Renfield's Nicolas Cage Says Recreating Dracula Was 'A Bit Like Ping-Pong'
Nicolas Cage inhabits the role of one of his most anticipated characters to date playing the legendary Count Dracula in Universal Pictures' well-reviewed horror-comedy "Renfield." Coming from Universal, the movie owes a debt to the studios' original 1931 classic "Dracula," which stars the incomparable Bela Lugosi in his most iconic role. The opening scene of "Renfield" even recreates some of the more memorable snippets of that film in a send-up that will fill monster kids around the world with glee.
Nicolas Cage described the process of recreating scenes from the black and white film to Collider as being "a bit like ping-pong." Cage said, "So what would happen was, Nick [Hoult] and I would be on set and then they would play, on video playback and sound playback, Dwight Frye. Then we would hear it and then he would ping-pong and recreate it." Frye played Renfield in the Universal classic with manic glee, which Hoult emulates for the comedic sequel.
Cage said then it was his turn, saying, "Then they would do Bela Lugosi and I would hear and ping-pong, and recreate. So it was like 'action,' playback, 'action,' playback, 'action' until we got into this groove." Cage utters unforgettable lines, such as "I never drink ... wine," from the original Universal classic monster movie, stepping into Lugosi's shoes. Beyond just repeating famous lines from the old film, the filmmakers try to line up the shots perfectly to harken back to the Lugosi film.
The black-and-white sequence is magical for fans of the original Universal Dracula film
"Renfield" stars Nicolas Cage and Nicholas Hoult painstakingly recreated the blocking and line reads of their respective Dracula and Renfield characters to match up with scenes from the 1931 classic Universal monster movie "Dracula." Cage said in a Collider interview featuring himself and Hoult, "Every move had to match," from where they stepped even to their vocal performance. Hoult chimed in as well, saying, "It was very specific in terms of recreating, but also just magical as fans of the original film to then kind of get implemented into it in that fashion was, yeah, it was very exciting." Cage wholeheartedly agreed and said of the entire experience of making that nostalgic "Renfield" opening scene, "It was a lot of fun, a dream come true."
The opening scene, which serves as Renfield's (Nicholas Hoult) origin story, recaptures the spirit of the original Universal classic in which Renfield is sent over to Transylvania to secure a pricey land deal with the crazed count. Once caught in his grasp, Renfield is unable to escape Dracula's lair and becomes his slave for as long as the monster walks the Earth. He is turned into an immortal being by the vampire but does not become a vampire himself. Renfield has to eat bugs to access any of his supernatural powers and must drink Dracula's blood to heal himself. He is going mad, having one foot in the world of the living and another in the world of the supernatural.
"Renfield" is in theaters everywhere now.