Jacob Elordi Underwent 10 Hours of Makeup for Frankenstein: ‘I Stopped Having a Clock’
The 28-year-old actor would sometimes report to the makeup department at 10 p.m., sitting in the chair all night for an early call time
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Fans of Jacob Elordi might not be able to recognize him this fall thanks to his turn as “the Creature” in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein.
The 28-year-old Euphoria actor took on the role after actor Andrew Garfield passed citing scheduling conflicts, diving into the cursed creation of Dr. Victor Frankenstein, played by Oscar Isaac.
To get fully into character, Elordi underwent 10 hours in the makeup chair on a daily basis, a new profile on the horror film in Variety reports.
“There’s so many different layers to the costume,” Elordi told the outlet of transforming into the monster with translucent skin. “When he’s born, he’s wearing nearly nothing. His chest is open and his head is high. Then, as he starts to experience pain, as we do as a teenager, he starts to hunch his shoulders. And as an adult, he closes off.”
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On days when he had an early call time, Elordi would have to arrive to the makeup trailer at 10 p.m., sitting in makeup all night to transform into the monster, who is meant to be composed of different body parts.
“You throw time away when you make a film like this,” Elordi said. “I stopped having a clock, and I would just wait till the SUV arrived. That meant it was time to go. I didn’t do breakfast, lunch or dinner, or think in terms of morning, afternoon, night. It was just one time.”
And despite the grueling schedule, director del Toro said Elordi was a true professional throughout filming.
“Never once did he come to me and complain,” del Toro told Variety. “Never once did he come to me and say, ‘I’m tired. I’m hungry. Can I go?’ And he put in 20-hour days.”
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One “creature” that wasn’t affected by Elordi’s transformation was his dog Layla.
“She loved it, actually,” the Saltburn star said. “She didn’t bark — or feel threatened.”
In addition to the work done in the makeup chair, Elordi also perfected his movements and speech to play the Creature.
According to Variety, he based his halting, unsteady walk on a Japanese form of dance called butoh, which he practiced in his free time. He also listened to Mongolian throat singing to get into character.
“It’s guttural smooth chanting,” he said, practicing the lines with the false teeth for his costume, adding of the sounds, “It feels like it got hit in the head with a bat.”
Overall, the role of the Creature had the biggest impact on Elordi as an actor of any of his roles to date.
“It changed me fundamentally — changed the way that I approach performance and the way that I watch movies,” he said.
Frankenstein will play in select theaters Oct. 17 and will be released on Netflix on Nov. 7.
