- 6 weeks ago
“Anti-science? I don’t think so, it’s anti-hubris.” Frankenstein star Oscar Isaac (Victor Frankenstein) chats with Oscar-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro about the 2025 remake of the classic gothic horror. The pair discuss the foundational pillars for del Toro’s interpretation of Frankenstein, from the heavy roots into Catholicism to Oscar drawing inspiration from Grouper’s Poison Tree during filming.Credits:Director: Kristen DeVoreDirector of Photography: Grant BellEditor: Matt BraunsdorfTalent: Oscar Isaac; Guillermo del ToroProducer: Sam DennisSenior Producer: Michael BeckertLine Producer: Jen SantosProduction Manager: James PipitoneProduction Coordinator: Elizabeth HymesTalent Booker: Meredith LeeCamera Operator: Jon CorumGaffer: Lucas VilicichSound Mixer: Kari BarberProduction Assistant: Lauren Boucher; Hollie OrtizPost Production Supervisor: Jess DunnPost Production Coordinator: Stella ShortinoSupervising Editor: Rob LombardiAssistant Editor: Billy Ward
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Well, I think the first time I encountered the creature was Boo-Berry, the cereal.
00:04Yeah, yeah.
00:05That was my first introduction.
00:07Frankenberry.
00:08Frankenberry, sorry, Frankenberry.
00:20Here we are, and finally the junket, we made a movie.
00:23Finally.
00:24And we're at Netflix or Hulu, somewhere in the vicinity of Hulu.
00:27One of those.
00:28I think it's Tubi.
00:29We're at the Amazon Fulfillment Center.
00:31Yeah, the Fulfillment Center.
00:32And here we are talking about the film.
00:34Yeah.
00:35It's great to see you again and again and again.
00:37Yeah, and you are?
00:38Yes, it's a repeat experience.
00:41But, you know, to be finally here delivering the movie is great.
00:45I think that we started talking about this project completely unrelated on a meeting that
00:51was a general.
00:52Yeah.
00:53You came to the Bleak House.
00:54We had the Cuban food, and we started talking about our parents.
00:57Yeah, they called me.
00:58They're just like, hey, you know, you're in town, because I was in town in L.A., and
01:01they're like, you know, Guillermo, he'd be open to have a general meeting with you.
01:04Which I never do.
01:05Yeah.
01:06I didn't, so what made you?
01:07Yeah.
01:08I guess they must have called and been like, would you want to see what?
01:10No, no, it was, you know, we wanted to work together for a while.
01:13Yeah.
01:14But I would have never dreamt that it would be Frankenstein.
01:18Yeah.
01:19And I was thinking of Monte Cristo, of the Canto Monte Cristo, which is another rehearsal
01:26towards Frankenstein that I wrote many years ago for Francis.
01:29Yeah.
01:30And we were talking about this and that, and all of a sudden I thought, yeah, the essence
01:34of Victor isn't there.
01:36There's brilliance, vulnerability, a little bit of tragedy.
01:39Mm-hmm.
01:40And then we have pork and beans, irresistible.
01:42Yeah.
01:43And sort of crying over pork and beans and our fathers.
01:45Yeah.
01:46And being fathers.
01:47Yeah.
01:48Inadequate.
01:49Inadequate fathers.
01:50In both roles.
01:51And the fear of continuing it.
01:52And then, yeah, and then you looked up and you said, I think you need to be my Victor Frankenstein.
01:56Yeah.
01:57And I like that we agreed.
01:59At some point in that conversation, we agreed that if we were going to do this together, we
02:03couldn't do it as the characters that we become publicly, a director or a visionary, this
02:09and that.
02:10Right.
02:11Or a star of this and that.
02:12It's like we were going to have to be very human.
02:15Yeah.
02:16We were going to have to strip back all of that.
02:18Yeah.
02:19And learn to show our defects.
02:21Yeah.
02:22And you talked about, I remember you talked about, yeah, the idea of a character that you
02:29were really interested in the idea of somebody that seems to be the protagonist that devolves
02:34into the antagonist of the film.
