Noble Blood - Count Orlok's Coat (with Linda Muir)

Episode Date: February 18, 2025

From leg-of-mutton sleeves to fur overcoats, the costumes in Robert Eggers's Nosferatu are extraordinarily detailed and, thanks to the research of Oscar-nominated costume designer Linda Muir, incredibly historically accurate. Dana speaks with Muir about her work, and the process of creating costumes for German gentleman, wealthy ladies, and a 300-year-old decomposing corpse. Support Noble Blood: — Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon— Noble Blood merch— Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, The cat just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck.

Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and grim and mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. Today on the podcast, we'll be talking about a Hungarian count, a 300-year-old, undead Hungarian. Count, who also happens to be a vampire. Even though usually on this podcast we talk about real royalty, today we're making an exception to discuss Count or Locke and the rest of the characters in Robert Eggers' phenomenal movie Nosferatu. Or rather, more specifically, we'll be talking about the costumes. Expertly researched and entirely historically accurate, thanks to Oscar-nominated

costume designer Linda Muir. Linda has worked with Robert Eggers on The Witch, The Witch, The Lighthouse, the Northman, and now Nosferatu, which required her to dive into the world of 19th century corsets, leg of mutton sleeves, boots, and coats to transport viewers to Eggers' vision of Germany and Transylvania. Linda, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you very much. The costumes truly were one of the first things I noticed about this film. They're incredibly detail-oriented and incredibly period-accurate. Can you talk a little bit about just how you started the process? Robert Eggers is an incredibly detail-oriented director, writer.

He has this wonderful habit of creating lookbooks. So he gathers together images. And he groups them not just, for instance, by character, but he also groups them sometimes under an adjective, or atmosphere or a particular beat in the script. And so he uses those images while he's writing to embed detail actually into the scripts. And so we being his production team,

Craig Lathrop, the production designer, his DP, Jaron and myself, costumes. You know, when we start prep, and we usually do a considerable amount of pre-pre on our own together, you know, sort of wading into it. And we have that as a starting point, which is absolutely amazing. And so, you know, really what I have to do, or what each of us have to do visually is to go through Robert's images because, you know, they're not necessarily dead on in terms of the period, but they give the essence. And so, you know, checking for anachronisms

is one of the first things that I do and also try to broaden out and obviously have to broaden out the bank of images. And sometimes that is a hard slog to find things. You know, the Viking era that we did for the Northman was exceedingly difficult because obviously there's this much fabric that exists. And so, you know, you're not looking at a number of extant pieces. But thankfully for Nosferatu, you know, the period is much more accessible. Still not photography. You know, no really fabulous snapshots of people. But beautiful portraits. It's fashion plates, I imagine. Yes, absolutely.

And so the challenge for fashion plates with Nosferatu was Robert set the story as a book that it's based on, obviously, Bramstoker's Dracula, Mirnau's Nosferatu, you know, set in Germany at 1838. And so rather than just looking at English flash fashion plates or, you know, Parisian, beautiful as they are, I really wanted German fashion plates. and I don't speak German. And so really locating a full range of, I think it was W-E-I-N-E-R-M-O-D-E-M, I believe that was the journal that I was looking for. And eventually, due to one of my assistant costume designers, Anna Monroe, who lives in Berlin and speaks German, you know, I said, Anna, Anna, Anna, can you please?

And she fabulously sent me the full range month by month. And I asked, I think I asked for 1835 to 1839. And I wanted, obviously, leading up to and then I wanted after so that I wouldn't go. If anything, was massively different in 39. I didn't want to go there. So that was really exciting because then, particularly for the gentleman, you know, I mean, like the women I could piece together. and the women were more from portraits, actually.

