“For me, as a woman of colour from a working class background, all of these ideas resonate with me,” she tells ELLE Australia.
The story of Dracula is already well known to the masses—but you haven’t known it like this. New vampire horror film, The Invitation has taken Dracula’s narrative and transformed it into a masterclass of drama, jump-scares and a confronting reflection of society itself.
Leading the film is Game Of Thrones star, Nathalie Emmanuel, who plays Evie, an American woman who is introduced to her long lost relatives in the UK at a family wedding, only to find that their host, Walter (Thomas Doherty), is not everything he seems—he’s a vampire.
“I got shut in a coffin,” Emmanuel tells ELLE over a Zoom interview ahead of the films release. There’s a sense of revulsion in the way she says it as she recalls the moment her character was shut into the wooden box after realising what her relatives are.
“Whether you think that is real or not, getting shut in a box is horrible. Don’t do it! Don’t do it when you’re alive!” She pleads with a laugh.
Emmanuel’s character and her background is central to one of the key themes from the film. After losing her mother, Evie is excited to connect with previously unknown relatives—a rich British family of great privilege who invite her to the estate for a wedding.
When she gets there, it becomes clear how unfairly separated she is from this world of privileged, white upper-class aristocracy.
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