Actor Jacob Elordi cried seeing himself as Frankenstein’s monster for the first time on screen

LOS ANGELES – Jacob Elordi’s evolution from teenage heart-throb to serious actor continues.

The Australian performer scored his breakout role playing the uncomplicated romantic lead in The Kissing Booth, a comedy franchise (2018 to 2021).

But he showed he could do more in the edgy teen drama Euphoria (2019 to present), which casts him as a toxic high schooler racked with insecurity.

Now, the 28-year-old is getting Oscar buzz for what is his most transformative and high-profile role yet – playing the monster in Frankenstein, Oscar-winning writer-director Guillermo del Toro’s acclaimed adaptation of the 1818 Gothic horror classic by English author Mary Shelley.

Currently the most-watched film on Netflix, it co-stars American actor Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein, a surgeon who takes body parts from corpses and turns them into The Creature.

Portraying the iconic character meant so much to Elordi, he cried the first time he saw himself on screen, his face and body hidden beneath thick layers of prosthetics.

For that metamorphosis, the actor says he had to spend four to 10 hours a day in the make-up chair.

But he took that time to reflect on the role and how it was “a monumental moment” for his career, he says at a recent film festival in Santa Barbara, California.

“I used those 10 hours to go inwards in a way that you don’t usually have the freedom or opportunity to do because life is so loud,” says the star, who in 2023 appeared in the dark comedy thriller Saltburn and musical biopic Priscilla, playing the late Elvis Presley in the latter.

“I was left alone to consider the day, the film and what it means to be working with Guillermo.

“In my life, it’s a monumental moment, so I used those 10 hours to just process the sheer fact that I was there.”

Elordi also remembered what the film-maker had told him about the prosthetic transformation.

Del Toro, who won Best Picture and Best Director Oscars for the fantasy romance The Shape Of Water (2017) and Best Animated Feature for Pinocchio (2022), had said: “This is holy. You’re taking the sacrament when you sit in that chair.”

The Mexican film-maker, whose fairy tale-like fantasy and horror movies often feature such creations, added: “You can’t resent the prosthetics – you have to worship them. You have to go through something like a metamorphosis.”

To conjure up The Creature’s guttural and gravelly voice, which changes throughout the film, Elordi did special voice training.

This involved learning techniques such as those used by Mongolian throat singers.

“I had this fantastic coach who worked with (the late Australian actor) Heath Ledger in (the 2008 Batman film) The Dark Knight, and we practised Mongolian throat singing and things like that,” he says.

And del Toro, who also wrote Frankenstein’s screenplay, credits the star for accomplishing all this despite being given the job at the last minute.

British actor Andrew Garfield, 42, had been cast originally, but dropped out because of scheduling conflicts following the 2023 Hollywood strikes.

So, when Elordi was chosen to take his place, he had only “four weeks on the ground to prepare, because the previous actor bailed on us nine weeks before we started shooting”, says del Toro, 61.

But Elordi threw himself into the performance, and the first time he saw it on screen, he found himself becoming emotional.

“I cried,” says the actor, whose next film, the Gothic erotic drama Wuthering Heights (2026), will see him play another tortured antihero from classic literature, Heathcliff.

Part of that reaction sprang from the fact that he did not feel self-conscious about his appearance, for once.

“We’re very serious actors, but everyone goes, ‘Ah geez, does my nose really look like that from that angle?’

“But it was the first time I got to experience a film as just a consumer – because the make-up gave me the freedom to watch the movie and not judge it.”