Frankenstein: Jacob Elordi, Guillermo del Toro, and Oscar Isaac on Their Fantastic Netflix Movie

In seeking life, I created death. Listen, I really mean this. Congratulations. I really can't wait to watch it again. I only have a few minutes, so to make sure... No, no, no. How much? How long we have? Five. We got 15. And tell anyone. Go. Okay. Take your time. Yeah, I was gonna be like, okay, well, that changes everything. I'm just gonna change things differently. Got it. So I loved your work as The Creature. Just fantastic. And I know you came to the project late. And can you talk a little bit about how you prepared for the performance and how your performance with all the makeup on... Because as an actor, you've never done anything like this. Can you sort of talk about all of that, if you don't mind? It's a very wide question, but I was so blown away by your work. Thank you. Thank you. I'm a massive fan of Guillermo's, so I knew the kind of world that I was going to be stepping into. And I had about four weeks to get ready for it. So it's hard to talk about putting your whole sort of self into something. So I can give you like the physical things that I did. I found this big old book, and I basically constructed this tome of a book as The Creature. Everything in my life, everything in my day, everything that I was eating or doing, every conversation I was having was sort of filtered through the lens of this creature. And somehow I got to the end of the experience, and this book was full, and I didn't remember a lot of it. It was like a fugue state, so much of it. But I mean, I was howling at the moon, you know, in so many ways. I was at a time in my life and in my career where I felt like I needed to sort of excavate my soul a little bit, and I didn't know what was sort of happening in my life. And this film came along at a time when that was happening. So it was just like a complete reinvention as a performer and as a human being. Because that's what you have to bring. And as you would know, when Guillermo says, will you do this thing, it's not the time to sort of sit back. It's the time to fully fall into the thing, you know. So it really just became my life for the six, seven months that I was making the film. And I'm still sort of just putting the pieces back together now. Yeah, I was going to say that I can't imagine as an actor, when you give your heart and soul to something, when you finally wrap, what it's like to decompress from a role like this. You don't. I took what I learned in this and then went straight into another movie, because I think to sit with it would have been, I think, I don't know. It's a mistake to sit with it, because it was also such an active process. He'd said, the movie is, he's like, I have a feeling the film is going to tell us what it needs every day. And it did. So all you had to do was show up open. And I think he picked people who you knew would do that. So by the time the film was finished, the film had already told me good night. You know, it was time for me to, there was nothing left to think about or take to think about. It wasn't that kind of experience. It was like a, it was a full on flowing creative process, like that you don't, that I've never experienced before. I don't think you get over a movie like this. I mean, three times in my life. Anne's Labyrinth, Shape of Water, and this. You don't move past the movie. The movie moves past with you. You never, ever, ever leave it behind. Like whatever I do for the rest of my life, whatever it is, doesn't have to be movies. Those three movies come with you. You know, you never go, you never get over it. I don't. Oscar, I have an individual. I'm a pretty busy guy, so it wasn't the same for me. I had to get back to Star Wars stuff to get back to you, so I was like, done with that. Next. I read that you and Guillermo talked a lot about approaching Victor like a musician, like a rock star. And a composer. Right. Can you sort of talk about how that informed playing Victor? Yeah, it was a particular moment in time, you know, when he, when everything seems possible for him, you know, we see him, you know, once he goes back to telling a story and you see him, you know, kind of holding court with all the students and, you know, really feeling himself and feeling, there was a very funny joke that Guillermo told me about a mouse capturing a lion and being very excited about having sex with it. And that was his, that was his note. Like, so you've just caught the lion and you're really excited, but a little scared too. And so that was the, that was the note. So that's kind of where we first meet him. And then he gets rejected. And then he's, and then Harlander, Christoph Waltz's character gives him kind of his, his second chance is kind of here, here's the money truck. Now it's up to you to make your art. And so that's where we've really talked about seeing him kind of as a musician, as an artist, as opposed to how we normally thought of him as a scientist. Harlander is the studio. Yeah, exactly. Or like the, or the label. And so, you know, we would talk about when he first walks in and sees where his lab is going to be the way that he imagines it. It's like the pyrotechnics here and the speakers here. And, you know, I watched different musicians and, you know, see, you know, being one as well, having been in the studio, that kind of frenetic energy and that excitement. Prints. Yeah. Prints in particular. I watched a lot of prints because of the high heeled boots and the, you know, cute butt. I was going to say. Yeah. Guillermo, I, okay. So a few, few quick things, cause I'm running out of time. Can, will the film be shown in 70 millimeter in theaters? I've heard rumors about this. No, no, no. The film will be shown in, in celluloid, 35 millimeter in theaters. And the film will be shown in IMAX. And the film will be shown in digital form in theaters. And then. Laser disc. VHS at home, you know, eight track. No, but I think that the important thing is we're trying to give it the scope. And, and the three or four ways you can experience it theatrically for a few weeks. And then it goes to, to streaming, but it will continue in theaters. Yeah. Listen, I'll say it on camera. For the love of God, see this in a movie theater. And if you can, I really want to talk about the color coding of the movie. Yeah. And if you don't mind, can you sort of break that down a little bit for people? I've already done precisely. The movie opens and closes with very limited colors. White, blue, and gold. And that's the, the, and the way the camera moves for that Arctic sequence is pushing forward, but very deliberately. And then the second episode is told from his point of view. And then he imagines his childhood to be black, white, and red. And the red is the mother, which continues only with him. And only with the blood and the creature for the rest of the movie. That's his quest. The Archangel, the batteries, the blood, the gloves, blah, blah, blah. Then comes his memories of his youth, of his peak, as he says when he is enthusiastic. The camera moves with him, swoops, goes on a crane down. It's very active. And all the colors come in, except red. And then green comes with Mia Goth, which is nature. And it has to do with also the batteries when they're turned off. And then blue comes with Harlander, William. And the father in his childhood was blue. So that's the way you color code. And then comes the creature. And that changes the style of camera work. And the coding goes to urns, goldens. You know, it becomes a pastoral fairy tale. And then finally, we go back to the Arctic sequence. And the sun rises again. It rises behind the captain in the beginning and rises in front of the creature at the end. But the color coding is a little more elaborate than that. But that's basically the primer to see it. I need to go. They're going to kill me. I'm just going to say congratulations. And thank you so much for your time. Thank you very much.