‘He was the ultimate canvas’: Transforming Jacob Elordi into Frankenstein

The irony of resurrecting Frankenstein is that you have to become Dr Frankenstein yourself in order to remake the famous tale. Director Guillermo del Toro has done exactly that, and this weekend, his two-and-half-hour reinterpretation of the 1818 novel – starring Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi and Mia Goth – hits cinemas. Working alongside del Toro, however, was a man who became Victor Frankenstein even more literally; English prosthetics artist Mike Hill who had to bring the creature to life. 

Known to the film industry as a professional monster-maker (see The Shape of Water, Nightmare Alley, Cabinet of Curiosities, American Horror Story), Hill’s method was to hole up in his dark studio, with only clay limbs and pig carcasses for company, while playing thunder sounds through the speakers. He spent months researching and redesigning one of history’s most famous monsters and today (October 17), we finally see his sculpture – all 6’5 of Jacob Elordi plastered in puzzle-like pieces of flesh.

Sometimes it could take ten hours a day to turn the Hollywood heartthrob into the creature, involving three people working on his head and five on his body. Then there’s the rest of the costumes, dreamt up by New Zealand costume designer Kate Hawley (Crimson Peak, Suicide Squad, Pacific Rim) which are just as breathtaking. Mia Goth, who plays Elizabeth Lavenza, wears opulent gowns inspired by couture, beetle wings, malachite, Missoni patterns and Biba’s 60s bohemia. The recurring emerald green and pigeon blood red come from the colour palettes of Caravaggio and Francis Bacon, meanwhile the jewellery was taken directly from the Tiffany archive.

Below, Kate Hawley and Mike Hill take us inside Dr Frankenstein’s lab for a behind the scenes look at how they resurrected the pinnacle of gothic horror. Or, if you’d rather get up close and personal with costumes, props and a life-size Elordi, you can visit the exhibition, Frankenstein: Crafting A Tale Eternal, which opens today at The Old Selfridges Hotel and is on show until November 9.

You’ve both worked with Guillermo del Toro before, but how did you react to finding out that he’d be doing Frankenstein?

Mike Hill: He’d mentioned that he’d wanted to do it over the years, but it was never official. Then one day, very blazé, he said ‘Oh, by the way, we’re doing Frankenstein next. Anyway, have a nice day!’ I was like, ‘What?!’ It was a dream come true.

Kate Hawley: I kept cancelling things because when someone like Guillermo is fulfilling their lifelong dream, you want to be a part of that.

Kate, were there any specific fashion moments that immediately came to mind when you started thinking about the costumes?

Kate Hawley: Guillermo did say he wanted it to feel like couture in some places. I was being influenced by the Tiffany language, but also by Biba for Mia [Goth] and that sort of 60s fashion. We echoed that with Victor [Frankenstein], looking at the Carnaby world, early David Bowie and [Rudolf] Nureyev. I looked at pictures of Damien Hirst and other artists in their apartments, with blood and shit and paint all over them. Victor’s an artist too, doing the same thing.

If you could have worked alongside any fashion designer on this film, who do you think would’ve nailed it? 

Kate Hawley: You look at John Galliano, he’s an extraordinary man. You see his work distilled and magnified in other people’s collections. He captures some of the dreamy and ephemeral quality of our world. There’s definitely a moment of that.

Did Guillermo have a clear idea of what he wanted the creature to be?

Mike Hill: No not at all. He had clear ideas of what he didn’t want it to be. We work that way a lot, he’ll tell me what he doesn’t want. A lot of Frankenstein interpretations look like an accident victim. We wanted the opposite, we wanted it to look man made – we’re not trying to repair someone, we’re creating someone. I knew with Guillermo I could make it not attractive, but not ugly. More of a Porsche than a Mini Metro – clean and stylised. He’s meant to be a supreme human being, if you’re going to make a man, you make the best one you can.

Mike, you essentially had to become Dr Frankenstein yourself and bring a monster to life. Was that strange for you?

Mike Hill: It felt a lot like that. Especially because what I like to do is lock myself away from people. I’ll turn the lights down in my studio, leave one bulb on and listen to the sounds of thunder and do it in my own little world. I’ll return to 30 messages from Guillermo saying ‘Mike, where are you?!’ I need to bury myself – it’s the only way. Any distractions from the modern day take you out of the moment. I had to find myself in the 19th century. 

Jacob Elordi is a Hollywood heartthrob. Did it make your job more difficult having to make a monster out of such a handsome man?

Mike Hill: No not at all. When I was told all the candidates for this role, I looked through them and he was easily the best choice. It was because of his structure – because of his jaw and because he has a nose that can be altered. He has big eyes and those wonderful heavy lids, much like Boris Karloff from 1931, and of course he’s 6’5. After my first meeting with him I high-fived my assistant Meg and said ‘Wow, we’ve got our creature.’

How did he respond to being covered in prosthetics? 

Mike Hill: Jacob was the ultimate canvas. The make up could take up to ten hours, it was like painting the Mona Lisa again everyday, but he used the long gruelling process to meditate and become the character.

There’s been a bit of online debate this year around historical accuracy and its importance in costume design (sparked by images from the set of Emerald Fennell’s upcoming Wuthering Heights)...

Kate Hawley: Oh my God, it’s so funny when people think that I’m historically accurate – no I’m not! I do all the research and then I let it go. You have to at least acknowledge the silhouette of the period. For example, we used crinolines, but crinolines changed between 1840, 1850 and 1860, but I just wanted to use one. I like breaking the rules because it’s all about the story that we’re telling. We’re in a dream of the period, it’s its own world. It’s not a Mary Shelley biography, it’s not a documentary, it’s Guillermo’s mythology. 

I know Guillermo uses the phrase “eye protein vs eye candy”, but in your opinion, what does successful costume design look like? 

Kate Hawley: You look at the exquisite film of Barry Lyndon and the costuming in that – it’s an example of costume and director and everybody working together. Or the work of Peter Greenaway or Derek Jarman. It’s about knowing the language of your film and appreciating the visual language being used to tell the story. If a different director had done Frankenstein it would be a different visual. It’s always better to be pulled back rather than go too far. 

What would be your dream project? 

Kate Hawley: I’d love to do a Jacobean Duchess of Malfi or a Cleopatra. But it depends on the world that your director is creating. I would love to do some Angela Carter – Nights at the Circus or Wise Children. Angela Carter is perfect because of the magic realism that comes into it. 

Mike Hill: I’d love to do a werewolf one day, but Frankenstein really is the pinnacle. 

Would you like to do the Bride of Frankenstein? 

Mike Hill: Of course, I’d love to. But I’m going to save that for when I get hired to do it. 

Frankenstein is in select cinemas from October 17 and on Netflix from November 7. Frankenstein: Crafting A Tale Eternal opens at the Old Selfridges Hotel from October 17 to November 9.