02:36Yeah.
02:37Which is my home biography.
02:39You know, you start thinking you're the hero of your own story.
02:42It's like Dickens says, I'll be the hero of my own story or the villain.
02:46Mm-hmm.
02:47And you end up being both.
02:48Mm-hmm.
02:49And I think Victor, the way we built it, it has not quite been built like that.
02:55Mm-hmm.
02:56You have the mad scientist, you have the benign scientist, or you have the sociopathic scientist
03:03with Peter Cushing on the hammers.
03:06But one that is both.
03:07Mm-hmm.
03:08That is both the beatific guy and the evil guy.
03:11Mm-hmm.
03:12Out of envy and pettyness, I think that was a challenge.
03:14Yeah.
03:15Yeah.
03:16I mean, you also said something that was really interesting about, I think it's a Hitchcock
03:18thing, which is the two questions.
03:20When is he going to stop, and when is he going to start?
03:24Yeah.
03:25The only two dramatic states of a character are when will he finally start?
03:28Which is, for example, Shane with Alan Laff.
03:31Mm-hmm.
03:32All the violence inflicted in the town.
03:34You know at one point the gunslinger is going to go, all right.
03:37Or the other one, when he's going to stop.
03:39Yeah, we see.
03:40When will he stop being that cruel, or that unfaithful, or that greedy?
03:45You know?
03:46And those are the two questions for our character to be interested.
03:48And it feels like Victor's...
03:49Both.
03:50Yeah, yeah, both.
03:51Yeah, yeah.
03:52But then at a certain point, it's the second where he just kind of goes and goes and won't
03:55stop.
03:56I mean, I remember we were filming...
03:59It's the thing that I probably rehearsed the most for, because it's a monologue, in the
04:03medical...
04:04Yeah.
04:05The medical...
04:06The hall, the hall, right?
04:07The hearing area.
04:08Yeah, yeah.
04:09Where Victor...
04:10We first see Victor basically at his peak.
04:13And he's...
04:14Pure certainty.
04:15Pure certainty, full God mode.
04:17Ah, yeah.
04:18And it's this long, long ream of dialogue, basically a monologue that he gives.
04:23And I had even learned it in like...
04:25I'd done all sorts of techniques and learned it in iamic pentameter, like forced it into
04:29this rhythm just for myself.
04:31And we...
04:32I think we had...
04:33We're shooting it over a week.
04:34Yeah.
04:35I think it was like...
04:36Four days.
04:37Four days, yeah.
04:38Four or five days, yeah.
04:39And I think it was the third day.
04:40And, you know, I'd done it quite a few times.
04:43And I thought, ah, maybe I should be more tired or more frenzied.
04:46And my...
04:47I didn't remember that moment.
04:48My family had come to visit and they left.
04:51Yeah.
04:52And then it was lunch break.
04:53And then, um, my trainer at the time, he had this thing called hape that I had taken
04:58like years, like two years before.
05:00It was like an energy thing.
05:01It was like a nose, like almost like salts.
05:03Yeah.
05:04Like smelling salts.
05:05And I was like, you know what?
05:06Maybe it'll make me look a little tweaky and I'll have one.
05:08Yeah.
05:09And he's like, you sure you want some?
05:10I was like, yeah, yeah.
05:11He's like, this is a new one that I have.
05:12I was like, great.
05:13Don't inhale it.
05:14And I immediately inhaled it.
05:15And I was like, what happened?
05:16He's like, it's okay.
05:17Just have a seat.
05:18I was like, okay.
05:19And then I remember Jerry, the dialogue coach.
05:21And I suddenly I looked at him.
05:22There was three of him.
05:23And I was like, oh God.
05:25Oh God.
05:26And I just started throwing up profusely.
05:28And then the knock on the trainer was like, they're ready for you.
05:31And then I just remember like going down on my, on my hands and knees and the trainer
05:36was like, maybe this will help.
05:37And he blows this like meditation whistle.
05:39It was like.
05:40And I'm just like.
05:42And it was like, okay, come on.
05:44And so I was like, I can do it.
05:45I remember it.