I got more inspiration from portraits, paintings, than I did from the fashion plates. Though, you know, there was a whimsy in the fashion plates that I, you know, was trying to capture. And certainly the feeling of, you know, is it ever too much? It's a very interesting time for fashion, a bit of a transitional period, if I imagine, because 1838 is, if I'm correct,

incredibly early Victorian, and we have these sort of leg of mutton sleeves that are transitioning away. Yeah, the transition happens prior to 1838. It starts to happen at about 1836, 1837, and it transitions all through that period, 1839, and then 40, and then you start to really see the difference that becomes the 40s and the 50s. And so you've got this transitioning period, the forearm in the women's the body sleeve is changing. And the pieces that the actual authentic garments that I looked at, I was sort of chuckling and thinking, wow, they didn't cut any of that fabric out. They just it all. And then I understand why. What would you say is characteristic of that period? The embellishments, trying to figure out Anna Harding, obviously, much more wealthy than,

because of her husband's, he's a shipman, and he has lots of money to spend on her and the children, and they are beautiful little replicas of her. And the story points really were that Ellen had less money, Hutter had less money, which is why he goes to Count Orlock. And so, you know, really trying to figure out what the garments would be that would tell her Ellen's story and then use Anna's excess, really, to also tell the story by contrast. And Anna's outfits are just extraordinary. If you haven't seen the movie yet, Anna Harding, is the main character Ellen's wealthy, married friend. She has these sort of adorable prim children who are always dressed up to the nines. Yes. One thing that I thought was a brilliant marrying of fashion and plot is Ellen's corset. Can you talk a little bit about the type of corset Ellen is wearing and how that factored in? Yeah, absolutely.

because Ellen does not have staff, she doesn't have a chambermaid, you know, I was trying to figure out really what would tell that story. And I came across a fan lace corset, which initially I was referring to, because I had been referring to it with my colleagues about, you know, self-tightening. And I realized in interviews that kind of made it sound like the corset tightened itself, which of course it didn't. The wearer tightened it on themselves, herself. And so it still laces up. the back. It has a closed front. So the busk, it's a center front busk and not quite the same boning as you have later. You know, there's a little less in this corset. So we still have the lacing, criss-crossing and coming up the back. But what the additional feature is, is that all of those laces are longer. They cross over and they come to the front around the waist. And so you can use the body weight to pull against that and tighten it and then tie it at the front. And the reason that that was interesting to me, other than the fact that it's an interesting piece, was that in our story, Dr. Severs has the now we know and have known for quite a long

time, this guided notion that tightening the corset can calm the uterus. And so in the film, when we see this in Ellen, she's convulsing, she's commuting with Orlock, she is not in the room, you know, with the men that are there. She is away in her mind. So her body is convulsing. And so the notion is that Dr. Severs will tighten the corset and Harding, Frederick Harding, who is her guardian, so speak, friend of her husband, is holding her down. And so if we had used a typical corset that laces and ties in the back,

she would have been flipped down, you know, face into the mattress, then we would not have seen any of Lily Rose's extraordinary portraying of this state. And so the fact that the corset had ties in the front meant that they could start, flip her over and continue tightening with her face to the camera, which was, you know, a real boon, obviously, because we want to see that. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Wodom. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on, on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet.

Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be.

Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot in luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Wodam. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. My dad gave me the best advice ever.

I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place they come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.

If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar. of, you know, the cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And now to talk about the man of the hour, the extraordinary costume of Count Orlock,

who obviously this story takes place in the 1800s, but this is a man from 300 years earlier. His costume is just striking. I particularly love the coat he's wearing. Can you walk us through the process of creating his costume? Robert has had this in his head for a very long time. He initially saw the images of Max Schreck in Mirnau's Nosferatu when he was a boy, nine years old, 10 years old, and went to great lengths with his mom to obtain a VHS copy of it. So, you know, he's had this playing in his head for a very long time.

And we also, as his collaborators, had many false starts. We were initially going to do it, you know, very briefly right after the witch and then the lighthouse. And then we had a false start the year before we actually, I went to prop for a week with my assistant. And I had done a number of the sketches already in Toronto. But then, you know, we had a cash change. So it was another year before we actually started and then continued through. So the point of me telling all of this is that we have all had this in our heads for quite a while. Robert has certainly had it in his head for quite a while. And for him, his version of this story

is really rooted in as much as possible with these characters rooted in in real time. And so he wanted to know, okay, so Count Orlock, you know, what would a Hungarian count of roughly, you know, 300 years prior to our storyline? You know, what would he look like? And the first thing I think that Robert really cottoned onto was the notion that he had to have a moustache, you know, just, well, there's no way around this, you know, he has to have a moustache. And what a moustache he has. And what a moustache he has. And so when I received the images, it was sort of like, this is interesting, you know. And so there were a number of different portraits and, like, a pastiche of images of this. And so again, I start to, because we have to make these pieces and we have to, and I have to

know what they look like and I have to get a sense of what fabrics I'm trying to find and what buttons and what, you know, embellishments. And that's always a challenge now and it's becoming more of a challenge because mills are closing and luxurious fabrics if they're even available cost the world. You know, I have to find textiles that will evoke these things. So I started research, research, and I started looking, I would love to be able to go to museum. all around the world and look at these things. Unfortunately, that's not quite where we're at. And so I try to go online and find museum online collections.

