“Nosferatu” officially brings Bill Skarsgård's Orlok out of the shadows (exclusive)

No need to whip out your phones in the theater to record a video of the screen for posterity. (Though, we all know that's not stopping anytime soon.) The powers that be behind Nosferatu are ready to officially reveal Bill Skarsgård's Count Orlok.

Focus Features intentionally kept any official imagery of the It and Boy Kills World star's transformation into the undead vampire under wraps until the movie premiered in theaters. Now, after the film enjoyed nearly a month of screenings, the studio reveals its behind-the-scenes materials, as shown in Entertainment Weekly's exclusive clip (above).

Lily-Rose Depp, who plays Orlok's object of obsession, Ellen Hutter, calls Skarsgård "the only man for the job." Nicholas Hoult, who plays Ellen's husband, Thomas, says, "It's something that is so intimidating and fully realized and horrific that it is incredible to see but also terrifying to be around."

Related: Nicholas Hoult says Robert Eggers gifted him Bill Skarsgård's prosthetic penis from Nosferatu: It's 'framed at home'

"I've done these sort of transformative performances before, but none quite like this," Skarsgård comments in the video. "I've never been more scared in playing a character, than playing Orlok."

Nosferatu is director Robert Eggers' reimagining of the 1922 black-and-white silent movie from filmmaker F. W. Murnau. As a young girl, Ellen calls out to the darkness for someone to ease her loneliness, drawing the attention of an ancient vampire, Count Orlok. Years go by with the two sharing a psychic connection, until Ellen's husband, an estate agent, is called to Orlok's eerie castle in Transylvania's Carpathian Alps to sell him a manor in their home city of Wisborg, Germany. Orlok attempts to keep Thomas captive while he travels to Wisborg to seduce Ellen — and torment those around her.

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The film also features Willem Dafoe as the Van Helsing-esque Prof. Albin Eberhart Von Franz; Emma Corrin as Ellen's close friend, Anna Harding; Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Anna's husband, Friedrich Harding; Simon McBurney as Orlok's human minion, Herr Knock; and Ralph Ineson as Dr. Wilhelm Sievers, who attempts to find some medical explanation for Ellen's haunting.

Related: Bill Skarsgård unpacks his dramatic Nosferatu transformation: 'Either this will come alive or it won't'

Prior to the film's release on Christmas Day, Skarsgård opened up about his intense work portraying Orlok, which included working with an opera coach to lower his voice about an octave. "Me sitting, looking the way I look, and doing the voice and physicality, it is so abstract, and it feels fake, and it feels contrived," he said. "So you're terrified because it's something that you can't really control. Either this will come alive, or it won't. I can't force it. It needs to be there."

"The amount of stamina and the amount of energy that it takes to lower your voice and be this supernatural creature that's incapable of imperfection is very exhausting," Eggers notes in the video. "So I wouldn't insist Bill [on being] Method to stay in character. Sometimes you needed to lighten the mood, and he was able to do that and still go back into the darkness."

The reveal of Skarsgård's Orlok in an official capacity comes as Nosferatu becomes available to rent or buy through digital retailers. It comes with an array of bonus features, including an extended cut of the film, deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes footage, and director's commentary. The film will be available on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD later this Feb. 18.

Watch EW's exclusive behind-the-scenes clip above.

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