05:46And I walked on the set and they're like, okay.
05:48And I like, let's rehearse it.
05:50And it's hundreds of extras and like all this smoke and you're sitting there.
05:54And I start to do the lines and I can't remember.
05:56It's the first time I can't remember the lines.
05:58And I go, Guillermo, I think I need to sit down.
06:00You go, get out of here.
06:01Go.
06:02And so I went back and I took like a half hour and I finally relaxed.
06:05And then I came back and we finished it.
06:07And it was just a reminder to me of like, you don't have to reach outside of yourself.
06:11Anything.
06:12For something.
06:13There's this idea of like, I just need something to make me better.
06:16And it's like, you don't need to do that.
06:18It was, I was, it was a great lesson.
06:20I, you know, I remember that day because when we talked and you said, uh, what if I fail?
06:25What if I do this before?
06:26And I say, you can fail.
06:27Yeah.
06:28Everything was built for you.
06:30We made this suit tailored for you.
06:33And, but you still do it.
06:35Yeah.
06:36You know, I, and I think that is, is, uh, we, we have a couple of, uh, a few years apart.
06:43And I think that's, you lose that fear the older you get.
06:47Yeah.
06:48You know, and, and, and I, I, I saw you attempting that.
06:51And I think it was the only time.
06:53Yeah.
06:54After that, it was just you and I.
06:55Yeah.
06:56Yeah.
06:57It was a great, it was like, I needed to do that.
06:58It was almost like an, like an ayahuasca trip where I needed to just like vomit.
07:01During lunch.
07:02During lunch on my lunch break to like vomit out all the fear and be like, you don't need
07:07to reach for something.
07:08It's all just right here.
07:09It's all in there.
07:10It's all in you.
07:11I can chill.
07:12And I think the beauty of this movie is that is, uh, people say all art is self portraiture.
07:17All right.
07:18But it's, it's so for everyone involved.
07:20Yeah.
07:21You have to align all those self portraitures.
07:24Yeah.
07:25It makes sense.
07:26Yeah.
07:27Mia is Elizabeth.
07:28Jacob is the creature.
07:29Yeah.
07:30In many ways.
07:31Not the Jacob people perceive, but the people, the Jacob that he perceives himself as.
07:35And it's very beautiful.
07:36Yeah.
07:37You don't look for anything outside.
07:38Mm hmm.
07:39The funny thing about a movie like this or a project like this is I encountered Boris
07:43Karloff on a Sunday after church and he became my new Messiah.
07:47Mm hmm.
07:48You know, I, I said, that's me.
07:50I'm him.
07:51And he's my savior in a way that was purely instinctive.
07:54I was seven years old, but I thought, oh, now I understand.
07:57Mm hmm.
07:58When people talk about finding a savior.
08:01Uh, but then four years later, I bought on a paperback, I bought the novel.
08:06I said, well, it's the novel.
08:07I was 11.
08:08I said, I said, it's the novel of the film.
08:11Mm hmm.
08:12Then I said, oh, this, the novel was first and nobody has ever done it.
08:16Mm hmm.
08:17Because I read it and I said, this is not the movie I saw.
08:19Mm hmm.
08:20And I, I, I was shooting super eights at age eight.
08:23And I said, I'll make it on super eight.
08:25You know, I'll make this, this Frankenstein on super eight.
08:29And then I thought it's a good way to, to talk about my father and this and that.
08:35But I found a lot of, uh, through the years, I found a lot of biography of Shelley, of Mary Shelley in the book.
08:41Mm hmm.
08:42Uh, it follows the itinerary that she had when she eloped at 16 with, uh, Percy Shelley.
08:48And they go through the same ports than some of the moments in the film, uh, in the novel.
08:53Uh, to talk about miscarriages and loss and the loss of a mother or the, you know, it, it is all biographical for her.
09:00Yeah.
09:01And, and the idea of the fusion of life and death.
09:04Mm hmm.
09:05Through her miscarriages.
09:06Mm hmm.
09:07That's the creature.
09:08Yeah.
09:09The creature is every child she lost.
