Twilight director praises goth star's cameo
When the makers of the new Twilight film were looking for an actor to play an ancient vampire, they turned to the singer of 80s goth rock band Bauhaus.
"I thought, who is the first vampire ever? It's Peter Murphy!" said David Slade, the director of Eclipse.
"I just called him up and he said: 'Sure that'll be great.'"
In Eclipse, Murphy plays a cameo role as The Cold One in a flashback sequence that explains the origins of the vampires.
It is a piece of casting that might be lost on a lot of Twilight's core fan base of teenage girls.
Eclipse, the third film in the series, stars Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner as the central love triangle.
The film premiered in the UK on Thursday, and opens next week.
Bauhaus formed in the late 1970s and split in 1983 after four albums and several singles. They reunited twice, but have not been together since 2008.
One of the band's best known songs is 1979's Bela Lugosi's Dead.
"I just can't think of a better first ever vampire than Peter Murphy - he's the original undead, undead, undead," said Slade, quoting a lyric from the song.
Murphy's previous film appearance came in 1983, when Bauhaus performed Bela Lugosi's Dead at the start of Tony Scott's vampire film The Hunger.
The movie starred David Bowie, Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon.
On his website, Murphy said of his Eclipse performance: "Who else could have and should have done it? It was really lovely and smart of David Slade to ask me… I was honoured."
The singer begins an international tour at the end of this month, with his ninth solo album to follow in the autumn.