The actor goes deep on his time playing the iconic character and how he found peace in it. Plus, he looks back on the “Kissing Booth” movies, those “Saltburn” prudes, and teases “Euphoria” season 3.

Jacob Elordi discovered magic with Guillermo del Toro playing the Creature in Frankenstein

The actor goes deep on his time playing the iconic character and how he found peace in it. Plus, he looks back on the "Kissing Booth" movies, those "Saltburn" prudes, and teases "Euphoria" season 3.

November 6, 2025 2:00 p.m. ET

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He’s no monster: Why Jacob Elordi’s Creature in Frankenstein is a sensitive soul — and why it was a personal journey playing him

*Interview by Gerrad Hall**Illustration by Laura Salafia*

In the eight short years of his career, Jacob Elordi has already starred in a hugely popular Netflix franchise, the *Kissing Booth* movies, played Elvis in Gia Coppola's *Priscilla*, become an object of obsession thanks to a particular bathtub scene in Emerald Fennell's *Saltburn*, and terrorized his classmates as bad boy Nate on HBO's *Euphoria*.

But his latest role is the "sort of scale of a movie that I've wanted to make forever," he says on the latest episode of *The Awardist* podcast, describing his work as the Creature in Guillermo del Toro's *Frankenstein *(streaming Friday on Netflix and playing in select theaters).

The 28-year-old Aussie is getting the best reviews of his career for his performance as the creation of Oscar Isaac's Victor Frankenstein, at one time thought to be a failed experiment, but turns out his creator lacked the patience and love to nurture and understand the life he had brought into the world.

Mia Goth and Jacob Elordi in 'Frankenstein'.

Ken Woroner/Netflix

And to think, the role wasn't originally Elordi's. Andrew Garfield was first cast in the movie, but pre-production was put on hold because of the writers' and actors' strikes. Once those were over, though, and it was time to move into production, Garfield had a scheduling conflict and could no longer star, so del Toro & Co. quickly found a replacement. Which also meant that the prosthetic makeup effects team led by Mike Hill had to redesign everything for Elordi, who's seven inches taller than Garfield, at 6-foot-5.

Elordi also made quick work of his character study, with just weeks to go until filming. And the work paid off. Audiences got their first look at the movie at its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where the movie received a 14-minute standing ovation. Elordi was visibily emotional, wiping away tears.

"My sister was sat one row behind me, and then my mom and my dad were sat a row behind her. And I think just being in the room and seeing the sum of all of our efforts as a family and seeing all that care and love that went into me being able to be there, being able to share it with them was a really profound thing," he says. "And then looking at a hero, Oscar Isaac, in the eyes and looking at Guillermo del Toro, and then realizing you're at the oldest film festival in the world, in the history of cinema, and thinking about all the films that have come before and the people that have stood there. For me, it's a profoundly moving experience, this whole sort of thing... It's incredible. It's worth crying over."

Below, Elordi chats with *The Awardist* about making *Frankenstein*, and he looks back on *The Kissing Booth* and *Saltburn*, and teases what's to come in *Euphoria*.

'Frankenstein' star Jacob Elordi.

**THE AWARDIST: Take me back when you first met with Guillermo for this. I'm sure there's a temptation to say, "Yes, of course. I'll do anything you want me to do." But knowing who he wanted you to play and what would be required of this, not just emotionally, but physically what you would have to do with prosthetics and all of that, what thoughts and questions and perhaps hesitations were running through your head?**

**JACOB ELORDI:** I would play anything in the film, but there is only one character that I wanted to play in Guillermo's *Frankenstein*, and that's the Creature. So there's no hesitation in that regard. The only thought that I can remember having before I'd even gotten the script was that — and I shouldn't have doubted it, knowing Guillermo — but was that the Creature may be nonverbal and may be so sort of conceptual and hidden under this thing, obviously there's always a performance in those creatures, but just that I wouldn't be able to maybe articulate the sort of existential crisis that the Creature's having. And then, as soon as I read the script and he said, 'Now, I'll tell you my tale," and I realized there was still this much script to go. I was like, oh, wow, this is *the* Creature as it is in Mary Shelley's text.