09:10That she lost, yeah.
09:11And, and, and being birthed out of her mother.
09:14The specter of war.
09:15Mm hmm.
09:16Uh, the brevity of life.
09:18And the fact that it's cruel, blah, blah, blah.
09:20All these things are in there.
09:21And I thought, I'll make it a biography for me too.
09:25You know, I'm very young.
09:26And it's become that through the decades.
09:28But that's what the interesting thing is, like, the way to really honor it is to approach
09:33it the same way she did.
09:34Yes.
09:35As opposed to just trying to...
09:36To revere it.
09:37Yeah, yeah.
09:38Revere it or do an interpretation of it or even a communicate an idea of it.
09:43It's, well, what if I come at it the same way she did, which is, how is it a personal biography?
09:49And life.
09:50Yeah.
09:51Like, the difference between a taxidermy piece that you do with reverence.
09:55Yeah.
09:56Or, uh, to, to display a living animal.
09:59Mm hmm.
10:00Because you, you, you really give it life.
10:02Mm hmm.
10:03For yourself.
10:04Is, is, is what, I, you know, you make a classic and you say, oh, I'm making a classic.
10:08It becomes this stuffy pastel colored reverence piece.
10:13But this is alive and modern and, and happening.
10:15Where did you encounter the book, by the way?
10:17Well, I think the first time I encountered the creature was Boo Berry, the cereal.
10:22Yeah, yeah.
10:23That was my first introduction.
10:25Frankenberry.
10:26Frankenberry.
10:27Sorry, Frankenberry.
10:28Boo Berry is the blue one.
10:29Boo Berry is the blue one.
10:30Right, you're right, right.
10:31Sorry.
10:32Frankenberry is the pink one.
10:33Count chocolate, yeah.
10:34Yeah, it was Frankenberry.
10:35My mistake.
10:36Frankenberry was my first.
10:37He seemed really nice and pink and delicious.
10:39There's Zingleberry, but that's a Scottish.
10:40That's a Scottish cereal, right?
10:43Yeah, yeah.
10:44Also delicious.
10:45The first one that really kind of registered was De Niro for me.
10:57I just remember seeing the trailer and being like, whoa, this is crazy.
11:01I can't believe that's Rob De Niro.
11:02And him jumping over the ice thing with his trench coat flying out.
11:09Yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:10It was fascinating, but it never really seeped in so much.
11:13But I remember when, after we had that fateful meeting, you were like, I want you to be Victor.
11:20You gave me the book, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and the Tao de Ching.
11:25You were like, read these two things.
11:26Mm-hmm.
11:27Why both of those together, do you think?
11:29Well, I think that the Tao—
11:30I have my ideas, too.
11:31Well, the Tao says, basically, things are what they are, right?
11:35And to me, the relationship with life that I tried to put in the movie is, the heart will
11:41be broken, but brokenly live on.
11:43That was the end of the movie, which means, whatever it is, it is, and you stay alive.
11:48Which is the same wisdom in the book of Job, in the Bible, you know?
11:53Things are because they're designed by a carpenter, by a master that you don't understand.
11:58Mm-hmm.
11:59The Tao says, he who tries to use the master's tools will cut himself.
12:03Mm-hmm.
12:04You know?
12:05And all these things are pertinent to Frankenstein, you know, to the novel and the experience of
12:11making the movie.
12:12Mm-hmm.
12:13And I think that one of the things we connected over that dinner was our Latin-ness.
12:18Mm-hmm.
12:19Because, obviously, the shadow of the father looms differently in the Latin family, I believe,
12:24you know?
12:25And—
12:26Yeah, the patriarchal thing is so strong.
12:28The patriarchal thing is so strong.
12:29And a very matriarchal society, too.
12:31Yeah.
12:32So, I—and the melodrama.
12:34Yeah.
12:35And the drama of being blind to those flaws, you know, is very mixed.
12:42And, in fact, I recommended you a Mexican movie.
12:45Yeah.
12:46Called The Black Sheep with Pedro and Pablo.
12:47Yeah.
12:48You know?
