Not unlike viewers of Netflix’s Frankenstein , the first thing that actors Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi saw on set for the epic new Mary Shelley adaptation was a life-size 19th century Royal Danish Navy ship. Except here, it wasn’t withstanding a harrowing snowstorm — it was hanging out in a parking lot. “You read it in the script, but you don’t think that in the parking lot there’s going to be an actual full-size Arctic expedition ship on gimbals,” says Isaac. “It was really nuts.” Elordi adds, “The scale of this thing was bigger than I could have imagined.”

Welcome to the world of Guillermo del Toro — a land of massive hand-built set pieces, long but impassioned working days, and boundless imagination. This has been true for the Oscar-winning filmmaker as long as he’s been mak

See Full Page