Guillermo del Toro has opened up about how the experience of winning an Oscar directly shaped a scene in his latest film, Frankenstein.
The Mexican filmmaker, 61, spent decades trying to adapt Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein for the screen. His version, which stars Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi, was released by Netflix last November.
In a new interview with Bradley Cooper for Variety, Del Toro explained how a key scene in his new film depicting Frankenstein’s monster entering a house was influenced by the experience of walking onstage at the Academy Awards. Back in 2018, Del Toro won Best Director and Best Picture for his romantic fantasy film The Shape of Water.
“The moment where he crosses from his hiding place into the house, the camera crosses with him through the set,” said Del Toro. “All of a sudden, he’s in a completely different environment. It’s the widest shot of the scene, so that when we enter the house, it’s magical.”
He continued: “That happened to me at the Academy Awards. When I got the Oscar for Shape of Water, people asked, ‘How does it feel?’ I said, ‘Well, you’re in your seat and then you climb up to the stage and turn around and go, ‘What is this?’’ All of a sudden, you’re in your dream moment in the shower as a kid rehearsing your speech with the shampoo bottle.
“The monster needed to feel like that. He enters the house, and it needs to feel like a palace.”
Del Toro’s adaptation of Frankenstein earned four Critics Choice Awards last weekend, including a Best Supporting Actor trophy for Elordi, following its rave reviews from critics, with The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey naming it the best film of 2025.
“I feel we’re in dire need of the Romantic, Gothic spirit that Mary Shelley championed in her 1818 novel Frankenstein, that rejects what would conform us, automate us, and divide us,” wrote Loughrey. “Instead, let us embrace radical compassion and imagination. Let us open the door to doubt, vulnerability, and humility. Let us surrender ourselves to ideas larger than we can control.
“Guillermo del Toro, our father of monsters, is one of the closest figures we have today to Shelley, Bryon, and the whole Romantic set of the early 19th century. Frankenstein is his passion project, his life’s ambition. He’s described Shelley’s novel as essentially ‘his Bible’. And with his adaptation, he doesn’t speak for Shelley, but more directly communes with her. It’s not just a translation. It’s a dialogue.”
