Emma Corrin and Aaron Taylor-Johnson Make Horror Magic in Nosferatu

“My toxic trait is that I have to collect all the world’s [Wales] Bonner,” Emma Corrin offers as they flop into an ornate mahogany chair with a family crest on the back. The Nosferatu star is, of course, talking about Grace Wales Bonner—the It-girl designer from London best known for her inspired athleisure collections with Adidas, including those leopard-print Sambas last spotted on comedy queen Ayo Edebiri.

Corrin is no stranger to fashion. As we speak, they’ve just helped Miu Miu usher in the festive season by fronting its Christmas campaign. Today, they have just wrapped up their Who What Wear shoot and have changed into their own Wales Bonner sweatshirt and blue R13 jeans. Their chestnut hair is cut in a pixie cut—though, they also look badly in need of a woolly hat given how they’re shivering. After all, we’re in the beautiful, if freezing, anteroom of a former Tudor monastery nestled in a quiet courtyard just a few minutes away from the bustling streets of central London. Fourteenth-century English monks, it seems, were not fans of central heating.

Emma Corrin and Aaron Taylor-Johnson pose against a black backdrop with floral set design.

(Image credit: Elliot James Kennedy; Styling: On Corrin: Hodakova dress; Cartier earrings; On Taylor-Johnson: Aaron Esh top and jacket; Zegna trousers; Cartier bracelet)

As Corrin politely requests a hot water bottle from someone on production, their Nosferatu co-star Aaron Taylor-Johnson sweeps in, looking significantly warmer than both of us in a black Our Legacy coat and a gray hoodie. “I’ve gone for the coziest pair of 501s,” he says, pointing to his Levi’s as he settles into the chair next to Corrin. Did I mention that this former monastery now functions as a banquet hall for fancy dinners? There’s a thunderous metallic screech as someone wheels in a giant industrial fridge and dramatically leaves it in the middle of the room. “That’s Aaron’s fridge,” Corrin dryly remarks. “Very Nosferatu,” Taylor-Johnson says. “They’re going to bring a body out.”

The glacial temperature, the human-sized fridge, the fact that the building we’re in sits on a black death burial ground (seriously, I looked it up)—you couldn’t ask for a better location to talk to the stars of horror auteur Robert Eggers’s reimagining of the 1922 classic. The black-and-white original swaps the Dracula of Bram Stoker’s novel with the terrifying Count Orlok, who is brought to life in Eggers’s take by an unrecognizable, prosthetics-laden Bill Skarsgård. The Swedish actor didn’t look half as scary in real life, according to his co-stars. “Sometimes, he just had the head and hands on with gray sweats,” Corrin laughs.

Emma Corrin wearing a black dress covered in prize ribbons.

(Image credit: Elliot James Kennedy; Styling: Hodakova dress; Cartier earrings; Swedish Stockings socks; Manolo Blahnik shoes)

The two actors play Anna and Friedrich Harding, a deeply sensible and madly-in-love couple who are dragged into a living nightmare when Anna’s best friend Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) begins to have ominous visions of a sharp-toothed suitor knocking on her door. The result is a dread-soaked, psychosexual phantasm of a film, the kind that will terrify and thrill in equal measure. One film critic noted that it has “more writhing sweatily in bed than any other movie ever made.”

Both stars confess that they aren’t actual horror fans, but they certainly looked the part on the set of today’s spookily gothic Who What Wear shoot. Earlier, I caught a glimpse of the two in all black looking like impossibly chic extras from an Addams Family reboot just before they were ushered through an ornate doorway that wouldn’t look out of place in Count Orlok’s castle. Even though it’s only 4 in the afternoon, it’s already pitch-black outside, and even the upbeat William DeVaughn soul track on the speakers can’t take away from the chill indoors.

Emma Corrin lays in the grass holding a bouquet of red roses wearing an oversize Renaissance Renaissance blazer and skirt.

(Image credit: Elliot James Kennedy; Styling: Renaissance Renaissance blazer and skirt; Talia Byre shirt; Cartier ring; Miista shoes)

“Are you good with horror?” Corrin inquires. I’m partial to a fright fest, I admit. “We’re both not,” they reply. Taylor-Johnson nods in affirmation: “I am not a horror-genre moviegoer.” Okay, but what about vampire films? He’s got two daughters and two stepdaughters. Surely, he’s seen Twilight.