Based in part upon a legend that Max Schreck was in reality a vampire which is why he played the role of Orlok/Dracula so well. Some variations of the legend suggest that Nosferatu (1922) was the only film Schreck made, though in reality he was already a stage and screen veteran by the time Nosferatu was shot, and would appear in many non-vampiric roles before his death in 1936.
Murnau's line, "If it isn't in the frame, it doesn't exist", is a paraphrase of a piece of advice the real Murnau gave to the young Alfred Hitchcock when the latter visited the Ufa Studios in Berlin before becoming famous. Hitchcock never forgot this advice and was still quoting it when making his final movie in the mid-1970s. The use of the quotation in the context of "Shadow Of The Vampire" is a distortion of what the real Murnau meant.
The first movie Nicolas Cage produced.
Willem Dafoe was hired as The Green Goblin in Spider-Man (2002) after the producers watched his performance in this film.
The locomotive that conveys the film crew to Czechoslovakia is named "Charon". In Greek myth, Charon was the ferryman who conveyed the souls of the dead across the river Styx.