Oscar Isaac has opened up about playing the evil genius Baron Victor Frankenstein. Baron Victor is a brilliant but arrogant surgeon who creates the sapient creature, played by Jacob Elordi. The film is written and directed by Guillermo del Toro and is based on the 1818 gothic novel Frankenstein authored by Mary Shelley.
Oscar Isaac has this to say about playing Victor in Frankenstein
Oscar Isaac discussed playing Victor in Frankenstein in a candid chat with Teyana Taylor for Variety and CNN’s Actors on Actors. Taylor heaped praise on Isaac and his unparalleled filmography. She gushed, “You make me excited for when I start really getting up there. I’m just not going to age, because you’re not aging! You’re giving me hope that I just will not age” (via Variety).
The 35-year-old star asked him, “Do you ever get stuck in any of your characters?” To which Isaac admitted, “I did have a hard time when I went into another project after Frankenstein.” He remarked that he didn’t realize Victor had fully left his system until he brought back the character in a discussion.
Furthermore, he shared that after filming Frankenstein he played a character that was “quite tight and small” and realized that Victor still existed in him. Isaac expressed, “Victor was still in there, angry that he had to be in this tiny little sad man.”
The Scenes from a Marriage star reminisced that playing Victor was “freeing and pleasurable.” Isaac also compared it to Taylor’s character Perfidia from One Battle After Another and how both their characters love pleasure.
He explained, “There was something about playing somebody so unhinged, with no regard for moral judgment. That it’s this vitalist energy that was really exciting and pleasurable to play. Leaving that was really hard.”
He also shared that “energy wise,” Victor Frankenstein is his most intense character to date. Isaac emphasized, “It’s a big character and it’s heightened: It was very much like an opera, like a dance.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, Isaac revealed that the most difficult scene was the last scene between Victor and the creature. When Taylor asked if he felt any remorse for beating Elordi’s creature, the Dune star admitted he felt no regret.