12:49Which is a father and a son story.
12:50Yeah.
12:51And he's just such an incredible villain.
12:53He's an incredible villain.
12:54It's so funny.
12:55And he's remarkably charming.
12:57Yeah.
12:58And we used—we used one—I remember I used one of those things because he'd always,
13:00like, when he would walk by his son, just push him out of the way.
13:02Yeah.
13:03And so we used that one moment when—when Jacob comes back to ask for a bride.
13:08And he just—
13:09And I just kind of walk by him and push him away.
13:10That was our little—
13:11A monster.
13:12Yeah.
13:13A little nod to—
13:14Yeah.
13:15A flesh.
13:16Yeah.
13:17A grave at home.
13:18You know?
13:19Those moments, for me, are things that you determine only from a Latin culture.
13:24Mm-hmm.
13:25The swarthy Catholicism of the film.
13:28I think the sort of pageantry.
13:31Yeah.
13:32Of Catholicism, which verges on the operatic.
13:35You know, the intensity of emotions.
13:37Mm-hmm.
13:38You know?
13:39And the fact that Victor is different than his father.
13:41His mother and him have a darker skin, black eyes, black hair, you know, dark, you know, complexion.
13:47And the father never accepts him.
13:49Yeah.
13:50He always says, well, that's not my son.
13:51My son is this blonde little boy that I call William.
13:55Mm-hmm.
13:56You know?
13:57And that makes him Cain and Abel, you know?
13:59And it's also—that's why we talk about it being a story of outsiders.
14:01Mm-hmm.
14:02You know?
14:03And I think we also—some of them I talked to you a lot about in that first meeting, which
14:05was like feeling like an outsider from the moment that we came from Guatemala to this country.
14:09Mm-hmm.
14:10And constantly moving around and always feeling like a bit of an other.
14:14Always.
14:15And then even getting started in this industry, you know, in Florida and South Florida, you
14:20know, only being brought in for the gangster or this role or the, you know, the traditional
14:25kind of Latino roles.
14:26Yeah.
14:27And how that kind of fed into this kind of myopic view of like excellence.
14:32Well, the only way I can, you know, succeed is by being excellent, excellent and, you know,
14:38better than everyone else at this thing.
14:40And no matter what it costs, you know, that was something that definitely I think fed into
14:45the—
14:46And the victor—the victor that I really believe would be a fresh victor is a victor that
14:52had swagger and sensuality and flair.
14:55Mm-hmm.
14:56And he was capable of charming an entire medical school in believing in him for a while or an
15:03investor like Hernander.
15:04Mm-hmm.
15:05And I thought, you know, I think that the reclaiming that for not a British actor, not
15:10an Anglo actor, but reclaiming it.
15:13We talked on the set and I said, it's not an accident that our victor is played by, you
15:19know, Oscar Isaac Hernandez.
15:21Yeah.
15:22No, and we—and we reclaim some of that energy.
15:25Yeah, exactly.
15:26I remember at one point you're like, a European would never make a movie like this.
15:29He's like the way that you were shooting it with these huge sets and also the way you
15:33would direct sometimes.
15:34You'd be like, I need the Maria Cristina.
15:35Yeah.
15:36I need you.
15:37Yeah.
15:38The telenovela turn.
15:39The telenovela where you walk—
15:40Maria Cristina.
15:41You can't do that.
15:42Yeah, where it's like you have to walk from like his left shoulder past him and then you
15:45stop and you turn back.
15:46Turn back, turn back.
15:47Yeah.
15:48Which is when you do it with—you're talking to Mia and it's just pure.
15:53Yeah.
15:54And you turn.
15:55I would see attraction on that thing.
15:57Maria Cristina, no.
15:58Yeah, it's like a telenovela.
15:59Yeah, yeah.
16:00You gotta give—you have to make this Mexican boy very happy.
16:03Please do it for me.
16:04Yeah, yeah.
16:05I think—I think we can—when people say, what's Mexican about your movies?
16:09I said, me?
16:10Yeah.
16:11You know, what else do you want?
16:13I mean, I think you cannot deny what you are, who you are.