**When we spoke previously, you told me, I want to quote you here, that you "see a lot of myself behind closed doors" when you look at yourself in the movie. I think the Creature is misunderstood, certainly sensitive in ways we wouldn't expect this Creature to be. Based on what you told me, in what ways do you feel you are misunderstood? What did you innately understand about him in that way?**

I'd say it's probably just the very general universal ego that we all have, thinking that we're the sort of main thing in a story, so we all feel like we're misunderstood in some kind of way. If I say, "I understand the suffering of the loneliest creature in the world," the parallel doesn't really work. But I think just in a very general way, the feeling you have the first time you wake up and you feel the repetition of everything, or when your sort of innocence goes from childhood, when you first see somebody do something cruel, all those kinds of things. When I played him, I was in this big sort of three-story gothic house by myself, and I got to sort of turn it into a dungeon, so it became personal because I was stuck inside a house with no one to talk to in Toronto. So everything started to mimic it, but in a way that it needed to, because it's not the kind of film where you can call your friends and have a nice weekend, or, you don't really wanna step out of that character in that kind of state, because if you become too modernly human outside of filming, it would sort of bleed into the purity, I guess, of the character. I think I'm still processing the personal part of it.

Jacob Elordi as the Creature in 'Frankenstein'.

Ken Woroner/Netflix

**Was there something you learned or surprised you about suffering and solitude by playing the Creature?**

Maybe there's a peacefulness in it, I think. I had just come from shooting *Narrow Road to the Deep North* with Justin Kurzel beforehand, which had this weight loss element, and he was a very solitary man. So I ended up coming close to almost a year in total, just sort of keeping to myself and staying out of the world a little bit. And in that time, I think everything just got a lot clearer a lot more peaceful and quiet. You can kind of cut through the fat and zero in on things a little better and a little clearer. What is important, I think, becomes a lot clearer when you're sort of totally alone.

**You've said in interviews that you sometimes have totems that represent the characters you're portraying. Did you have a totem or item with you on set for *Frankenstein*?**

No, I got rid of everything. I got rid of every idea, everything that I've done before in a film. And I ended up just organically making this. I found this old book full of Arthur Rackham ink sketches; there was this massive book, and one page would have an ink sketch, and then the other side was blank. And somehow, between hearing about the project and talking to Guillermo, from that point to the end of the thing, I'd filled this, like, tome, I suppose, this kind of giant diary, which was completely from the perspective of the Creature. And when I saw the end result, it felt like it had come out of a fugue state. So I had this kind of giant bible that was his, I guess, the whole time I was shooting, and I filled the last page on the last day of shooting. There was a lot of stuff that happened like that, which Guillermo had warned me of when we spoke, that there's a magic that runs through the veins of his films, like a genuine magic. And I got to experience that the whole process.

**I know what we're talking about, some of it sounds kind of heavy and dark, but I also understand this film was a lot of fun to make, that he is very responsible for running a fun set. Is that accurate?**

Yeah. He has an endless charisma for film in the way that he makes his films and everybody's involved. I didn't see a day where people weren't excited to get to set. Also because every page of the screenplay is so richly detailed, and there's something exciting happening. He timed the film so that the film changes every five minutes. Something happens every five minutes that changes the tone of the story. So it keeps sort of propelling towards this doomed endpoint. But it was super enjoyable. And also, if everyone that's on that set is an artist at the top of their craft, I suppose everybody is, there's a cathartic element to everybody's work in that film. So, whilst the film is a labor of love, and there's sort of heavier thoughts and things like that, I think that Guillermo creates a place where we can all go dump our biographies and see if they can all meet in the middle and create something, you know?

Writer/director Guillermo del Toro and Jacob Elordi on the set of 'Frankenstein'.

Ken Woroner/Netflix

**Some of the prosthetic sessions would take up to 10 hours, depending on how much of your body needed to be covered that day. That in and of itself is a full day of work. So what was your inner world like on those days with the team putting you together?**

I ended up looking at it, when it was the 10-hour one, like doing an international flight before going to work every morning. We had Mike Hill and his great assistant Megan [Many]; we had a little Gothic family, like a family of creatures. It got to a point where we were the outsiders 'cause we had our own little trailer, and you'd get there at dark hours before anyone else. So we felt like we were a part of a different process. The Creature is such a separate part of the film, so it was like being a part of a really cool club. Their knowledge of monster history and monster movies is so thorough and wide-ranging, so I got a crash course in how special the cinematic world of monsters is and how it has been for such a long time. Even sort of pre-James Whale (1931 *Frankenstein* director) and stuff like that.

