Jacob Elordi Spent 400 Hours in Frankenstein Makeup and Won an Oscar

The makeup artist responsible for turning Jacob Elordi into the monster in Frankenstein thought the actor would “hate” him at some point. But in the end he was pleasantly surprised. The 28-year-old Euphoria actor spent a lot of time preparing to play the iconic monster opposite Oscar Isaac's Victor Frankenstein in Guillermo del Del's new version of the classic film. Thoreau — 10 hours a day because «a lot of stuff» was put on his body.

The hard work paid off with a big win at the 2026 Oscars on Sunday, March 15, when the film took home the award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling, writes xrust.

During his acceptance speech on stage at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, California, Elordi's makeup artist and prosthetics specialist, Mike Hill, admitted that the actor spent 400 hours applying and removing makeup while filming the film, people writes.

Speaking to press backstage, Hill detailed the process, saying, «It took 10 hours to do the head-to-toe makeup because we had to turn him into essentially a living statue.»

He continued, adding: «And when I first met Jacob, I told him, 'Listen, you're going to hate me at two in the morning, and I'm going to hate you for hating me, but we need to make a movie.'»

In the end, everything turned out wrong: “We did not feel hatred. He is the nicest person in the world. The most patient person in the world. Ten hours a day, 56 times, and he never complained. And now we are good friends,” he clarified.

Jordan Samuel, who also worked on the makeup team, added that Hill and Elordi had to arrive on set sometimes six to seven hours earlier than the rest of the cast and crew.

“They were there from about midnight, and in some cases we came at six or seven in the morning to start working with the main cast. And I should mention something that Mike rarely talks about, but that you need to understand. It was 10 hours in the dressing room, but you have to understand that for four or five of those hours Jacob stood there while his makeup was being applied. He did not sit on a chair and did not rest. So once again I take my hat off to him.”

When asked how he created his version of the monster, Hill replied: «With the Thing, it was basically starting over and, you know, not going back to previous interpretations.»

“And we don’t care if there is some kind of coincidence. What are we going to do? This creature has been around for hundreds of years. So the challenge was essentially to make it look like it came off an assembly line in the 1800s. Victor Frankenstein created not the old Volkswagen, but the Porsche. So your monster doesn't have to be ugly, it just has to be different, and that's what we tried to do,» Hill explained.

The artist added: “Also, he shouldn’t have looked like an accident victim. It had to look like the thing was made with extreme precision, so we designed the geometric shapes and so on.»

In an interview with Variety in August 2025, reflecting on the process of getting into character, Elordi said: “When you make a movie like this, time is wasted.”

“I stopped using the watch and just waited for the SUV to arrive. This meant it was time to go. I didn’t have breakfast, lunch or dinner, I didn’t think about what would happen in the morning, afternoon and evening. It was just a one-time thing,” he added, with del Toro praising his determination.

“He never came to me with complaints,” del Toro said. «He never came up to me and said, 'I'm tired. I'm hungry. Can I go?' But he worked 20 hours a day.”

Xrust Jacob Elordi spent 400 hours in Frankenstein makeup and won an Oscar