The thrilling process of Jacob Elordi’s monster makeover for Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Frankenstein’

Jacob Elordi’s latest role as the monstrous creation of Victor Frankenstein, albeit inadvertent, was a gruelling task by all accounts.

While the towering Australian actor described the process as “incredibly liberating”, it actually entailed 10 hours of meticulous makeup application.

For a movie which Guillermo del Toro waited 30 years to make, and has been collecting great acclaim for the effort ever since its premiere, perhaps his performer’s extensive time in the makeup chair was part of the appeal.

Modern makeover

In del Toro’s iteration of Frankenstein, the monster’s look has been described as being one never put on screen before. The creature, which was initially cast with Andrew Garfield, was not deliberately given a modern look. In fact, the film’s prosthetics artist Mike Hill said that his team’s idea was to craft a look straight out of “1800s and not a modern-day creature.”

However, in doing so, the makeup artists working on the project chose not to view the monster’s previous screen depictions and thus created a whole new look — unlike the ones audiences would be familiar with.

“It was very tricky, originally, and very daunting coming up with a new design for Frankenstein’s creature, but we weren’t looking at movies, we were looking at the literary versions of this creature,” Hill told Deadline, further noting that he also had to follow “Guillermo’s version of the literary version.”

Details of the look

The monster was made to appear corpse-like to highlight its fictional creator’s inexperience. “You see the patterns where Victor’s taken this apart and put it back on and decided that’s wrong. So he’s making a man for the first time, so he’s not getting entirely correct on the first go,” Hill explained.

To achieve the look, the prosthetics team crafted 42 pieces and used them to makeover the entirety of Elordi’s six foot five inches frame.

“On the whole, you choose the best body you could find. It just happened to be Jacob Elordi’s body,” stated the man in charge of doing so.

Elordi’s experience

On his part, Jacob Elordi has shared delightful and intriguing insights about his time transforming into the famous mad scientist’s creature. Though he earned the role after his predecessor dropped out of the film due to scheduling conflicts, the Euphoria actor shared that he felt like he was always meant to play it.

“I’ve heard stories about this from actors, and when you hear them, you kind of go, ‘Sure, you were meant to play this thing.’ But I really feel like I was,” he told the Los Angeles Times.

While the publication further reported that Jacob Elordi “sat for 10 hours in the makeup chair on days that required full body makeup — only four if they were only shooting the Creature’s face.”