The actor tells EW about his take on the character in Guillermo del Toro's telling of the classic monster story. Oscar Isaac on creating Frankenstein's doctor —

The actor tells EW about his take on the character in Guillermo del Toro's telling of the classic monster story.

Oscar Isaac on creating Frankenstein's doctor — and giving him a 'rock star' quality (exclusive)

The actor tells EW about his take on the character in Guillermo del Toro's telling of the classic monster story.

By Gerrad Hall

Gerrad Hall is an editorial director at **, overseeing movie, awards, and music coverage. He is also host of the the *Awardist* podcast, and cohosts EW's live Oscars, Emmys, SAG, and Grammys red carpet shows. He has appeared on *Good Morning America*, *The Talk*, *Access Hollywood*, *Extra!*, and other talk shows, delivering the latest news on pop culture and entertainment.

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September 4, 2025 9:00 a.m. ET

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Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein in 'Frankenstein'. Credit:

Ken Woroner/Netflix

Oscar Isaac admits Victor Frankenstein wasn't on his "characters I'd like to play one day" wish list.

In fact, when the actor first met with Guillermo del Toro a couple years ago, he didn't know the Oscar-winning filmmaker was about to embark on directing his take of the classic monster story, much less that he was looking for someone to play the infamous doctor.

"I didn't find out until the end of a two-hour sit-down," Isaac recalls*, *laughing as he chats with ** while sitting outside a shop on a busy New York City street. "He said, 'I think you have to be my Victor.' And I said, 'What now?'"

What sold del Toro? Their conversation was not about the character but about fathers.

"When we first find [Victor], he is this ragged man at the end of the Arctic. He is terrified. He is running. You don't know if he's running away or running through something or what's going on," Isaac explains. "As Victor tells his tale, he begins with his father and his own creation. 'How was I created? How was this person created? And if I'm gonna tell you about this horrible secret that I have, I must tell you how it got there. And that's with my own father.'" So when Guillermo and I first met, that's what we mostly talked about. We didn't even talk about Frankenstein."

Oscar Isaac in 'Frankenstein'.

Courtesy of Netflix

Frankenstein superfan del Toro — "You know, he has a house dedicated to Frankenstein," Isaac says, clearly in awe of the filmmaker's love of the Mary Shelley creation — has long wanted to make his *Frankenstein*, playing in select theaters Oct. 17 before its Netflix debut on Nov. 7.

"He's lived with this for 30 years. It's his bible," Isaac says. "And yet, he has somehow believed [so much] in that love that he's letting it tell him what to do; he's not controlling it."

The character has been portrayed dozens of times on screens big and small, even in video games, by the likes of Colin Clive (though named Henry, in 1931's *Frankenstein* and 1935's *Bride of Frankenstein*), Kenneth Branagh (1994's *Mary Shelley's Frankenstein*), James McAvoy (2015's *Victor Frankenstein*), and Harry Treadaway (Showtime's 2014 series *Penny Dreadful*), among several others.

In del Toro's version of the story, Victor's relationship with his father (played by Charles Dance) is different from that of Shelley's and some of those adaptations; rather than a "very kind, doting father," Isaac explains, "in our film, he's not that way: "He has a very domineering father that's quite abusive but that expects so much of him. And in fact, somebody that Victor blames for the death of his beloved mother."

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Also, unlike the book, where Victor doesn't dare recount *how* he created the monster "so as to not send other people foolishly seeking to do the same thing," Isaac reminds, del Toro doesn't leave anything to the imagination. Part surgeon, part mechanic — as seen sawing away at a leg in EW's exclusive Fall Movie Preview image, above — days spent filming in Victor's lab were some of the actor's favorite.

"The whole time we were in the lab, my alarm would go off at 4 a.m. sometimes, and I'm just jumping out of bed ready to get to work 'cause it was a banquet. And that one, it's quite specifically a meat banquet," he says. "There are these huge blocks of actual ice that you'd have all these [prosthetic] limbs on and blood everywhere."

What might turn one actor's stomach, though, didn't bother Isaac. "The irony is, my father is a doctor and even visited set at one point. So I have that interest in the marvel of the human body built in."

Oscar Isaac in 'Frankenstein'.

Courtesy of Netflix

But Victor isn't all science and medicine. Isaac says del Toro provided him with another key ingredient for bringing Victor to life: a "crazed artist," specifically a musician.

"That really sent us, and also Kate Hawley, the incredible costume designer, looking at references from the late-'60s and '70s — Jimi Hendrix and Prince, watching the way Prince moves around the stage," he says. "When Victor goes into the lab for the first time, he is looking at it like a concert hall, and he is saying, 'Where do I want my singers? Where do I want the pyrotechnics? Where is all this gonna be?' So that was a really fun energy. Guillermo [said], 'This guy's a rock star. He is the rock star of the moment,' because at the moment, what everyone's psyched about is these new incredible discoveries in science, and he's at the frontier of that. There's like a euphoria around that."**

But Victor's quest to defy death — and in the process, have "dominion over the forces of his father" — takes a toll. Over the course of a couple years, audiences will see him go through "an entire arc of a human life," Isaac says. "When we see him at the end, he looks like a battered old man."

Stark contrast to the "rock star" image he once had. "You see that start to crumble and go more interior," he says of Victor's transformation. "He himself becomes much more of a monster and a creature by the end of it, as the actual creature starts to become more human."

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In del Toro's version, the creature and Victor are essentially one and the same.

"They are a mirror of each other. They're just these twin things, much like what his 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," Isaac says. "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."

As for that creature — as played by Jacob Elordi, and which Netflix isn't giving a peek at just yet — Isaac describes the performance as "beautiful."

"He did so much work in a short amount of time, and as soon as he walked on set, he is heartbreaking," Isaac says of the *Saltburn* and *Euphoria* star. "Both scary and strange and mysterious and graceful, and very beautiful."

Not a word one might expect to read about a "monster" of classic horror literature and cinema. But del Toro has always been one to portray his creatures — think the Faun in *Pan's Labyrinth* or the "amphibian man" in *The Shape of Water* — with more respect and allure than other filmmakers might consider.

Mia Goth in 'Frankenstein'.

Ken Woroner/Netflix

Given the filmmaker's deep love of the material, though, it's not unreasonable to think the actors felt a certain amount of pressure to live up to the director's expectations. Isaac, however, says del Toro assured him, Elordi, and costar Mia Goth — who plays Elizabeth Lavenza, fiancée of Victor's brother William (Felix Kammerer) and object of Victor's eye — that they "can't go wrong."**

"One of the first things he said is, 'You can't fail. You just need to show up,'" Isaac recalls. "'So there was permission to not feel an obligation.... [He] absolved us of that pressure."**

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