Saltburn star transforms into Frankenstein's monster

Telegraph

28-07-2025

Jacob Elordi's performance as a dashing English aristocrat in 2023's Saltburn that cemented his place as a Hollywood heartthrob.
But now the Australian actor has shunned typecasting to transform himself into Frankenstein's monster for a new adaptation of Mary Shelley's classic horror novel.
The first picture of Elordi, 28, in director Guillermo del Toro 's Frankenstein shows him pale-faced and scarred beneath a mask and hood, while the monster's roar and gravelly voice featured in a trailer released last month.
Elordi, who also found prominence in the American drama series Euphoria, said he took inspiration from Boris Karloff's original portrayal of the monster in the 1930s.
He told Vanity Fair: 'I devoured all of his monsters. At first I thought, I'll stay away from this. I want to do my own thing. And then I asked Guillermo, 'Should I watch the other Frankensteins?' And he goes, 'What the f--- do you mean?' I was like, 'Well, I don't want it to be influenced.'
'He says, 'My friend, it's a movie, it can't f---ing hurt you.' I went home, and I just binged them.
'Something in his gaze, something in the way that he moves…. The biggest thing was just immersing myself in the world of these creatures.'
Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus, tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist, who creates the monster in a scientific experiment that involves putting it together with different body parts.
Frankenstein's monster has since appeared in more than 300 feature films.
Notable portrayals have included Karloff's bolt-necked monster in Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939), and Robert De Niro's take on the character in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994).
In del Toro's adaptation, which is set for a November release, Victor is played by Oscar Isaac while Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz, and Charles Dance feature in supporting roles.
Andrew Garfield, the Oscar-nominated English actor, was originally cast as the monster but was forced to drop out because of scheduling problems.
Elordi, whose 6ft 5in frame is closer to the 8ft monster described by Shelley than Garfield's 5ft 10in, was quickly recruited.
Del Toro said: 'Andrew Garfield stepping out and Jacob coming in. I mean, it was like Jacob is the most perfect actor for the creature, and we have a supernaturally good connection. It's like, very few words. Very few things I have to say, and he does it.'
Mike Hill, the film's make-up artist, added: 'What attracted me to him was his gangliness and his wrists. It was this looseness.
'Then he has these real sombre moments where he watches you really deftly, and his eyelids are low, with the long lashes like Karloff. I was like, 'I don't know who else you could get with a physicality like this'.
'His demeanour is innocent, but it's encompassed in a 6ft 5in frame. He could really do a lot of damage if this man really wanted to be a bad guy.'
Elordi earned a Bafta best supporting actor nomination after starring as Felix Catton in Emerald Fennell's Saltburn.
He also portrayed Elvis Presley in Sofia Coppola's biographical drama Priscilla and played the lead role in a miniseries adaptation of the novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North.