Good luck spotting Jacob Elordi this fall as he’s almost unrecognisable in Guillermo del Toro’s take on Frankenstein. The Euphoria star, now 28, stepped into the role of “the Creature” after Andrew Garfield bowed out because of scheduling. Oscar Isaac is on deck as Dr. Victor Frankenstein.
Elordi didn’t just dabble in monster makeup; he lived in it, clocking in about ten hours a day in the chair, according to a recent Variety interview.
The costume? Not simple. Elordi described layers upon layers, with the look evolving as the Creature ages: “When he’s born, he’s wearing nearly nothing. His chest is open and his head is high. Then, as he starts to experience pain, as we do as teenagers, he starts to hunch his shoulders. And as an adult, he closes off.”
Jacob Elordi clocked 10 hours for Frankenstein makeup
Some days started at 10 p.m. Jacob Elordi would head to the trailer before midnight and sit there overnight, transforming into a patchwork being. He basically stopped tracking time.
“You throw time away when you make a film like this,” he said. “I stopped having a clock, and I would just wait till the SUV arrived. That meant it was time to go. I didn’t do breakfast, lunch or dinner, or think in terms of morning, afternoon, night. It was just one time.”
Even with the brutal hours, del Toro said Elordi never once asked for a break or complained. Twenty-hour days? Didn’t faze him.
His dog, Layla, was totally unfazed by the monster look, by the way. “She loved it, actually,” Elordi laughed. “She didn’t bark or feel threatened.”
How Jacob Elordi changed his mannerisms for the role
Beyond the prosthetics, Elordi changed how he moved and spoke for the role. He drew inspiration from butoh, a Japanese dance style, and even practised Mongolian throat singing to nail the Creature’s guttural quality.
“It’s guttural smooth chanting,” Elordi said, working through lines with fake teeth and joking that the sound “feels like it got hit in the head with a bat.”
No surprise, playing the Creature left a mark on him maybe more than any other part he’s done. “It changed me fundamentally, changed the way that I approach performance and the way that I watch movies,” he said.
Frankenstein lands in select theatres on October 17, before hitting Netflix on November 7.
