Jacob Elordi and Oscar Isaac reflect on how Guillermo Del Toro asked them to join his project 'Frankenstein' and what it was like on set and becoming the monster.
00:00I was sort of hoping that it would be to play the creature but I wasn't sure
00:03because there's also a world where it could be like, could you be this tree in a scene
00:06and if Guillermo asked, you'd be like, yeah.
00:08So when it was sent, you didn't know it was for the creature?
00:11No, I didn't because I had no idea. I thought, like, I was like, well, that role's gone.
00:20Some of what I will tell you is fact.
00:26Some is not.
00:28But it is all true.
00:30Guillermo del Toro had me come over to Bleak House, which is his incredible house
00:35where he's got tons of strange creatures and figures in his occult library
00:41and it was just a general meeting to come and sit with him.
00:44We've known each other in passing for a long time and so we sat in his kitchen
00:47and for about a couple hours we just talked about our lives and our dads
00:52and at the end of the conversation he just said, I think you need to be my Victor Frankenstein.
00:57And I said, what now?
00:59And so that kind of synchronization happened and then two years later I was on set.
01:06I was shooting something in Australia.
01:08I got a call to check my emails and so I had to wait till I got home
01:13and then went on my email.
01:14They were like, you have to read this script by 11 p.m. or something,
01:18which was like an hour away.
01:19It was a big script and I can't read.
01:21It was a real challenge for me.
01:26No, and then I was like, can I read it on the weekend?
01:28And they were like, you'll learn pretty quickly with Kiamo.
01:30It's like, no, no, you read it now.
01:32I read the script and then the next morning I was on FaceTime with Kiamo
01:37and three weeks later I was in Toronto making the movie.
01:41Well, reading the script for the first time was really exciting.
01:43I was sort of hoping that it would be to play the creature, but I wasn't.
01:47I wasn't sure because there's also a world where it could be like,
01:49could you be this tree in a scene?
01:51And if Kiamo asked, you'd be like, yeah.
01:52So when it was sent, you didn't know it was for the creature?
01:54No, I mean, no, I didn't because I had no idea.
01:56I thought, like, I was like, well, that role's gone, you know.
02:00And then when I found out it was for the creature,
02:02sort of the first fear was that you'd essentially just be a giant prop.
02:07But then when I read the script and realized that it was from the original text
02:11and the creature was a fully fleshed character, it was kind of terrifying.
02:16It was terrifying.
02:17Being on set with Guillermo del Toro, it is a very joyous experience.
02:22He is incredibly gregarious and generous and very open.
02:28So there's no secrets.
02:30There's no whispering with, you know, behind monitors.
02:34Everyone is welcome to come over and take a look.
02:37If there's something great, he's like, I like it.
02:40And he's like, if he does, he's like, that was shit.
02:43So it's just, he's very, very open.
02:47It's amazing because for something so dark, there is this passion.
02:50I feel like for the rest of my life, sets are kind of going to be a bit ruined.
02:54He's such a joy to work with.
02:56And I've not met anyone that loves movies the same way that he does.
03:01They're in his blood.
03:03They keep him alive.
03:04Like, he is a creature of cinema.
03:06And you can't help but be a part of it, too, when you're on that set.
03:10He fully welcomes you into it.
03:12Every day he'd come to work and he'd have a new Blu-ray or a hilarious, ridiculous toilet joke, like, which set the tone for the most serious day on set.
03:23Like, if it was a tough scene, he'd be like, it's just like relieving your bowels.
03:26You just got to shit it out or something ridiculous, you know?
03:30Well, it was so much about kind of giving over and letting go of control.
03:34Oftentimes this feeling of, like, needing to hold on to something or squeeze something out.
03:38There was a lot of just, like, release it, let go, let's see what's there.
03:42And I think for him it was a new way in as well because, you know, as an animator as well, Guillermo can be quite specific in exactly what he wants.
03:51He's worked with the same crew often.
03:53There was a lot of letting the film tell him what it was.
03:57He's, like, just listening to it and not trying to force anything.
04:01And so we took our cue from him.
04:03I didn't have, like, the greatest amount of time to try and figure it all out.
04:07And I was super lucky because Guillermo said, you know how to do this and the movie's going to tell you how to do it.
04:13And when he first said that, I was like, what do I do with that?
04:21Like, but he's a genius.
04:23And it just happened.
04:24I had an amazing team of people around me.
04:26I'd studied Butoh, dance movement, and Guillermo gave me books on children and babies, and you could watch and observe.
