Andrew Garfield: Jacob Elordi ‘Needed That Experience’ of Starring in Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Frankenstein’ More Than I Did

Andrew Garfield is supporting his would-be fellow “Frankenstein” monster Jacob Elordi.

Garfield, who was originally set to star in the lead role in Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming “Frankenstein,” had to exit the project following scheduling conflicts due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. Elordi replaced him in the feature.

Now, Garfield is detailing why perhaps Elordi “needed” the experience of working with del Toro more than he did.

“I’m very, very glad that it was him doing it and I am of course disappointed that I didn’t get to do it because I love Guillermo, I love Oscar [Isaac] and everyone that he assembled, so I was disappointed,” Garfield told Deadline. “But meeting Jacob [at the Marrakech International Film Festival] felt really serendipitous so that I could really see and hear that maybe he needed that experience more than me.”

Del Toro’s buzzy “Frankenstein” adaptation stars Elordi as the monster, who is reanimated by scientist Victor Frankenstein, played by Oscar Isaac. Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz, Felix Kammerer, Lars Mikkelsen, David Bradley, and Christian Convery co-star.

Del Toro writes, directs, and produces the reimagining of Mary Shelley’s monster story. The official logline reads: “Guillermo del Toro adapts Mary Shelley’s classic tale of Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant but egotistical scientist who brings a creature to life in a monstrous experiment that ultimately leads to the undoing of both the creator and his tragic creation.”

Elordi had teased to IndieWire that “Frankenstein” is going to be “one hell of a movie.”

Meanwhile, Garfield will make his Luca Guadagnino debut with thriller “After the Hunt” alongside Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, and Chloë Sevigny. Garfield explained that his collaboration with Guadagnino has been more than a decade in the making; Garfield was first set to star in Guadagnino’s 2010 feature “I Am Love.”

“We’ve been wanting to work together for a while,” Garfield said of Guadagnino. “He asked me to do ‘I Am Love’ when he was making that 15 years ago. I met him and Tilda Swinton in an airport departure lounge by request and had a very exciting meeting.” 

Yet scheduling also got in the way of that production for Garfield, who later also was going to work with Guadagnino on the slated “Brideshead Revisited” series. Garfield teased that the duo “had lots of different projects [we] were trying to work on” before “After the Hunt” was set.

“This one hit the magic spot for both of us,” Garfield said of the film. “Luca is such a humanist. What reassures me is that Luca is all about the heart and all about love and eroticism and connections so he’s coming towards the material from such a humanistic angle, which I’m really grateful for.”