Nicolas Cage is playing Dracula in the upcoming movie, Renfield, but his character doesn’t have a lot of screentime, the actor has confirmed. Speaking to Collider, Cage discussed the role and why the movie is, of course, more about Nicholas Hoult’s character, Dracula’s servant Renfield.
Cage pointed out how the Dracula character has appeared in media many, many times over the years–sometimes well and sometimes… not. Cage said he wants to be “on the side of doing something fresh and something that pops.”
Cage, naturally, believes he has achieved that with his portrayal of Dracula in Renfield. But the movie is not about him, so Dracula doesn’t appear all that much.
“I don’t have a lot of screentime. It’s really Nick Hoult’s movie, and it’s about Renfield. I didn’t have the time, like the two-hour narrative to really dig deep into Dracula’s pathos per se. It’s not that. But I did have enough screen time to be able to try to develop a pop-art style to the character that hopefully will be a nice contribution to the other performers that have done it, that have had their take on this legendary character in both literature and cinema,” he said.
Also in the interview, Cage said he was inspired by the late actor Christopher Lee’s portrayal of Dracula. “We wanted it to be more homage, more Christopher Lee. I favored Christopher Lee as Dracula and I liked his kind of sixties hairdo…”
In Renfield, Hoult’s character is trying to effectively break up with Dracula, but saying goodbye isn’t so easy. The film is directed by Chris McKay, whose previous credits include The Lego Batman Movie and The Tomorrow War. The movie was written by Ryan Ridley (Rick and Morty) and the story was developed by Robert Kirkman, the creator of The Walking Dead.
In other Nicolas Cage news, the actor has said he is a big Star Trek fan and isn’t interested in appearing in a Star Wars project.
For more, check out GameSpot’s rundown of everything we know about Renfield, which releases in April.
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