16:18And what moves you.
16:19And what moves you in any act of artistic expression ever, you know?
16:24No matter how base.
16:25No matter how base or vile.
16:27Yeah, yeah.
16:28There were three things that were important in this film to tackle.
16:32And one is the Catholic fact that God and Jesus are a father and son story, primary,
16:39where God sends his son to experience pain and death.
16:44Why?
16:45What does he do?
16:46And the creature becomes a sort of Messiah to expiate the sins of his father
16:52and get him forgiveness and all that.
16:54That was number one.
16:55The Catholic element of this film is very, very strong.
16:58Laps Catholic, but Catholic nevertheless.
17:01The second was the father to son, son to father, sort of lineage of pain.
17:07Because one of the things we do when we're flawed—and I am flawed—is you are so busy
17:13feeling like a hurt son that you turn into a father and you don't realize it.
17:17And then you have to tell your kids, I am your father.
17:21And I just realized it, and you have to apologize.
17:24And regret is what Victor learns in this film.
17:29He has no regrets until he understands the other.
17:33And understanding the other right now is absolutely urgent.
17:38Yeah.
17:39And the final element, which I think is fabulous for me, is Victor has never been played as the antagonist and protagonist at the same time,
17:47because every tyrant believes themselves to be a victim, which is also very now.
17:53And I think those elements we understood we were going to require to be very open about our defects,
17:59but also for you to make the character do things that were truly despicable.
18:04Yeah.
18:05To be able to blind myself so much that this feels like I am entitled to do this because I'm a victim of something that entitles me to do it.
18:16If I felt pain, everybody will feel pain.
18:19Yeah.
18:20But it makes me think of T-Bone Burnett.
18:22He has this song where there's a lyric that says, everyone wants peace, but no one wants to surrender.
18:27Yes.
18:28Right.
18:29That's right.
18:30I think that the end being this moment of surrender, which allows them to both become human.
18:36Yeah.
18:37And I think that the moment we're in also speaks about people that are...
18:43Every character in this movie is alone.
18:45Elizabeth is alone.
18:46William is alone.
18:47Victor is alone.
18:48The creature is alone.
18:49Harlander is alone.
18:50Yeah.
18:51But Victor is the type of character that is so lonely that he needs masses of people agreeing with him.
18:57You know, which can be political or artistic, but we see it all the time.
19:01People that broadcast emotions to millions, thinking that brings empathy or that brings fulfillment, then it doesn't.
19:09What he's pursuing is so hollow and so fruitless that I think that's a real warning.
19:16When people say Frankenstein is anti-science, I don't think so.
19:19It's anti-hubris.
19:21That's why the parallel with the captain is the important parallel.
19:26Yeah, and also why it ends with this moment of, you know, of the creature because of this moment of compassion and moment of forgiveness.
19:34Free those that attacked.
19:35Yeah, be compassionate to others, to a whole society of people that are also headed down the wrong direction.
19:40So it ends in this moment of hope, which the book doesn't necessarily do that.
19:44No, I think the book was responding to many, many things, including the fact that doom was such a worthy thing to tackle in an era that was talking about the age of reason and the beginnings of industrialization, the beginnings of modernity.
20:05You know, and they said, what if we lose?
20:08What if we all lose?
20:09That was a very romantic notion.
20:11Now I think that, for me, the urgent message is what if we could all forgive each other into existing?
20:17What if we could all be flawed?
20:19What if we could all allow everybody to be flawed?
20:22To be flawed.
20:23And those are the urgent.
20:24When Collodi does Pinocchio, Collodi is concerned with the unification of Italy, the language becoming one, the country behaving into becoming one.
20:36That's not my concern when I do my Pinocchio.
20:38I'm concerned about disobedience and obedience and fascism.
20:42And the same is, I cannot articulate what Mary Shelley articulated.
20:47I have to articulate what's urgent now.
20:49When you tackle a movie as big as Frankenstein or other, I felt it before, Shape of Water, Pants Labyrinth.
20:56You feel, I hope this connects with someone and makes their life either different or better in some way.