**With the prosthetics, did you find that you had to emote differently? Because I have to imagine your face was restricted in many ways.**

Guillermo and I watched a lot of silent movies, 'cause they have a real subtlety to the largeness of their expression that sort of acutely conveys the exact point. It can seem melodramatic, but when you watch them, when you really analyze them, they're so succinct and tight, those performances So there was definitely something in that. But the reality is, the makeup becomes your face. I would have dreams at nighttime, and I had the makeup on and the dream; I became sort of more conscious of that face than my face. So, it didn't feel heightened necessarily underneath the prosthetics. It felt normal for him; his physicality just felt like it was so separate from mine...if that makes any sense.

Jacob Elordi and Mia Goth in 'Frankenstein'.

Courtesy of Netflix

**You were an extra in the fifth *Pirates of the Caribbean* movie, *Dead Men Tell No Tales*...**

You should have seen that film set. I've never seen anything like it in my life, and I just got to watch Johnny Depp riff. And I should have been in school.

**Then you had a small role in the Australian movie, *Swinging Safari*, but from there, you jumped to the near top of the call sheet for your third acting job ever, *The Kissing Booth*. Was there any, for lack of a better term, stage fright going into that and it being such a large role and going on Netflix?**

I must have. I think I was so anxious to get on a film set, though that my was... I couldn't contain it at that stage of my life. Like, I was bursting at the seams. So I think that might've taken over any nervousness. And I'd also prepared myself in this kind of monastic way from when I was 15. I remember I had these tapes on the American dialect, these CDs that I got at the state library. And I when I was driving to *Pirates of the Caribbean*, I would run these CDs over and over, and it was literally like "dog, cat, plane, train," and I would just repeat them, and the next one would repeat sentences. And then there was this American radio station that I found. So I had made a deal with myself that when the time came to be making a movie that I was gonna be the most prepared that I could be. So I'm sure there's some hubris in that, or, that beautiful arrogance of a teenager. I really did wanna conquer the world, and I wasn't gonna take no for an answer at that time. So whilst there was probably some buried nerves, I think on top of it, I was presenting myself with a lot of bravado [*laughs*], which I look back at now, like, geez. [*laughs*]

Jacob Elordi on 'Euphoria' season 2 episode 1. Eddy Chen/HBO

**Then, *Euphoria* comes along after the first *Kissing Booth* movie. Nate is a bad boy of a very different kind from Noah in *The Kissing Booth* in so many different ways. With Nate, do you feel a lot of ick when it's time to film that show? Are you glad when the seasons wrap and you can shed him?**

No, no. I love him. This is the problem with doing all these interviews. I end up just saying all these actor things that come outta my mouth: *You really have to empathize with the character to play the character*. Whatever that nonsense means. But the truth is, to understand a different experience, to express an experience that's different to my own, playing him taught me a lot about empathy and patience, which is strange with a character like that. But listening...because you have to go down this path to understand why he reacts the way that he reacts. The luxury to be able to examine a fictional character like that is something that I wish everybody, especially in today's day and age, could have. Because you can start to do it with the people around you and the people that you don't really listen to, and people in your life that you judge, or people on the internet that you judge immediately, if we could all sort of just approach those relationships like an actor breaking down a character, I do think that we'd have like a little bit more calm in the world. I can look at everything that he does and maybe not understand it, but I can at the very least, empathize.... It's a real treat to be a part of that show, and to play the quote-unquote bad guy. It's always more fun.

**Is there an emotion, one word, that you would say drives Nate in season 3?**

**Did the *Saltburn* bathtub stuff become embarrassing or is it a badge of honor to be associated with something that became an iconic cinematic moment?**

I actually think it shows me just how, I guess, prudish we are [*laughs*] because when I watch that, I just think there's far more extreme things in cinema that I've seen, far more graphic. [*laughs*] There's more alarming things in the top 10 streamed remakes of crime documentaries on every streaming platform. I think that's much more alarming, the kind of horrible joy that we all get from watching children be mutilated. That's what was interesting to me. I was like, here's a piece of fiction with something just a little taboo, and *that* makes [*laughs*] people's skin crawl. It's an interesting parallel.