04:33But it just kind of happened organically.
04:36So much of it just kind of came out of the spirit of the film and the nature of the makeup and the weight of the costumes.
04:41Often costume fittings can be quite tedious, and they're long, and you're trying lots of different things on.
04:47But it always felt like a party going into the costume fitting with Kate Pauly because she is such a passionate person and was so passionate about the work she was doing.
04:55And it just completely inspired and pushing the envelope, I think, particularly with Victor, really leaning into 1960s, early 70s looks.
05:07Jimi Hendrix and Prince were oftentimes people we would talk about as far as costume and inhabiting the feeling of the way that Guillermo saw Victor, which was more as an artist than a scientist.
05:19As soon as I started putting on some of those clothes and the gloves and the hats and really feeling the pleasure of the character through the clothes that I got to wear, and each one was more extravagant than the next.
05:33The costumes that Kate made were real.
05:37They were the kind of final pieces to the whole thing because you had all the makeup on, and that would sort of change the way you moved a little bit.
05:42And then you'd put this coat on, which had bears on it.
05:46And then you had like squirrels wrapped around your feet.
05:49And once it went on, you couldn't be normal in those clothes.
05:54It was a heartbreaking design in the way that he inhabited it as well.
05:59That's what's really exciting about the film is that everyone thinks they know Frankenstein, but this one, there's something that's really unsettling and moving about the way that this creature is portrayed and really seeing the journey from this innocent infant-like thing to this creature that's apocalyptic by the end of it.
06:22The mood was kind of there as well, because we had all these sound stages that were completely built out to each of our worlds, like down to the set design had like moss and running water in the drain pipes.
06:35And you never really left the world.
06:39There's no real need to, you know, for me to walk around like, you know, like that.
06:45Because of fear that it would disappear unless I hold on to it.
06:48But you're also, you know, you're in this stuff for 18 hours.
06:51I remember at the beginning, a lot of people wouldn't come up to me, but I really needed like water or something, you know, and most people didn't know whether it was because the makeup's so angry.
07:02But I don't think it would have served the film if we were all sat in our respective corners of the studio.
07:07No, in fact, the air mode.
07:08It would have gone again.
07:09It didn't want the air mode.
07:09Yeah.
07:10It was like we're at a feast.
07:12We're at a table.
07:12There was a creative energy around it that didn't really allow for people to kind of wallow individually.
07:19It's the most I've felt at home ever, playing a character and shooting a movie.
07:24It was the most comfortable I've ever been.
07:27But I suppose just personally, it was a pretty isolating experience.
07:30I mean, we were working so much that you don't really have time to do anything on the weekend.
07:36And everyone's lives were dedicated, and Guillermo's particularly.
07:40I mean, he's up at 4 a.m. before shooting, editing the film.
07:43Yeah.
07:44So then we can go in and he can tell us about the edit that he's done already that morning.
07:48That's going to apply to the scene for the day.
07:51You know, the way that the conversation with Guillermo and I started those two years ago before we started at that table was about fathers and sons and about the need to want to run away from it.
08:02And then the tragedy of repeating similar cycles and ultimately about forgiveness at the end of it.
08:12And, you know, I know that was a very personal journey for him.
08:16I remember there was a moment in the last scene between us where I said, I want to cut these couple of lines.
08:23You know, I think we can just move on right on to this other part.
08:26He said, I need you to say these lines.
08:29You know, my dad's not around anymore and I need to say these things, you know.
08:34And it was so that was an incredible moment because it wasn't even about, you know, making the scene perfect.
08:40It was incredibly personal.
08:43We spoke a lot about that and we would have a shorthand about this is that feeling of like when the mom is just so tired and she's just changing diapers and she just can't take it anymore.
08:52And just like, oh, my God, kill me.
08:54I can't.
08:55What happened to my life?
08:56You know, it's like really kind of going through all of these parental moments with the creature.
09:02And that is an invention of his because that's not in the book.
09:05You know, victory immediately runs away as soon as the creature awakes.
09:07But he's added this entire childhood relationship that happens that starts off quite beautiful and breaks apart.
09:16It is a family story and it's about all the kind of terrible and beautiful things, I think, especially between a father and son, that by the nature of that relationship are going to happen in every father-son relationship.
09:29Obviously, this is an extreme version, but the hope is that the end of the film offers some kind of solace or hope.
09:39I love that Guillermo's whole point was we must live in spite of, you know, who we are and who raised us.
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