Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” is one of the most sumptuous, highly detailed films of the year, and it’s no wonder given the talent of the team that brought it to the screen.
In this new version of Mary Shelley’s immortal novel, Oscar Isaac plays the scientist hellbent on creating life, stitching together the bodies of cadavers to form his misunderstood creature (Jacob Elordi). In the same way, del Toro borrows from iterations that have come before while also crafting something wholly unique and 100% his own. The resulting film feels both familiar and totally new; a classic story told through a brand-new lens.
And it was up to costume designer Kate Hawley, production designer Tamara Deverell and make-up Mike Hill, to bring this new iteration of “Frankenstein” to life. They were the lightning – and the subject of our latest installment of How I Did It, presented by Netflix.
For everyone involved it was a huge thrill to be asked to do the project, especially since it is an adaptation that del Toro had been dreaming about since he was a little kid. But along with that thrill also came a level of anxiety given how treasured this project was to del Toro. There are passion projects and then there is his “Frankenstein.”
“When Guillermo still started talking about ‘Frankenstein,’ all of us felt excited and some trepidation because we knew how important this was for Guillermo. There was a bit of burden. You want to make good his dream,” said Hawley. She said that when they started talking about the movie, he was delivering “images and thoughts that we knew we were going to be different.”
“He wanted a more contemporary film, he wanted to introduce color. It was so fresh,” Hawley said.
“I’m doing everything to absorb his script, what he wants, what I want, what I’m going to bring to the table, the research,” said Deverell, about how she started off on the project. “We’re drawing from art history, from the history of cinema, from sculpture, like the Medusa as a misunderstood monster and exploring that as a side-theme or background element. Who’s the real monster? It’s Victor ultimately.”
“We’ve been talking about this character for many, many years,” said Hill. “So when he asked me to do the movie, besides being elated, it was also a big pressure on your shoulders to be asked to do Guillermo’s ‘Frankenstein.’”
It was up to Hill to create the creature, who has a singular look, like he’s chiseled out of a single piece of marble.
“There have been hundreds of adaptions of ‘Frankenstein’ in film so it was a new challenge to come up with a new concept for this creature. The best way to do it is to ignore all of the past ones and don’t worry if there’s any kind of overlap. But I needed him to look like it came out of an 18th century textbook. It was all done by a man’s hand and not some kind of accident,” said Hill. “It started to become different than the rest and Guillermo started to respond to it.”
Watch the full “How I Did It” video for even more from Hawley, Deverell and Hill, for even more details about how they pulled off “Frankenstein.”
“Frankenstein” is on Netflix now.
