In Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, Oscar Isaac takes on the role of the titular Gothic anti-hero, the brilliant but hubristic scientist Victor who's hellbent on creating human life. Funded by enigmatic arms dealer Henrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz), Victor's experiments involve collecting different body parts from various corpses to assemble his own patchwork being.
As a director, del Toro is renowned for the rich production design in his movies and his steadfast commitment to practical effects. According to Isaac, the "fantastic" scene where Victor is assembling the Creature was just as visceral and tactile to film as it was to watch (with "lots of squishy bits and leaky bits") – and it had a surprising personal connection.
"I actually come from a family of doctors," the actor tells GamesRadar+. "My dad is a doctor, his two brothers are doctors, nurses in the family… I worked in a hospital, I was a transporter in a hospital for a couple years, so I was in that a lot. And so it was interesting to kind of be back there, [in] a much more intense situation."
"But also the way it was approached was very romantically; it wasn't approached like your classic kind of horror, lightning everywhere," he continues. "The making of the Creature is the place where Victor feels most confident and most at ease, and the calmest he ever is, is when he has a focused task to do in the thing that he excels at. And so to do that with Guillermo was really, really beautiful."
Isaac adds that working on a del Toro movie feels like being part of "a completely synchronized team," and "everyone feels authorship over their own part and over the whole thing and everyone's invited to bring themselves to it, so there's no whispering in corners. Information is freely available, and I think everyone just feels completely part of the team."
His co-star Jacob Elordi, who plays the Creature, is also full of praise for del Toro's filmmaking. "I felt like I was in the beating heart of what making movies is about," he tells us. "It really was the most full experience I've ever had making a movie."
Frankenstein arrives on Netflix on November 7. For more on what to watch, check out our guide to the best movies on Netflix and everything else new on Netflix in November 2025.