That is obviously easier if it's something that is at the DNA or something that's at the Met. These were not necessarily. So, you know, I'm looking at museums again where I can't necessarily speak the language of the museum it is operating in. So I'll find images and then I'll have to have the text. translated. And that also applied to, you know, the folk costuming in both the inn and the Roma and the monastery. For listeners who haven't seen the film yet, one of the characters, Thomas, travels to visit Count Oralock and interacts with a large group of peasants sort of outside of his castle.

Figuring out the garments that would make up an outfit for a Hungarian count of great wealth, entitlement and personality from around 15, 60, 1580 to roughly 16, 20-inch. And that consisted of the very large overcoat, which has the incredibly long sleeves, which actually I realized through researching the peasant costuming, that that is a feature that kind of seems to have come from shepherds wearing the sheepskins as cloaks, but without arms. and that slowly starts to develop into these sheepskin coats with arms, but the arms are always really, really long, and they don't seem to be always, especially for the nobility,

intended to be worn with arms through the sleeves. It's more of a show of, I have all of this money, I can have luxurious fabrics that make up the body of the overcoat. It's all fur-lined to keep me warm in my stone castle with no central heating. and I've got, you know, gold, gold galoons and incredible buttons, and the buttons were often painted glass buttons painted with gold images, you know, I mean, not possible to find these days. So we ended up actually crocheting gold buttons and then weighing them with fish weights

to give them, you know, a bit of heft. And so the Mente, M-E-N-T-E, actually has these slices that are like, kind of here in the fabric, and their fur trimmed as well. And the arms can go through that. So you can actually keep this big overcoat on by putting your arms through those slits, but you can't put your arms through the sleeves and keep it on, which I found really interesting. It gives it a sense of menace, too. It does make it look like sort of a cape. And for our purposes, because Bill, he's gliding effortlessly, you know, through this castle. But because of the weight of the overcoat every time in fittings, it would just slide off his shoulders. And so for practicality and for the image of it,

we in a costume department devised a harness that he wore underneath the dolman, which is the tunic that he wears under the overcoat. And there were slices hidden in the shoulders and they had quick release mechanisms that we could snap and then a, you know, a companion piece on the inside of the Mente so that it would just stay on his shoulders and float around with him. And he could really recede into the bulk of it when he wanted to not be visible. He could, you know, expand his chest and have not just the galoons that are visible on the overcoat, but also all of the incredible gold lace overlay that is present in the dolman as well. and all that could be visible.

So it gave Bill confidence that he could act with the costume and not have it be cumbersome. So then he had silk trousers, a tight fit, and they went into one of my favorite pieces, which were the boots. And in reality, they would have been leather mules with about a four-inch steel heel that is kind of horseshoe shaped, really freaky, and a leather sock that slid into the mule for safety and for convenience purposes, you know, I designed it so that it was all one. And Bill Scarsgar is a very tall actor man anyway. And Lily Rose is quite petite. And so, you know, there was a real overpowering presence.

And then he had the Kolpock hat, K-O-L-P-A-K. And that is a crazy weird design. It sort of is like a large tube that's like a large tube that folds back, you know, and so you've got this potentially quite overwhelming hat, right? And then it had the embellishment of hawk feathers and be jeweled at the front with the pearls and jewels. So all of that was intended to allow Robert, our director-writer, to obscure, when Thomas Hutter first comes to the castle, it's such a weird world. He's, As soon as he comes into the Carpathian Mountains, he encounters, you know, our villagers, he encounters the Roma, he encounters another very disturbing event in the woods at night, that he's not quite sure.

