Source: Entertainment Weekly

It’s alive — and tall as hell!

Netflix has unveiled its first full look at Jacob Elordi as the creature in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, now playing in theaters. Social media accounts for the streamer posted a portrait of the Euphoria star as the reanimated patchwork creature created by Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) on Friday, alongside a number of other cast photos.

Elordi’s version of the mad scientist’s monster boasts pale skin covered in scars, an alarming absence of eyebrows, and ratty dark hair extending past his shoulders.

Del Toro’s version of the creature is a far cry from the short-haired, square-headed cinematic depiction of it lodged in our collective consciousness after Boris Karloff’s classic performance in the 1930s. Instead, this rendition of Victor’s experiment harkens back to Mary Shelley’s original 1818 novel, which describes the monster as having “flowing” hair of “lustrous black,” a “shriveled complexion,” and “watery eyes.”

The Shape of Water filmmaker recently teased Elordi’s look to Entertainment Weekly, describing him as “staggeringly beautiful, in an otherworldly way” in September.

“Victor is as much an artist as he is a surgeon, and if he’s been dreaming about this creature for all his life, he’s going to nail it,” del Toro said. “It looks like a newborn, alabaster creature. The scars are beautiful and almost aerodynamic.”

Del Toro also clarified that he wanted to avoid making the creature elicit “the feeling that you were seeing an accident victim that has been patched [together].” He noted that the character’s patches of flesh come “from different bodies, so it has different colors” on different parts of his body. “The hues are pale but almost translucent,” he said. “It feels like a newborn soul.”

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Elsewhere in the interview, del Toro praised Elordi’s soulful performance. “One of the things I thought needed the most intelligence, emotionally, was to track the evolution of the creature,” he recalled. “He said something to me that was touching and real: ‘This creature is more me than me.'”

The Hellboy director continued, “[Elordi] said, ‘And people don’t know that, and I’m going to be able to be myself through this.’ He brought a truth to this performance that’s really something to behold.”

Isaac also praised Elordi’s portrayal in an interview with EW. “He did so much work in a short amount of time, and as soon as he walked on set, he is heartbreaking,” the Inside Llewyn Davis actor said of his costar. “Both scary and strange and mysterious and graceful, and very beautiful.”

Isaac explained how his scientist and Elordi’s creature are fundamentally intertwined. “They are a mirror of each other,” he said. “They’re just these twin things, much like what [del Toro’s] story’s about: The way that a father passes on to a son, and that son becomes a father and passes it on to his son, and the way these circles just keep going and keep going.”

He continued, “At the end, this heartbreak happens, and this forgiveness happens. And the hope is that this creature, who’s all set up to create chaos and violence, somehow stops that and changes it all.”

Frankenstein is now playing in select theaters. The film will premiere on Netflix on Nov. 7.

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