Christoph Waltz on What Makes Luc Besson’s Dracula Different than Other Versions | Interview
ComingSoon Senior Editor Brandon Schreur spoke to Dracula star Christoph Waltz about the new Gothic romance fantasy movie. Waltz discussed what excited him about exploring his Priest character, collaborating with director Luc Besson, and more.
“When a 15th-century prince (Caleb Landry Jones) witnesses the brutal murder of his wife (Zoe Bleu), he renounces God and damns heaven itself,” the official synopsis reads. “Cursed with eternal life, he is reborn as Dracula, an immortal warlord who defies fate in a blood-soaked crusade to wrench his lost love back from death, no matter the cost. On the verge of reuniting, Dracula is hunted by a relentless priest (Christoph Waltz), sworn to end his immortal reign.”
Dracula will be released in United States theaters on February 6, 2026, by Vertical.
Brandon Schreur: Dracula is such an iconic character. Not just in cinema, but obviously in literature and pop culture. What was it that drew you to this project and your role in it? What made you most excited to work with Luc Besson on Dracula?
Christoph Waltz: That it is not the usual iteration of — or, yet, another addition of what we’ve seen so many times before. It’s Luc’s story. It’s Luc’s Dracula, by usage of elements from Bram Stoker. That helps the story, of course, because that’s what the story is. But it’s more than a version. It’s really his story. The conversation about that is what sort of facilitated my involvement in the — yeah, in the way, discussion about what this story is and what it could be. My participation, as an actor, kind of emerged. I love that fluid transition from conversation into action.
Sure, totally. There’s so much fun stuff he adds to this movie, too. I loved the stone gargoyle guys, and I loved the love potion. Like you said, it’s stuff that I haven’t seen in a Dracula movie before.
I’ll tell you, these gargoyles. You think, ‘Ah, well, it’s all digital.’ No no no. These were small acrobats.
Oh, no way.
Yes! It’s unbelievable. Everything you see on a screen, I saw while watching the shoot of this scene. It’s absolutely incredible. They did it! All of a sudden, people came from the ceiling, and then jumped back up onto it, and flipped each other over. It happened there. It was even more spectacular because this contortion that our fantasy was exposed to by presumably understanding the digital process of movie-making. It’s really such a pity that they push that half-expert insider, presumably insider knowledge, onto the audience. Now, we’re jaded and say, ‘Yeah, yeah, well.’ No! You should have been there. It really happened as you see it. They just changed the appearance of the individual characters, but the action happened live.
Wow. I didn’t realize that, that’s amazing.
Oh, of course not. Why would you? That’s why I say it’s a pity to give away the secrets that make a story happen. You completely devalue the experience. All of a sudden, you’re all invited, or we’re all invited when watching a movie, to understand how they arrived at what we should ideally perceive as magic.
Yeah. That’s awesome; that’s so cool to hear. I’d love to ask about your character in here, too, because the Priest is so cool. I love your performance as him, but I also just love the way he was written. You’ve seen this character in other Dracula movies, but what you brought to it just felt so special and unique. When you were reading through the script for the first time, what was it about the Priest that jumped out to you most? What aspect of him were you most excited to explore and portray on the big screen?
Thank you for saying the word “explore,” because that’s really what I’m looking for when I read a script. I’m not really, especially if it’s an early draft, I’m not really looking for a product that can then just be flipped over into a performance. We’re always talking in terms of results. It’s not the right approach. We should be talking about progress. About the process. About what we will do. About the options and possibilities. About what there is on the offer and about where we can engage in active participation.
The result will be at the end. After the result, there is nothing anymore, right? I cannot deliver a result. I can participate in the process. That’s what I’m looking for.
Luc understands that very, very well. That’s why he engages actors early on — not in letting them write his script. Not at all. But into finding, exploring, discarding, picking up again, and putting in a different context. It’s a real deliberation, a real evaluation of moments. You transfer that certain moment onto a stage in a film studio with cameras inevitably present. But the process remains the same. That is absolutely beautiful.
Totally. That jumps right into what I want to ask you next, too. In talking about exploration and finding these characters, I bet a lot of that has to do with collaborating with your director. I mean, you’ve worked with some great people before, like Quentin Tarantino and Guillermo del Toro. I know you can’t compare those experiences because everyone brings their own thing to the table, but what did you feel that Luc Besson brought to the table when allowing you to explore the character?
Luc does not approach making movies from a dominating ego. He’s very open to collaboration. And he doesn’t need to impose one specific point of view, because he has it. He knows how to cinematically direct the rest around himself into that flow. I keep saying, when you shoot, you’re not really — as I’ve mentioned before — producing a result. You’re kind of assisting in the collection of material that the director needs to make his movie. The movie is not made in front of the camera. The movie is made on the editing table with what has been supplied from what happened in front of the camera. That can only happen if it was present as words on a page in a script. This is how all they all do it, but Luc is a lot less of an ego-driven person than anyone that I’ve worked with.
Thanks to Christoph Waltz for taking the time to discuss Dracula.
Source: Comingsoon.net