“Emotion is the New Punk”: Guillermo del Toro & Cast On A Profoundly Human Frankenstein

Guillermo del Toro and the cast of Frankenstein discuss emotion as “the new punk,” a lifelong vision, & the Creature’s existential “why.”

Flanked by his star-studded cast – Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, and Mia Goth – and key members of his creative team, Guillermo Del Toro presented his film not merely as a horror story or a gothic tale, but as a decades-in-the-making meditation on creation, parenthood, and the necessity of forgiveness.

Mama’s Geeky attended an in-person press conference at Netflix Studios, moderated by Jenelle Riley of Variety. It served as a triumphant final preview before the film’s limited theatrical run, which began on October 17, 2025, ahead of its global digital premiere on Netflix on November 7, 2025. The director, writer, and producer was joined by his leads, Oscar Isaac (Victor Frankenstein), Jacob Elordi (The Creature), and Mia Goth (Elizabeth), as well as composer Alexandre Desplat, production designer Tamara Deverell, character designer Mike Hill, and costume designer Kate Hawley.

A Decades-Long Obsession Becomes A “Prodigal Father” Tale

For Guillermo del Toro, the film is the culmination of a lifelong obsession that began when he was a child. He was first exposed to Boris Karloff and James Whale’s “masterpiece”, as he calls it, at age seven, an encounter he describes as having a “profound religious effect” on him. Just four years later, reading Mary Shelley’s novel at age eleven, he had a revelation: “I realized the movie was not the book at all”. It was the book’s grappling with the humanity of the creature and the inhumanity of the world that truly resonated with him.

Guillermo Del Toro’s relationship with the material evolved, mirroring his own journey through life. He initially saw it as a story about himself and his own father. Later, upon becoming a parent, it became a reflection of his relationship with his own child. The final, mature iteration of his vision, he shared, crystallized only after 50, becoming about forgiveness and acceptance. This theme was so central that the ending – that message of grace – served as the guide for his entire writing process.

The director revealed that adapting the classic proved structurally challenging, requiring two to three and a half years of dedicated work. His solution was to structure it as presenting two sides of the tale that were found in the original text. The key, he explained, was framing the narrative around the experience of a father who is unaware of his child’s journey into the world until the child returns to tell his story. This approach cemented the film’s powerful, paternal core, which was underscored by the project’s secret working title: Prodigal Father. Guillermo Del Toro even drew a direct thematic line to his Oscar-winning work, noting that Frankenstein and Pinocchio are the same story: One of an imperfect creation and a father’s responsibility.

The director confessed that he began writing the script with his lead actor already in mind: Oscar Isaac. Isaac, who plays the ambitious and tormented Victor Frankenstein, described his casting as a surprise, resulting from a chance meeting that Guillermo had originally claimed was not about Frankenstein at all.

Oscar Isaac On Victor’s “Doubtless Blindness”

When asked about his experience playing a character as dark and as cruel as Victor, Oscar Isaac offered a fascinating psychological insight. He admitted that he found so much pleasure playing this character. Isaac elaborated on this, contrasting the character with himself:

“So playing, me who’s filled with whys and doubts all the time, to have the release of somebody that’s doubtless about what they want to do to the point of blindness, the fact that I found that so enjoyable, I don’t know what that says about me.”

Jacob Elordi: “I Get to Be Job Asking God Why”

Oscar Isaac’s co-star, Jacob Elordi, provided an equally profound perspective on embodying the Creature. His connection to the material was instantaneous, responding viscerally to the Creature’s existential torment. Elordi saw his role as an opportunity to channel the fundamental questions of existence and suffering, declaring:

“When I read it, every word of the Creature was something that I was asking myself. I mean, I get to be Job asking God why. Every scene was why.”

Elordi’s commitment to embodying the Creature’s vulnerability and rage was evident. He recounted a pivotal moment while reading the script, where the stage direction described the Creature pulling down a mask and seeing the line, “Now run.”

He remembered the moment vividly, saying, “when I read that, I heard drums in my head”. This reaction underscored the emotional truth of the character that Jacob Elordi was determined to bring to the screen.

Character designer Mike Hill later praised Elordi’s dedication, noting that the Creature was designed as a person whose physical appearance was engineered to direct the audience’s gaze towards the actor’s eyes, allowing the character’s “soul coming out” to be the focus, rather than a “garish, ugly monster”.

Mia Goth On The Universal Longing “For a Home”

Mia Goth, who plays Elizabeth Lavenza, spoke to a personal resonance with the narrative’s themes of alienation and belonging. She was incredibly moved by the script, noting that she recognized parts of herself not just in Elizabeth, but, surprisingly, in all of the characters for the first time in her career. Her interpretation of Elizabeth centered on a universal yearning for connection:

“I think this sense of feeling like an outsider and this longing to connect and this searching for a home is what really resonated with me.”

In Guillermo Del Toro’s version, the character of Elizabeth is an amalgam, a voice of wisdom that is fused with the spirit of Mary Shelley herself. Her voice in the film is meant to guide and challenge Victor’s destructive ambition.

“Emotion is the New Punk”: Del Toro’s Final Defiance

Toward the end of the discussion, Guillermo Del Toro addressed the film’s deeper meaning, a topic he approached with the gentle caution of an artist. Acknowledging his past statements that monsters are metaphors for outsiders, he resisted defining the Creature’s symbolism with a single, restrictive meaning.

“You have to be careful with poetry because if you give it a single meaning, it becomes math. It becomes chemistry”.

Instead, he views the symbols as alchemic, shifting, and depending on the reader. His job as the director, he concluded, was not to dictate the audience’s response – “I provide the supermarket, not the shopping list” – but simply to provide the wealth of material and emotion for each person to take what they need.

He finally closed the press conference with a passionate defense of the sincere emotion at the heart of the Frankenstein novel and his film. In a world he believes is increasingly cynical and scared of emotion, he declared a personal revolt:

“I think emotion, as I’ve said in the past, is the new punk. Being emotional is the new punk. It’s the new anarchy”.

The film itself, he asserted, is a complete act of love that has taken decades to create, and a defiant gesture against irony and callousness.

Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein is a powerful exploration of family and the need for empathy.

Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is in select theaters now and will be available to stream globally on Netflix on November 7, 2025.

NEXT: Frankenstein Movie REVIEW [Venice Film Festival 2025]