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Guillermo del Toro loves a good movie monster.
In the case of his latest, Frankenstein, he actually has two. Yes, there’s the Creature (a prosthetics-covered Jacob Elordi) created by scientist Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), but he, it turns out, is just as monstrous, if not worse — cruel and abusive in his treatment of the experiment he thinks is unsuccessful but in reality just needed more of his time, attention, and love.
The Creature is the latest on a long list of del Toro “monster” movies, including the Pale Man and Faun in Pan’s Labyrinth, the Amphibian Man in The Shape of Water, and Hellboy‘s Abe Sapien. But his monsters aren’t there just for the sake of pure horror; they often symbolize the story’s deeper meaning. In this case, it’s a father-son relationship and Frankenstein author Mary Shelley’s core themes of pain and regret. But del Toro expands the emotional spectrum with forgiveness.
The director has waited his whole life to make this movie — he’s a superfan of Shelley’s 1818 novel and has a collection of Frankenstein memorabilia at his famous Bleak House in Los Angeles — and at one time, it was going to be two movies: one dedicated to Victor, and the other to the Creature; now it’s one movie in two acts. After premiering at the Venice Film Festival and a successful limited theatrical/Oscar-qualifying run, it’s now available to stream on Netflix.
Courtesy of Netflix
Below, del Toro, Oscar Isaac, and Jacob Elordi sit down with Entertainment Weekly to talk about the director’s vision for his long-gestating film, how Isaac found his way into the mad scientist, how Elordi connected with the Creature and found his voice, and more.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Guillermo, I know this movie was a dream of yours to make for a few decades, and you had a very specific vision for it. But what did these guys bring that you weren’t expecting? What did they bring that wasn’t necessarily part of that vision?
GUILLERMO DEL TORO: Honestly, themselves. And each of them was a surprise because when I met with Oscar the first time, we were just having a general meeting.
OSCAR ISAAC: He wasn’t even into my acting.
DEL TORO: I thought he was an insurance man. I said, “I’ll take that.” [laughs] No, but when we started talking about our fathers and being fathers and the lineage of pain in a family, how it passes from one generation to the next, at the end of the chat, I said, “I’m gonna write it for you.” And when I spoke with Jacob the first time on Zoom, I texted Oscar, timestamped, and I said, “I found him. We found him.” You can talk about range, you can talk about this, but it’s essence. If the character’s essence is perfect for the actor, or the actor’s to the character, you don’t have to think again. You just tailor it to them, and watch them grow. They can’t fail.
Oscar, you had previously told me Victor Frankenstein was not on your list of dream roles, but the experience became a dream…
OSCAR ISAAC: I mean, you say what you gotta say when you’re in room… [laughs]
Ken Woroner / Netflix
But you did say that it was kind of a dream experience for you, and what you got to do here. How did this push or change you or challenge you in ways that previous roles haven’t?
ISAAC: The form of it is so heightened and extreme, which was really exciting. And very early on, Guillermo said, “This is not naturalism. This isn’t naturalistic. I want speed: speed of thought, speed of language. You’ve got lots of things to say, but I need it to move at a much quicker pace than maybe you’d think naturally you would want that to be.” Finding the voice, we talked a lot about what that would be, that would ignite that way of speaking. And also, he encompasses such an incredibly physical character. It’s very elemental. He’s Jungian, he’s archetypal…
DEL TORO: And running up and down…
ISAAC: Yeah! Those tiny little boots, running up and down those steps.
DEL TORO: Those cute little boots.
JACOB ELORDI: So cute. [laughs]
ISAAC: So everything about that, which was also what was so indelible and so pleasurable about that, was also what the big challenge was, encompassing all that.
Your dad is a doctor, and he got to come to set. You told me you were going to take him to the premiere. What was that experience like for him?
ISAAC: Yeah, he came to set and he criticized Guillermo [laughs] and he didn’t understand why he was doing so many takes.
DEL TORO: He said, “I think you got it on the take before.” [laughs] I said, “Thank you, sir.” And then I understood everything.
ISAAC: Then he really understood me! He was like, I made the right decision. [laughs] And I did, I brought him to the screening in Venice, and at a certain point I was watching it, and I heard some sniffles behind me. I think it really impacted him.
