Emma Corrin Had 30 Rats Crawl on Their 'Bare Chest' for “Nosferatu” Scene: 'The Smell Is Something That You Can't Imagine'

"I had no top on, and it was just horrible," Emma Corrin described of filming the horrific scene with rats

Emma Corrin dealt with smelly rats up close while filming Nosferatu.

The actor, 28, stars opposite Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Nicholas Hoult, Bill Skarsgård and more in the horror film, directed by The Witch's Robert Eggers.

In an interview with Deadline, Corrin, who uses they/them pronouns recalled filming a scene with the rodents swarming their personal space.

Corrin recalled that "30 of them were on my bare chest," and added, "Honestly, I was being very brave about it. I was very much stoic, being very British about it, really. And then we were in the scene, and I had no top on, and it was just horrible."

"The smell is something that you can’t imagine. And the incontinence was a thing that I really didn’t expect, but was terrible… It was grim," they said. "They loved my hair, so they would go and sit in the wig and get all up in my face. Do you watch I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!? You know when they had to put their hand in the box with the tarantulas? It was a bit like that, I won’t lie."

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Eggers, 41, estimated that 5,000 live rats were used to film the vampire movie.

"The big thing that makes it difficult is that we had to contain them for their safety with plexiglass that you don’t see on camera. And then, rats in the background become CG," he explained.

"But what was more challenging was for Emma Corrin, who has live rats placed on their body, and they're incontinent or defecating and urinating on Emma take, after take, after take. That's difficult."

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There are so many rats shown onscreen in Nosferatu that Corrin's onscreen husband Taylor-Johnson told his real-life wife, director Sam Taylor-Johnson, not to watch the movie.

"I said to Sam, ‘I'm sorry, you can't see this movie.’ She's like, ‘Well, I really desperately want to see it, but is it really that terrifying?’ I was like, ‘Well, listen, you've got a phobia of rats. That's one thing. You just don't want to see it. And then secondly, it's terrifying,' " he told Deadline. "I know it's definitely going to cause some sleepless nights for most people."

Nosferatu is in theaters Dec. 25.