21:03Has that ever happened to you with a song or a movie or a book?
21:06So many times.
21:08So many things, actually.
21:10With this, with Frankenstein, there was a song I found that I would start to listen to.
21:15I would listen to all the time.
21:16It was called Poison Tree.
21:18And it's this really beautiful song.
21:20And the voice, it's a female voice, but it almost sounds like a child singing about wanting to become a poisoned tree.
21:29And there was something about that that resonated with me with Victor so much.
21:32Because it sounded like this heartbroken child that wanted to die, which feels like that's what Victor was.
21:38And that's actually the creature that he creates is the child that comes back to forgive him.
21:45You know?
21:46So it's funny how those little kind of totems I find and I hold on to.
21:50And I would listen to it maybe once a week while we were shooting the film.
21:53And it would just reorient me.
21:56That was a big one.
21:57But originally, I think the very first movie that really, that kind of changed my mind about what was possible as an actor, even before I even knew I wanted to be an actor, was the movie Legend.
22:10It was Ridley Scott's movie Legend.
22:12Oh, really?
22:13And it was seeing, recognizing that the guy playing the devil was the same guy from Clue, Tim Curry.
22:19Yeah.
22:20And I couldn't believe that that was the same actor.
22:22And I remember I would make, like I wrote a poem about a vampire that was dressed just like she's dressed when in that black outfit.
22:31With the black lips.
22:32With the black lips and the black dress that comes down to here.
22:35And it just made such a huge impression on me, that movie.
22:39And it's what kind of started to move me towards like, oh, there's a place where you can be both the butler in a thing and then the devil in a dark.
22:49Yeah, the lord of darkness.
22:51Yeah.
22:52Yeah.
22:53So that was one that really switched me on.
22:56You know, that happened to me with Taxi Driver.
22:58Yeah.
22:59I was, my uncle and I went to movies.
23:02I was very young and he would take me to all the movies my mother or my grandmother didn't want him to take me to.
23:09We would go see a movie called Raw Meat, which I still love.
23:13It's called Deathline also.
23:14Great movie.
23:15Variation of Beauty and the Beast in Horror.
23:18And then he said, let's go see.
23:20He took me to 2001.
23:21And he said, do you understand what it's about?
23:23And I said, yeah, it's about evolution.
23:26And he said, ah, I'll take you to Taxi Driver.
23:29Let's see what he says about that.
23:31And this is very pertinent to Frankenstein.
23:34The study of isolation.
23:36Yeah.
23:37Of a character that you start following and then by virtue of the narrative you identify with.
23:41And then he does incredibly despicable things.
23:44Right.
23:45In his own universe.
23:46Mm-hmm.
23:47You can't help but follow him.
23:48Right.
23:49I felt fascinated.
23:50I said, I never thought movies were like this.
23:53I thought movies were good guys, bad guys.
23:55Right.
23:56The good guys winning.
23:57Yeah.
23:58And when I saw Taxi Driver, I understood there is a whole world to this medium.
24:02And I was very young.
24:03Yeah.
24:04That I made rich with my Super 8 films one day.
24:07I mean, I didn't have Super 8, but I had, you know, 8mm VHS ones that I started to make movies with as well.
24:15And I think I even sent you one.
24:17It was one that I made with my dad.
24:19Oh, back then.
24:20Called It Lives, where I was the monster.
24:22Yes.
24:23That I get killed by love when someone shows me compassion, which my sister played.
24:28Which was hilarious because in the shot you can see my sister being like.
24:31Acting.
24:32Yeah.
24:33Like so annoyed that she's being made to act.
24:35It's so funny because the first movie I made, I made Super 8 then and then I came back.
24:42I stopped making them for like seven or eight years.
24:45And then when I was about 13, 14, I did one again and I was a monster.
24:50And it was a monster that crawled out of the men's toilet in my high skippity toilet.
24:55But my sister was not in it.
24:58I'm going to end it there.
24:59Okay.
25:00That's a perfect ending.
25:01That's good.
25:02Oh, thank you.
25:03Wow.
25:04That was fun.
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