
Nicolas Cage has revealed that he was inspired by Sir Christopher Lee for his upcoming Dracula film.
The 59-year-old actor dons the legendary vampire cloak in Universal’s upcoming film Renfield, which stars Nicholas Hoult as Dracula’s dedicated servant.
The first clip, which was recently released, highlighted the pair’s toxic connection as Renfield seeks to seek help in breaking free from his frightening and wicked master.
Cage has now revealed that he drew inspiration for his depiction of Bram Stoker’s character from late icon Sir Christopher Lee’s two decades of Hammer Horror films.
When set images initially leaked last year, people were ecstatic about his striking appearance in the role.
‘Well, I had a lot of help,’ he replied, explaining his Dracula vision. There were a lot of super-talented people on that film who contributed to the appearance.

‘We wanted it to be more homage, more Christopher Lee. I favoured Christopher Lee as Dracula and I liked his kind of sixties hairdo, but the wardrobe, the costume – and no, I didn’t come up with the idea for the rings – that all came out of wardrobe. They came in with all that.’
However, he noted that the costume team may have’sensed something in me that I would like that,’ as he gave full credit to them.
Bela Lugosi was the first official Dracula in cinema in 1930, but Sir Christopher played the character ten times between 1958 and 1976.
Cage reflected on getting the offer to play the vampire, telling Collider: ‘Well, first of all, I don’t know how you say no to Dracula, but two things come to mind. One, he’s a character that’s been done well many times and then been done poorly many times. So you want to be on the side of doing something well.’
He also revealed that he doesn’t have that much screen time as ‘the movie’s not really about Dracula’, meaning that he ‘didn’t have the time’ to take too deep a dive into ‘Dracula’s pathos’. he still had the chance to put his own stamp on the character.
The Gone in 60 Seconds star is delighted though that he had enough of a chance ‘to try to establish a pop-art style to the character that hopefully will be a great contribution to the other performers that have done it’.
Gary Oldman, Luke Evans, Richard Roxburgh, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers have all played Dracula.
Renfield is set to release in cinemas on April 14, 2023.