When American filmmaker Robert Eggers prepares to bring his next film — in this case, a remake of the 1922 German silent vampire film Nosferatu — to the big screen, he calls on his frequent collaborator, Canadian costume designer Linda Muir, 69, to ensure the characters are outfitted just right. And while others would have packed up for Hollywood long ago, the 35-year costume design veteran remains based in Toronto, with no plans for moving south.
Muir’s first costume credit on IMDB is Sharon, Lois and Bram’s Elephant Show from 1987. How Canadian is that?! She’s gone from styling a legendary skinnamarink-singing Canuck trio to a 300-year-old Transylvanian Count in Nosferatu largely through her unlikely partnership with Eggers. Though from different countries and generations, the pair worked so well together on 2015’s The Witch that they collaborated three more times (so far): The Lighthouse (2019), The Northman (2022) and their newest terrifying historical horror dropping to theatres on Christmas Day, Nosferatu.
Even if you’ve never heard the word “Nosferatu”– which translates to “the offensive one” or “the insufferable one” in archaic Romanian – you inevitably know the iconic image of the shadow of moving hands with terrifyingly-long fingers and pointed nails that lives forever in our collective psyche. “Wasn’t that Dracula?” you ask. Good question with a fascinating answer: the obscure expressionist 1922 vampire film was so obviously based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula that his heirs sued and won. All prints were supposed to be destroyed, but not unlike a vampire, some prints managed to defy mortality and, as such, Nosferatu lives on.
Now, more than a century later, Nosferatu is back from the dead and, thanks to Muir, everyone’s dressed impeccably for the occasion. Set in 1930s Germany, Nicholas Hoult plays Thomas Hutter, a real estate agent sent by his boss to visit would-be client Count Orlok in his decaying castle in Transylvania. At home, though, Thomas’ angelic bride Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) is increasingly haunted and then possessed by a demon power unleashed by Orlok, whom Hutter discovers is a vampire. To save his young wife, Hutter seeks the help of an unorthodox retired professor specializing in the occult, played by Willem Dafoe, who comes dangerously close to stealing the show from the titular villain: handsome Swedish actor Bill Skarsgård, who’s completely unrecognizable as the 300-year-old Count.
It’s the latter character that Canadian costume designer Linda Muir is particularly proud of dressing, though she’s rightly pleased with them all. After more than three decades in the costume business and a resume that includes everything from Atom Egoyan’s erotic Exotica to Mordecai Richler’s fantasy Jacob Two Two Meets the Hooded Fang, Muir’s found her forte – and a muse – in Eggers. She tells Zoomer via video call about why she and Eggers work so well together, and how to dress a 300-year-old Count.
ROSEMARY COUNTER: How did you and Robert Eggers become collaborators?
LINDA MUIR: Robert was working on getting The Witch made for years and, in the end, he moved the production to Canada to film in old-growth-looking forests. He needed somewhere remote and landed in Northern Ontario, five hours north of Toronto. He was looking for a production designer and I interviewed with him in Toronto. In retrospect, I think the reason we really hit it off was because we both have theatre backgrounds. He’s an incredible conduit between people. That collaboration was so joyful that we decided to do it again. This is the fourth film we’ve done together, but the first film we’ve worked all on the same location. I arrived [to Nosferatu’s filming location in Prague] with a ton of sketches and materials.
RC: I want to learn all about the costume design.
LM: Robert begins all his projects with a look book, so I get this package with not just costumes and characters, but locations, props, adjectives. All things he’s seen and saved to help me see what he sees. I study the script, ask a lot of questions, and the more I get into it the more questions I’ll inevitably have. So it starts with Robert’s vision and passion. He’d been forever wanting to make Nosferatu, which is set in 1830s Germany, so that becomes my passion. I read everything I can get my hands on, I dive deeper and deeper and deeper. It’s an absolutely massive amount of research.
RC: Did you know much about fashion in 1838 Germany?
LM: I wish it were that specific, but there’s so much more than that. The Hutter’s are rich and well-dressed in the city in the Biedermeier period. But Transylvania is very different, and the Roma on the way are travellers, so they’ve picked up styles from all over the place. The nuns in the convent, in yet another Romanian county, certainly aren’t wearing current fashions. The Count is 300-odd-years-old, so he’s dressed from another century and has all that costume information in his clothing – plus all the decay.
RC: How many of your costumes are sourced and how many do you make?
LM: In Robert’s films, just because he’s so specific about where and when things are set, there ends up being often – always, actually – very little we can rent. We’re not doing Roma-ish; we’re doing Roma as faithfully as we possibly can. We’re working in an era that pre-dates photographs, so that makes things tricky, so we’re looking at portraits and written records, which are all in Romanian, which neither Robert nor I speak. In fact, because we were working in Prague, only a portion of our workroom spoke English. The workroom of some 85 people turned 80-odd individual sketches, which were posted on boards on the studio walls so everyone can see everything, into garments the cast can actually wear.
RC: Can you walk me through one of them? Maybe Ellen’s wedding dress?
LM: In those days, a woman would be married in her best dress. This dress could have been lavender, yellow, pale blue. I see the Hutters were married in the spring, so I consider the weather. She’d likely wear something lightweight, cotton, heavily-embroidered. I’m considering lighting as I go, which will be diaphanous and backlit. I found a vintage veil, took it all apart treating it as gently as a newborn. The lilacs in her headdress were all handmade individually. I’m trying to find these details that give the period that certain twinkle. Someone watching it should know automatically that they don’t dress like that, in those colours or fabrics, that this is a different world. All of it is information for the audience and, especially for horror, the more authentic it is and the realer if feels, the more horrific the story feels.
RC: Could you possibly choose a favourite look from the film?
LM: That’s like choosing your favourite child, so let’s just say Count Orlok is very, very special to me. It was a very difficult costume to design for a lot of reasons: it’s the one costume he wears throughout the whole film, first of all, so that one costume has to have so much, everything really, embedded into it – information, character, atmosphere. Then there are practical considerations; the costume had to conceal him, until the end when he’s totally revealed. For an old story like Nosferatu, the expectations are so high. Seeing him on screen, finally, is very rewarding.
Nosferatu opens in theatres on Christmas Day.
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