After a few weeks of theatrical release, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein debuted on Netflix last Friday, which was the night I watched it… and immediately understood why people recommended seeing it in a theater, lol. It truly is sumptuous; the whole art direction, production & costume design, all of it was so wonderfully EXTRA. Plus y’all know I’m a music score nerd, and Holy Organs, Batman Frankenstein! Alexandre Desplat is already one of the great film composers working today, and this score is one of his absolute best. So varied, at times perfectly in sync with the emotional moment of a scene, at others ingeniously contrary or subversive to the expected mood. And anchoring the whole film is Oscar Isaac’s performance as Victor Frankenstein. Oscar’s resting stance is magnetic, so imagine how much that gets amped up in a theatrically heightened world. Oscar is one of GQ’s seven Men of the Year covers, and in his profile he talks a lot about his working relationship with Guillermo. And then Oscar gets in a deserved dig at Disney.

Playing Dr. Frankenstein like an addict: “I think our version, this Victor, has a lot of rage in him,” Isaac says. “Defiance was a word we used a lot—a lot of addicts, that’s one of the main things they have. Defiance against circumstances, against themselves, against their past. So the fun thing with Victor is I played him like an addict, even though the only thing you see him ingest is milk, as a way to get Mom’s milk back.”

First Guillermo invited Oscar for Cuban food… We sat in his kitchen and ordered take-out Cuban food, and we’re sitting there eating rice and beans and pork, and we just started talking about our fathers. We started talking about our dads, and the pain and the joy and forgiveness, and becoming fathers ourselves and what’s inherited, as far as pain and trauma. And how one moves forward in relation to that kind of a past and either trying to run away from it or trying to fix it or change it or holding onto a lot of these resentments.

…then Guillermo offered Oscar the part: And at the end of that conversation, he said, “I’m making Frankenstein, and I think you need to play Victor.” And I said, “You’re doing what?” He’s like, “It’s this thing I’ve always wanted to make, and I just think that you need to be Victor.” And so of course it was an incredible moment, but I was protective of getting too excited. I’m like, Maybe he’s just having an aneurysm right now, or who knows—maybe he just says that to everybody, that’s like his pickup line.

Dark film, joyful set: Guillermo is such an incredibly joyful person. And the set was joyful. We were laughing all the time. He basically directed me in dirty jokes, and we only spoke in Spanish to each other. I think because there was so much joy and lightness, we were able to go full tilt with the darkness as well. It’s an emotional Mexican melodrama that we made. This is a very European story told in an extremely Latin point of view. At one point I was like, “That is a lot, man. Is this too much?” And he is like, “Look, cabrón, it is not an accident that my Victor’s real name is Oscar Isaac Hernández.”

On his saying he’d only return to Star Wars if he needed another house: Yeah. That was a real likable quote. Jesus Christ. Y’know, people ask you things, you say stuff, you don’t really think about it that much. I said a slightly dickish thing. … I mean, I’d be open to it, although right now I’m not so open to working with Disney. But if they can kinda figure it out and, you know, not succumb to fascism, that would be great.

[From GQ]

The GQ editors note that the interview took place smack dab in the middle of those six days when Jimmy Kimmel was suspended, so Oscar’s comments were made when we didn’t know which way the Mouse was gonna blow. Still, I don’t think Disney is really ever that far away from slipping into fascism. This barb from Oscar is just one of many things to love in the article, and there’s loads more than what’s excerpted here! I love that he and Guillermo spoke to each other in Spanish during filming. I found it kind of adorable that Oscar wondered if “Will you be in my movie?” was Guillermo’s pickup line. And who am I kidding, they basically had me at rice and beans and pork (every food group!). I tried to keep out spoilers even in terms of character decisions they made together — for anyone who likes to go in with a completely blank slate. But if you’ve already seen the film (or are just interested!), Oscar goes into even more detail in the full interview. Likewise, I highly recommend watching Frankenstein: The Anatomy Lesson, a 45-minute companion making-of film that’s out now on Netflix!

Photos credit: StillMoving.Net for Netflix, Ken Woroner/Netflix, Dave Benett