In Dracula, Jonathan Bailey Consumes You

Jonathan Bailey’s most beloved characters may be wholehearted romantic heroes, but with the October chill in the air, he’s taking on something downright fiendish. He plays the titular vampire in Audible’s production of Dracula, where he walks a bite-sized line between terror and titillation.

While largely faithful to Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, Audible’s new adaptation (streaming now) pays particular attention to the women fighting Dracula’s all-consuming grasp. The story spans about six hours, half the length of a typical audiobook, and the pacing highlights what an immediate threat he really is.

Bailey brings out all the villain’s extremes: both his charm as a host and his guttural, hair-raising growls as a monster exerting his hypnotic influence on characters including Lucy (Aimee Lou Wood), Mina (Ella Purnell), and Jonathan (Louis Partridge).

“[There’s] so much desire, yearning, and fear,” Bailey tells Bustle over Zoom, hours before causing a stylish stir at Burberry’s Spring/Summer 2027 show on Sept. 21.

Dracula isn’t the only new world Bailey is taking a stab at. The 38-year-old recently wrapped filming a legal drama about the landmark 2018 trial, Johnson v. Monsanto, and is gearing up to play a professional cyclist in the psychological thriller Pumping Black.

Below, Bailey opens up about tackling shame in Dracula, getting “icky” in the recording booth, and training for what’s up next.

You all did amazing in this production. Cynthia Erivo played Dracula (and all the parts in a one-woman show in London) earlier this year — I feel like something’s in the air. What inspired you about this character in 2026?

Talking about being in the air — I ended up on the same flight with Johnny [Flynn], who’s also in this, and with Cynthia. They were flying back because they’d just finished playing Paul Simon and Miriam Makeba [in The Road Home]. It was Dracula in the sky.

When I think about the original, in the late Victorian era, it was so visceral — the sense of control and expectation on everyone to limit their desires, their deepest wishes, their independence, and their identity. That is always going to be a completely modern story. Because in every iteration, over every decade, there’s just enough space to project your own alchemical sense of a knife-edge life onto Dracula.

Absolutely. I was reading that Bram Stoker wrote to a friend after the book was published, “Lord forgive me. I am quite shameless.” You run an LGBTQ+ charity, Shameless Fund, and have tackled shame in several of your projects. What about that aspect of poking at societal repression was so exciting to you?

Shame is something we all feel, no matter your identity, and some feel it much more than others, depending on where you live and which stories you’re told. I always feel like you want to communicate to people’s deepest shame as intimately as you can, so people feel shameless and empowered by it. And so to be in people’s ears and hopefully terrify, seduce, but also transport them into a world where they can get lost in it — in the way that all the other incredible performers do — is thrilling. Dracula is many things, and one of them is this ominous manifestation of our cultural shame.

You mention terrifying and seductive. Your Dracula really got to lean into that — like, it’s bloodthirsty and thirsty-thirsty. Why is that so compelling?

Anything perceived as disallowed or unavailable becomes so much sweeter. We are innately curious beings, and the curiosity — if straitjacketed and harnessed — has to go somewhere. Fear and horror are just as potent as euphoria and joy — and of course, identity and sexuality and sex and everything that we feel in extremes can exist between the two. So it’s an opportunity to experience that and celebrate it. No matter where you are in the world and whatever your life experience is, there’s always something we’re craving that we can’t have.

Director Mary Lambert said she would have loved for listeners to see you while you’re acting all this out. Your performance is so immersive that you do feel like you’re there. What would we have seen in the recording booth?

I think it would have been really icky, actually!

Why?!

It would have been kind of monstrous. Because it’s a bit like a séance. You strip away your other senses to focus on one thing — and it’s like being in water in the dark, isn’t it? You feel everything sort of heightened, and it’s the same when you perform. I remember I’d slowly open one eye at the end of a take, and Mary, through the window, she’d be like, “It was great!” You can commit 250% knowing that you’re not going [to be seen].

This will be the first time many fans see you in a bad-guy kind of role. Is there something from an upcoming project that will show another side of you?

It’s definitely going to be a merry conga line. We’re going to some new places. I’ve been cycling for three hours today, and I’m training for Pumping Black, and that will definitely surprise. It’s amazing with [director] Mimi [Cave], and there’s an incredible cast, obviously, with Natalie [Portman] as well. It’s a viscerally thrilling story that has no limits. I’m excited for that.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.