Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein won three Academy Awards at the 98th Academy Awards in Los Angeles, taking Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Production Design, and Best Costume Design, honoring the teams that created the film’s unforgettable monster and bleak period world.
Frankenstein emerges as this year’s makeup, hair, and costume powerhouse
The 98th Academy Awards concluded with Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein standing out as the evening’s major styling winner. The film swept Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Production Design, and Best Costume Design, confirming industry recognition of its meticulous visual work.
Makeup and hairstyling team takes center stage
Makeup and hairstyling designers Mike Hill, Jordan Samuel, and Cliona Furey moved the audience when they accepted the Makeup and Hairstyling award. On stage, Mike Hill grew emotional and thanked director Guillermo del Toro “for turning his dream project into our dream,” he said. The brief remark captured years of quiet dedication from the entire team.
Hill, a sculptor from Warrington in England, began making monster masks from river clay as a child. He worked his way up from special effects makeup on television to standing on the Academy Awards stage, a career trajectory that reads like a film in itself. The award for Frankenstein affirms the long hours and detailed craft of the backstage crew.
Jacob Elordi’s transformation into the monster
Playing the monster required more than acting. Jacob Elordi arrived early each day for a makeup routine that could last 10 hours. He wore as many as 42 silicone prosthetic pieces covering his body to create the stitched, pieced together look, with every scar and seam designed and crafted in detail.
The monster’s face draws on multiple historical makeup designs to achieve a tragic, arresting grotesqueness. Because the prosthetics covered so much of his skin, Elordi could barely eat or drink on set, and the physical toll was significant.
Mike Hill said the guiding principle for the monster was to make the creature pitiable without being purely frightening. “We wanted audiences to feel the pain behind that presence, not just be scared by it,” he said. The makeup team layered silicone skins, and through the seams and wounds on Elordi’s face they quietly told the story of a created life that has suffered.
The man who sat in the makeup chair for 400 hours
On stage, Hill also praised Jacob Elordi for his endurance during filming, saying Elordi “sat in the makeup chair for a full 400 hours,” and calling him “my mate,” he said. That stamina and professionalism helped make the role so powerful. Turning such discomfort into performance drew wide admiration.
The monster’s hair actually shines
One surprising detail of the hair and styling was the material mix in the monster’s head of hair. At first glance it looks dirty and tangled, but the team used a blend of human hair, horsehair, and a custom synthetic fine metal thread.
A subtle electrical cue in the hair
The metal threads are nearly invisible in normal light, but under certain angles or strong illumination the hair gives off a faint metallic sheen, suggesting an electric current running through it. The effect is an intentional metaphor by the makeup and hair designers, hinting that this life, revived from death, survives because of electricity, and giving the creature an uncanny, nonhuman presence.
The overall hairstyle was designed to look heavy and unkempt, as if this life had never been cared for since birth. Achieving that deliberate disarray required the hair team to work strand by strand to create a natural, yet richly detailed, result, and it was one of the most labor intensive elements of the makeup and hair design.
Dirt under the nails, a mark of guilt
In addition to the monster’s design, Oscar Isaac’s character also hides chilling styling details. Dressed in refined, upper class clothing, his outward appearance reads as respectable. Yet a close look at his hands reveals dirt under the fingernails, a detail that betrays him. That seemingly minor touch was deliberately applied by the styling team.
Hands that cannot hide their sins
For the designers, the contrast of a polished exterior and unclean hands silently reveals the character’s wrongdoing: no matter how carefully someone dresses themselves, the crimes committed by their hands cannot be disguised. The best design work tells a story in places the audience does not immediately notice.
