Veteran actor Nicolas Cage found inspiration from many places for his take on Count Dracula in Renfield, and among them is his late father, August Coppola. The brother of The Godfather helmer Francis Ford Coppola, Cage’s father was an author and art advocate, though he also spent time working as a film executive with the August Coppola Theater on San Francisco State University campus named after him. Coppola died in 2009 at the age of 75.

In a new interview with Post Cred Pod, Cage dished out some details on his incarnation of pop culture’s most well-known vampire. Cage admits that it was a scary role to take on as it’s been done so many times before by different actors, some doing very well and others not so much. For his part, Cage knew he had to somehow deliver a unique version, but he still felt that it was important to take bits and pieces from some of the other notable Dracula actors to come up with his take.

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While he drew some inspiration from other famous Dracula actors from years past, the Renfield star also says it was his father in particular that especially inspired this performance, in particular with the way he spoke. There was a certain inflection with Coppola’s voice that Cage says his father did intentionally, and because Coppola also happened to remind Cage of Christopher Lee, it was the perfect source of inspiration. As Cage says:

“I thought that I could do something with my own enthusiasm about Bram Stoker’s book, as well as Christopher Lee’s performance in the Hammer films, as well as Langella’s performance, as well as Oldman’s performance, as well as Lugosi’s performance. I wanted to embrace elements of each of them, but also Orlok and Max Schreck; I wanted to get some of the German expressionism and body language in it.”

“By and large, I am channeling my father, August Coppola who had a MidAtlantic accent, and he always spoke, ‘You know, Nicolas, let me explain something to you, Nicolas.’ And I never understood his accent. I was like, ‘Dad, what is this? Why are you talking like that?’ He goes, ‘You want to know why I talk like this, Nicolas? Because I made a decision to speak with distinction, okay? I’m a literature professor, okay? That’s how I talk!’ It’s kind of amazing to me, how much he resembles Christopher Lee is remarkable. So I thought, okay, Dad looks like Christopher Lee. Dad kind of sounds like he’s in a Hammer horror film. And I did Dad in Vampire’s Kiss, so I’m going to bring him back from the afterlife as Dracula, combined with all the other elements I mentioned earlier.”

Renfield Will Introduce a New Take on Dracula

     RLJE Films

Renfield is directed by Adam McKay (The Tomorrow War) and written by Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead) and Ryan Ridley (Rick & Morty). The film stars Nicholas Hoult as the titular Renfield, Dracula’s right-hand man, as well as Ben Schwartz (Sonic the Hedgehog) and Awkwafina (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings), Shohreh Aghdashloo, and Bess Rous.

Renfield doesn’t yet have an official release date and the film is currently in production.