"I didn’t want to have a mad scientist"- Guillermo del Toro opens up about casting Oscar Isaac as Frankenstein

Frankenstein, a Gothic science fiction film from Academy Award-winning director Guillermo del Toro, is set to make its world premiere at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on August 30, 2025, and have a limited theatrical release on October 17, 2025, followed by a global Netflix release.

The film is written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, and it's an adaptation of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel starring Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein, Jacob Elordi as the Creature, and Mia Goth in dual roles as Elizabeth Lavenza and Victor’s mother.

In an August 20, 2025, interview with Variety, Guillermo del Toro explained his approach to reimagining the central character. He said:

"I didn’t want to have a mad scientist. I wanted to make this sort of rock star genius, and Oscar has all the swagger and swarthy seductive power that Victor, in my mind, had."

This philosophy guided both the casting and the design of Isaac’s character, who is envisioned as a charismatic figure rather than a deranged inventor.

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Guillermo del Toro's decision to cast Oscar Isaac as Frankenstein

A still from the movie (Image via YouTube/Netflix)

Guillermo del Toro highlighted that Isaac’s performance plays a central role in shaping Victor Frankenstein. Instead of depicting the character as a stereotypical unkempt eccentric, Isaac's portrayal makes him a brilliant and charismatic individual with a mix of scientific aspiration and magnetism.

In the same interview with Variety, del Toro noted that:

''Oscar also has a profound humanity. He can be seductive and he has a feline way of moving around that makes you understand how he could attract financial backers for his experiments.''

He further reflected on the character's look, stating that:

''We patterned his wardrobe after London around the ’60s and ’70s. It’s lots of wide brim hats, bell bottom pants, heels on the shoes. If you saw him walking in Soho with Mick Jagger and Twiggy, you would say, 'There goes another rock star.'"

The character’s wardrobe reflects this approach, drawing on 1960s and 1970s London fashion, including wide-brimmed hats, bell-bottom trousers, and platform shoes.

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About the Frankenstein film

Frankenstein is an upcoming American Gothic science fiction horror film directed and written by Guillermo del Toro, based on Mary Shelley's 1818 novel. It follows the story of Victor Frankenstein, a scientist who brings a living entity into existence called the creature through an experiment, which resulted in consequences for both the creature and him.

Del Toro has referred to Frankenstein as a passion project that he has been trying to make for over three decades. He told Variety:

''It took 30 years. It’s a movie I wanted to make before I even had a camera. There’s the DNA of “Frankenstein” on “Chronos,” on “Blade Two,” on “Hellboy.”

Del Toro also revealed that he had envisioned the Creature’s appearance decades earlier. Rather than the familiar stitched-together figure with bolts and clamps, his design resembles a jigsaw puzzle of corpses sourced from battlefields:

“Ever since I started drawing the creature in the late ’70s and early ’80s, I knew I didn’t want symmetric scars and I didn’t want sutures or clamps. What I thought was very interesting was to make him like a jigsaw puzzle. I wanted him to look beautiful, like a newborn thing.''

Frankenstein will have a limited theatrical release on October 17, 2025.

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