“I spent 50 years thinking about this,” Guillermo del Toro, the thrice Oscar-winning Mexican filmmaker, recalled during the latest episode of The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast, which was recorded in front of an audience of 500 film students at Chapman University. Del Toro was discussing his latest film, Frankenstein, which traces back to his childhood when he first watched the 1931 Boris Karloff version of Frankenstein and read the 1818 Mary Shelley gothic novel that inspired it. “I delivered myself to the myth of Frankenstein. I said, ‘This articulates everything I believe about fathers and sons, the Bible, the power of forgiveness and the power of acceptance.’”
Del Toro, 61, says he came to realize that “many moments and feelings in the book that have never been put on film,” and set out to make a more direct adaptation, with his own spin on it — as the modern-day master of movie monsters — as well. “I’m Johnny Cash singing ‘Hurt,’” he said with a smile, referring to the country legend’s 2003 cover of the Nine Inch Nails song. “I don’t care that Trent Reznor wrote it. From the moment I sing to the moment I end, it is my song, because I was born with one song in my heart, and that’s the one: Frankenstein.”
Del Toro, one of the true masters of world cinema, has now directed 13 feature films — among them 1992’s Cronos, 2004’s Hellboy, 2006’s Pan’s Labyrinth, 2017’s The Shape of Water, 2021’s Nightmare Alley and 2022’s Pinocchio — almost all of which he wrote or co-wrote, and many of which he also produced. Frankenstein is not only his latest, but, some feel, his greatest. It has been met with rave reviews (85 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) and massive viewership (it was the most-watched film on Netflix for several weeks), not to mention considerable awards buzz. Del Toro has received best director noms from the Critics Choice, Golden Globe and Directors Guild awards.
Frankenstein has also generated considerable awards attention for the performance of Jacob Elordi, the actor del Toro cast as Dr. Frankenstein’s Creature just nine weeks before production began, after his original choice, Andrew Garfield, dropped out. “Andrew left and everybody panicked,” del Toro recalls. “Everybody said, ‘We’re nine weeks away, should we postpone?’ I said, ‘No, because I’m 60 years old and I’ve learned that when the movie wants to tell you what it needs, it does so through emergencies and accidents. So let’s wait. Something better is going to come. Something miraculous is going to come.’ And that miracle was Jacob Elordi.” (Elordi, 28, has since been recognized with a Critics Choice Award win and Golden Globe and Actor award nominations, with an Oscar nomination — and perhaps even a win — likely to follow. “The guy is a phenomenal actor,” del Toro gushes.)
Over the course of this episode, del Toro also reflected on his childhood and early influences (“I was weird as fuck”); his father’s win of the Mexican lottery and subsequent kidnapping; coming up in the business alongside his fellow members of “The Three Amigos,” Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu; his attraction to stop-motion animation; plus much more.