Did he see that or did he not see that? You know, by the time he gets to the castle, his horse is gone and is met by this unbelievable carriage, you know, every event leading up to the castle is flummoxed to more and more and more. And so he comes in and the count has this luxurious. voice, you know, deep, deep, deep, deep. He's certainly unique, certainly not in the same era that almost empty castle. And he's terrified. And because Orlock is 300 years old, and Robert has chosen to really go with the embodiment of a folk vampire, which is undead. He's reanimated. So he is a corpse that is reanimated, come back to life. And so he's rotting. It's such an interesting interpretation. I feel like we're used to seeing very sexy vampires who are

sort of dashing gentlemen. You know, Orlock is very sexy in his way, but not maybe in his physical body. It was always amazing to me to watch Bill in full makeup and costume. And still, I could feel the power of the man from 300 years, what he would have been like as a living person. And that, I think, is an extraordinary accomplishment for him to have made in portraying this character. And so the idea of the huge hat, for a caller that comes up quite a bit,

it has a sort of dual purpose. It's obscuring, Borlauch, obscuring all of that rot until he gets that signature. And also, it's kind of an ode or an homage, a nod, whatever. to the previous iterations of vampires, whether they be a black satin cape, you know, whether they be incredible costuming of Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula. The notion without Dracula was that he was a shapeshifter. He could force people to imagine or see any number of different versions of himself, you know, the Dracula that Gary Oldman played in so many

different extraordinary time periods and costumes, this Nosferatu has its feet in reality so that, you know, the notion is that, and I certainly, you know, stand by this notion for myself, that, you know, it could be more terrifying if what you're looking at is potentially real, you know, then it really does close that gap between the fantastical and real. We don't have a ton of time left. So before I let you go, can I ask, did you have a favorite costume in the entire film? I'm asked this and I realize over and over again, it's like choosing a favorite child.

You know, I love them all and for different reasons, but, you know, Orlock is because it could have been an incredibly terrifying notion to design such an iconic character. And, you know, due to the fact that Robert had such very clear ideas about what he wanted, you know, that fear was, didn't actually really even come up. I think designing the menswear, that is at that period, so romantic and so lush, that was a real treat.

Willem Defoe, were such an extraordinary, if I remember correctly, sort of floral coat in one scene. Yes, you don't see it a lot in his attic room because it's lit, you know, very sparsely with candles and oil lamps and things like that, but he had beautiful little curled clothes slippers and, you know, very oriental gentleman's kind of evening wear. But you know, the other thing you asked about the folk costuming, and yes, it is incredibly authentic. In fact, I am moved beyond belief in my Instagram account.

There's a gentleman, his page is called Transylvania. I believe. And he's messaged me just to say, finally, finally respect given to the folk costuming of Romania. And I can't tell my, I'm going to start crying. Because it was really difficult, really difficult to find the information because neither Robert nor I speak Romanian. And, you know, you're looking at a lot of modern photographs of people who still create this costuming. But what we were looking for was pre-photography. So we were relying on illustrations and written accounts and then having that translated.

And then also in the monastery, the Great Schema Abbas, Robert's writing is often, quite feminist, and he was quite determined that the exorcism would happen with a mature nun. And as it turned out, we needed a priest, because we couldn't quite escape the religious reality. But, you know, the great schema Abbas, her Analev was so researched. So we had to give her a name, embroider that across the bottom, in a Cyrillic alphabet, along with the psalm that she would have chosen from her Bible that would have been indicative of her religious journey to get her to the place of great learningness. And so the icons, there's the ladder, there are the angels, there is pillar, all of these different icons are things that were

thoroughly researched and the colors that would have been used in the embroidery and the applica work was all researched as well. So that is really really. dear to my heart, you know, because it was such a journey to get there. And, you know, the hand embroidery took a good deal of time to do. I can only imagine. Well, thank you so much for joining me. The movie Nosferatu. The costumes are absolutely extraordinary to any listeners who haven't seen it yet. Watch it and then watch it again just with an eye to the costumes, especially that coat, those sleeves that go to the knee for Orlock. They're incredible. Thank you so much. at the Oscars. These costumes are

Oscar nominated. So we'll all be keeping our fingers crossed for you. Thank you very much. Have a wonderful day. Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz, with additional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Amy Height, and Julia Milani. The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk.

with supervising producer Rima Il Kali and executive producers Aaron Manky, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodom. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. My dad gave me the best advice ever.

He goes, just give it a shot. But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know,

the cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to thanks dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.