Nicholas Hoult ate tasty ‘bugs’, reunites with onscreen dad Nicolas Cage in Dracula comedy Renfield

LOS ANGELES – As nightmare bosses go, Dracula is hard to beat.

And the

horror comedy Renfield

- which opens in Singapore cinemas on Thursday – finds the infamous vampire’s long-suffering servant, R.M. Renfield (Nicholas Hoult), in the midst of a full-blown career crisis.

In exchange for his loyalty, Dracula (Nicolas Cage) has made Renfield immortal, and given him superhuman strength and fighting skills, which the henchman can activate by eating insects and other creepy crawlies.

Chatting to The Straits Times and other media over Zoom, English actor Hoult, 33, says: “The interesting thing about the relationship is they did have good times and they do care for each other.”

But after more than a century on the job, which means procuring victims for his egomaniacal lord and tending to his other dark needs, Renfield’s heart is no longer in it.

And he begins to realise his relationship with Dracula is rather dysfunctional, especially when he meets Rebecca (Awkwafina), a brave police officer in New Orleans, where Renfield is cruising for victims as he nurses an ailing Dracula back to health.

To prepare for the role, Hoult read the 1897 novel on which the film is based: Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which introduces Renfield as a character.

He also watched the 1931 classic film Dracula, and “stole what I could” from the late American character actor Dwight Frye’s performance as Renfield.

In addition to doing extensive fight training for the movie’s blood-soaked action scenes, Hoult decided to fully commit to one of the most memorable details from the book.

“In the classic novel, Renfield gets some of his life force from eating flies. In our story, he gains momentary power whenever he eats bugs,” he says.

“I was lucky. The props department was brilliant and they created some caramel cockroaches that were delicious and the worms were just (the candy) Gummi Worms. But I did eat real crickets,” adds the former child star. Hould had his breakthrough in the 2002 Hugh Grant comedy-drama About A Boy and later picked up an Emmy nomination playing Russian emperor Peter III in the historical comedy The Great (2020 to present).

“They were dried out, though – and with salt-and-vinegar and barbecue flavours – so they were pretty tasty. The only bug I ate that I didn’t like was a potato bug. That one tasted kind of dirty,” he says with a laugh.

More fun than the bug-eating was reuniting with Cage, who played Hoult’s father in the comedy drama The Weather Man (2005) almost two decades ago.

And Hoult says he now has even more appreciation for the 59-year-old American star, who won a Best Actor Oscar for the drama Leaving Las Vegas (1995) and has a cult following for his eccentric performances in films such as action hit Face/Off (1997) and comedy Wild At Heart (1990).

When they first worked together, Hoult was a teenager and he “picked up on how professional and dedicated (Cage) was”.

But what the younger actor focused on this time was where Cage “roots characters and where he gets inspiration from”.

“I really loved watching the details that he throws in, in terms of his preparation and then dissecting these scenes. So there was a lot to appreciate as an adult that I probably didn’t pick up on when I was younger,” says Hoult, who played the mutant Hank McCoy, also known as Beast, in the 2011 superhero film X-Men: First Class (2011) and later instalments of the series.

And just as Renfield gets special powers from Dracula, Hoult – who has a four-year-old son with American model Bryana Holly – says Cage has a few talents he would love to have as well.

“I would steal his encyclopaedic knowledge of cinema. He really does have so much passion and love for film. And I wouldn’t like to admit it, but at times, I wouldn’t see the references (he was making) in this film. But I think this is part of the reason he’s such a great actor,” he says.