FRANKENSTEIN Actor Jacob Elordi on Becoming the Monster and How Guillermo del Toro Made Him Watch the Boris Karloff Classics

Guillermo del Toro has long dreamed of making Frankenstein, and with his upcoming Netflix adaptation finally coming to life, it’s clear that he’s poured decades of passion and personal reflection into the project. From the film’s visual influences to its emotional core, everything circles back to del Toro’s deep respect for monsters and the misunderstood.

At the heart of the story is Jacob Elordi, taking on the iconic role of Frankenstein’s Monster. Elordi wasn’t immediately sure if he should watch the classic Boris Karloff versions that defined the creature for generations. Elordi told Vanity Fair:

“At first I thought, I’ll stay away from this. I want to do my own thing, and then I asked Guillermo, ‘Should I watch the other Frankensteins?’ And he goes, ‘What the f-ck do you mean?’ I was like, ‘Well, I don’t want it to be influenced.’ He says, ‘My friend, it’s a movie, it can’t f–cking hurt you.’ I went home, and I just binged them.”

Once he dove in, Elordi fully embraced Karloff’s legacy.

“I devoured all of his monsters. Something in his gaze, something in the way that he moves…. The biggest thing was just immersing myself in the world of these creatures.”

Even though Elordi’s monster will look nothing like Karloff’s square-headed, bolt-necked icon, the spirit of those early films is deeply embedded in del Toro’s vision.

During filming, a sticker of Karloff’s Monster was affixed to the director’s monitor screens, a silent guardian of the legacy that inspired the entire project. Del Toro isn’t just a fan of the Universal monster movies, he’s a scholar and collector, with his LA home “Bleak House” acting like a shrine to the genre.

The emotional stakes are high in this version. Del Toro isn’t making a straight-up horror film. He’s exploring something deeper. He previously explained:

“Somebody asked me the other day, does it have really scary scenes? For the first time, I considered that. It’s an emotional story for me. It’s as personal as anything. I’m asking a question about being a father, being a son… I’m not doing a horror movie — ever. I’m not trying to do that.”

That emotional thread carries through the twisted relationship between Victor Frankenstein and his creation. Oscar Isaac, who plays Victor, noted the difference between del Toro’s take and Mary Shelley’s original:

“In the Mary Shelley book, funnily enough, Victor had the sweetest stage-mom of a dad. He followed him around, paid for everything, was such a big part of his life, writing him letters all the time, believing in him. And he still ended up being what he was.”

Del Toro injects his own fatherhood experience into the narrative, saying:

“There are certain movies I could not have made if I hadn’t become a father. When people say, ‘How do you react to bad reviews?’ I go, you get them in life with your teenage kids. ‘That’s two thumbs down,’ “I’ve tried my best.

“You always have your blind spots. But I think I can talk to my kids and have really, really deep conversations. They bring their troubles to me. The greatest tribute you can expect as a dad is for them to come to you and say, ‘I have this problem. I need you.’”

But that kind of relationship isn’t in the cards for Victor and his monster. Their dynamic is brutal and fractured, echoing toxic generational patterns. “The movie is trying to articulate that the father becomes his father to his son without realizing it,” del Toro explains.

The film also takes visual cues from history and decay. Much of Frankenstein is set inside the ruins of once-grand buildings. “Gothic romance was born partially out of the fascination with ruins,” says del Toro. “Sometimes they’re more beautiful than the building complete because it’s the clash of creation and destruction.”

This passion project has been brewing in del Toro’s mind since he was a child:

“It’s a movie I have been wanting to do for 50 years since I saw the first Frankenstein. I had an epiphany, and it’s basically a movie that required a lot of growth and a lot of tools that I couldn’t have done 10 years ago. Now I’m brave or crazy enough or something, and we’re gonna tackle it.”

For del Toro, the Monster has always been more than just a creature.

“The first time I thought I was going to avenge the creature was when Marilyn Monroe is coming out [of the movies] in The Seven Year Itch with Tom Ewell, and she says the creature just needed somebody to like him.

“ I fell in love with Marilyn, and I fell in love with the creature in that scene at a very early age. And I thought, you know, all we have is people that look at people the wrong way. That’s what we have in this world.”

The cast joining Elordi and Isaac includes Mia Goth as Elizabeth Lavenza, Christoph Waltz as Dr. Septimus Pretorius, Lars Mikkelsen as Captain Anderson, and Ralph Ineson as Professor Kempre. It’s an ensemble built for del Toro’s moody and layered storytelling.

This is going to be a film that fuses Gothic romance, emotional depth, and genre legacy into something that feels deeply personal and refreshingly new.