Jacob Elordi Went to the Edge for Frankenstein — The Pain-Fueled Transformation Behind His Most Intense Role

Jacob Elordi did the classic actor thing: he went through hell on one project and then used every ounce of that pain to play a literal monster. It worked. And it sounds like it might have saved his relationship with acting in the process.

The World War II shoot that broke him (and then helped build the Creature)

Before Guillermo del Toro put him under layers of makeup for Frankenstein, Elordi shot The Narrow Road to the Deep North, an Australian miniseries set across three timelines that stares down love, loss, and war. It includes a brutal stretch in a Japanese POW camp, and Elordi went to extremes to sell that reality, including a severe weight drop that wrecked his body.

He told the Los Angeles Times that the production was grueling enough that he would wake up around 3 a.m., mind racing, body screaming. Months of that left him fragile and, honestly, a little unmoored. Not exactly a fun headspace, but strangely perfect for del Toro’s Creature, who is defined by hurt he can’t quite name.

Elordi says he wanted to disappear after that show and rethink how he works. When Frankenstein landed, he realized the Creature was exactly where he could hide in plain sight — a performance he could pour all that physical and existential fallout into and come out the other side with something new.

Side note: The Narrow Road to the Deep North is directed by Justin Kurzel and, as of now, sits at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. The cast around Elordi includes Ciaran Hinds, Odessa Young, and Simon Baker. It’s a tough watch, but a precise one.

Del Toro’s passion project meets an actor on the edge

Here’s the part that surprised me: right before Frankenstein, Elordi was seriously questioning whether he wanted to keep doing this. He felt aimless and disconnected from the job. Del Toro’s film — which the filmmaker has been aching to make for years — became a reset button.

To find the Creature, Elordi tried to strip his brain back to something simple and raw, like a newborn’s wiring: curiosity and wonder, but also the kind of pain that doesn’t have words yet. Over six months, inside that makeup and that lonely character, he rebuilt his way of working and, by the sound of it, his sense of self.

"I was liberated in this makeup. I didn’t have to be this version of myself anymore. In those six months, I completely rebuilt myself."

That’s not your usual press tour fluff. It’s raw, and it tracks with how the Creature plays in del Toro’s hands — more tragic and searching than monstrous, a Gothic sci‑fi figure with a heavy, almost Miltonic weight on his shoulders.

Frankenstein basics if you need the quick hit

• Title: Frankenstein (2025)
• Director/Writer: Guillermo del Toro
• Source: Mary Shelley’s 'Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'
• Cast: Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz
• Runtime: 150 minutes
• Budget: $120 million
• Rotten Tomatoes: 83%
• IMDb: 7.4
• Status: In theaters now; streaming on Netflix starting November 7, 2025

Bottom line: Elordi’s Creature isn’t just posture and prosthetics. It’s months of real exhaustion and doubt channeled into a performance that feels lived-in, bruised, and unexpectedly tender — exactly the kind of left‑turn you hope for when a director like del Toro finally gets to make the monster movie he’s been dreaming about.