: Best Cinematography Jarin Blaschke Best Production Design Craig Lathrop for production design, Beatrice Brentnerová for set decoration, Best Costume Design Linda Muir, and Best Makeup and Hairstyling: David White, Traci Loader, and Suzanne Stokes-Munton. Congratulations to all the nominees!
Nosferatu is now on digital, 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD from Universal featuring an extended cut and exclusive bonus features.