Jacob Elordi in 'Saltburn'. MGM/YouTube

*This interview has been edited for clarity and length.*

*Listen to the full interview with Elordi — where he looks back on the immediate success of *The Kissing Booth*, and explains how filming season 3 of Euphoria was so different from the first two — on *The Awardist* podcast, below.*

And below, watch *Awardist* host Gerrad Hall's full Q&A with *Frankenstein* star Oscar Issac at the 2025 SCAD Savannah Film Festival, where he received the Icon Award and the movie took home the festival's top honor, the Audience Award.

***Check out more from EW's *The Awardist*, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis, and our podcast diving into all the highlights from the year's best in TV, movies, and more.***

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2025-2026 awards season calendar: See key dates for Oscars, Golden Globes, Grammys, and more

Oscar nomination predictions: Best Picture

Cynthia Erivo in 'Wicked: For Good'; Leonardo DiCaprio in 'One Battle After Another'.

Universal Pictures; Warner Bros. Pictures

Call it a boring Best Picture race if you *must*, but the industry is — and will continue to be — endlessly enamored by Paul Thomas Anderson's latest, *One Battle After Another*. If momentum holds for the legendary filmmaker's timely thriller starring contenders Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Chase Infiniti, Teyana Taylor, and Regina Hall, we're looking at a monolithic contender that could end up as the most-winning Best Picture victor in recent memory.

Not far behind it, though, is Chloé Zhao's *Hamnet*, the director's prestige follow-up (sorry, *Eternals*) to *Nomadland *that's already generated significant buzz thanks to Jessie Buckley's lead performance, Paul Mescal's supporting turn, and the film's historic dressings (it will build support across technical categories, too).

*Sentimental Value* and *It Was Just an Accident* will additionally continue the recent Cannes-initiated trend of high-brow global dramas hitting big with the Academy's increasingly international votership (*Cold War*, *Parasite*, *Another Round*, *Triangle of Sadness*, *Anatomy of a Fall*, etc.), while *Sinners* occupies a key spot as a runaway box office smash with star power, critical support, and commercial success bolstering its solid place in the 2026 race.

The remaining slots feel open to some degree, with Timothée Chalamet's *Marty Supreme* and *Bugonia* jockeying for slots as well (we see *Bugonia* dropping on some predictions lists... never discount a Lanthimos-Emma Stone venture), while *Wicked: For Good *also feels like a solid choice to round out the category one year after its predecessor stormed the nominations list. *—Joey Nolfi*

- *One Battle After Another*

- *Sentimental Value***

- *It Was Just an Accident*

- *Marty Supreme***

- *Wicked: For Good*

- *Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery*

- *The Testament of Ann Lee*

In the hunt: *Train Dreams*; *Jay Kelly*; *Is This Thing On?*;* F1*; *Avatar: Fire and Ash*; *Frankenstein*; *The Secret Agent*

Read Joey Nolfi's full Best Picture analysis and his predictions in the Directing, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress, and Supporting Actor categories.**

More episodes of ‘The Awardist’ podcast

America Ferrera on playing a hero-in-the-making in the 'monster movie' *The Lost Bus*

Arden Cho and May Hong on the healing impact of *KPop Demon Hunters* and their unexpected character connections

Amy Madigan reflects on filming *Weapons* and that shocking ending for Aunt Gladys: 'Just rip her apart'

Sizing up Oscar frontrunners *One Battle After Another* and *Hamnet *— and if *KPop Demon Hunters* can slide into the Best Picture race

Oscars Flashback

Chloé Zhao accepting the Best Directing award at the 2021 Oscars.

Todd Wawrychuk/A.M.P.A.S. via Getty

This is for anyone who have the faith and the courage to hold on to the goodness in themselves, and to hold on to the goodness in each other no matter how difficult it is to do that. This is for you; you inspire me to keep going."**—CHLOÉ ZHAO | DIRECTING, 2021 | *NOMADLAND***

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW The”