Guillermo del Toro and Roar Uthaug Break Down Their Monster Making Playbooks

Guillermo del Toro (Frankenstein) and Roar Uthaug (Troll 2) recently sat down for a Netflix hosted conversation that turned into an awesome deep dive into how they build the iconic creatures driving Frankenstein and Troll 2.

What unfolded was a fun, insightful exchange between two filmmakers who clearly see the world of monsters the same way. I thought we’d look at how del Toro reinvented one of literature’s most famous creations, how Uthaug shaped the trolls that exploded into global popularity, and how both directors share a surprising creative kinship rooted in empathy and mythology.

When Guillermo del Toro started designing the Creature for Frankenstein, he expected the process to take time, but he didn’t expect to rebuild the entire thing under a brutal deadline.

The team had spent nearly a year sculpting the design for the actor originally cast in the role, Andrew Garfield. Then Garfield dropped out just weeks before production.

Del Toro explained the scramble. “We took almost a year in reaching the final design. We had sculpted it for one actor, and it took a long time. And then that actor left the project, and we had only four or five weeks to resculpt everything.”

He didn’t panic, though. His years of hands on experience with creature effects kicked in. “I was not afraid. I said, We’re going to do it. I have extensive background on makeup effects and visual effects and animation. When people say, Oh, it can be done, it’s too difficult… I know it can be done. I could do it! So we were not scared at all, and we took it.”

Del Toro’s take on the Creature is rooted in a very specific vision of what Victor Frankenstein would create after obsessing over the idea for twenty years. The filmmaker wanted something elegant, something beautiful in its own strange way.

As he put it, “He’s not going to make a station wagon. He’s going to make a Lamborghini.” His Creature follows the natural lines of human anatomy and is stitched together with scars inspired by phrenology. The final effect is a being who looks newly born rather than a patchwork corpse. The Creature is a blank slate who learns cruelty through Victor himself, which becomes a core emotional spine of the film.

On the other side of the world, Roar Uthaug approached his trolls from a place of Nordic history, childhood stories, and iconic art. His Troll movies owe their spark to painter Theodor Kittelsen, whose work defined how Norwegians imagine trolls.

Uthaug explained his inspiration. “He had made a drawing called ‘Troll at the Karl Johan Street’, which is the main street of Oslo, and there’s a troll walking down there in the early 1900s. And I thought, what would happen if a troll walked down that street today? And how would the government and the army and everybody react to that? So it’s really Kittelsen’s drawing that was the genesis of the idea.”

Kittelsen’s influence runs deep, but Uthaug wanted his creatures to have a tangible presence. Some of that came from nature. Norwegian rock surfaces, forest textures, and animal traits helped shape both the hero troll and the villain troll. “For the villain, we wanted to make him feel more of a predator.

“So then we looked at wolves, made his face a bit more triangular. And the hero troll is rounder and kinder. And as they’re supposed to come from Norwegian nature, we looked at rock surfaces and the ground of the forest.”

This internal contrast, combined with human like eyes and classic troll features like big noses, creates designs that feel ancient but alive. Uthaug has always had a love for giant blockbuster visuals, but he grounds his monsters in the culture he grew up with.

“In Norway, we grow up with this folklore and fairytales, like the lullabies we sing to our children are about trolls. It’s a very big part of our culture.”

It is this personal relationship with monsters that made del Toro feel like he and Uthaug were creative siblings. He told the director, “I felt a lot of kinship between Hellboy 2 and Troll 2. There’s strands and themes and preoccupations and even devices that I thought we may be long lost brothers or something.”

Both filmmakers create creatures who aren’t evil by nature. They’re misunderstood beings caught in the fallout of human fear and cruelty. Uthaug appreciated that shared perspective. “I enjoy your movies as well because the creatures, they’re never pure evil. There’s some humanity or some emotions to them. You’re not looking down at your creatures.”

Del Toro was quick to agree. “I look down on the humans.”

Del Toro said, “When people say to me, What is Mexican about your films? I say, me. And I think the same could be said of you.” Uthaug echoed that thought when describing how he combines American blockbuster flair with Norwegian settings, myth, and character sensibilities.

Together, the filmmakers reveal two different but spiritually aligned creative paths. One shapes a newly born being out of anatomical poetry and emotional tragedy. The other resurrects centuries of folklore through modern VFX and childhood imagination. What ties them together is the belief that creatures deserve the same complexity and compassion as human characters.

These filmmakers don’t just build monsters. They build souls.

Source: Variety