Jacob Elordi Tears Up During 13-Minute Venice Ovation As del Toro’s Frankenstein Debuts

Jacob Elordi cried while the Venice Film Festival audience clapped for roughly 13 to 14 minutes at the world premiere of Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, a moment documented in premiere videos and covered by Variety and the New York Post.

Hi, I am Sage Matthews, your chronically sleep-deprived guide through the latest cultural spectacle. Picture me with coffee gone cold, asking why we all applaud for a quarter of an hour while Rome politely smolders in the background. Of course this happened.

Here is the scene. Elordi, 28, in a classic black suit and bow tie, put a hand on his chest, smiled through the noise, then wiped away tears as the ovation rolled on and on at Venice on Saturday. He even broke into a quick, dorky victory dance. Oscar Isaac, 46, leaned in and planted a kiss on Elordi’s cheek before a hug, a little bromance flourish noted in multiple reports and seen in clips from inside the theater. Guillermo del Toro, 60, joined the embrace as the crowd kept pounding their palms. The gesture was sweet. The duration was epic. The message was unsubtle. This was a moment designed to trend.

Elordi plays the Monster in del Toro’s revival of the classic, with Isaac as Victor Frankenstein and Mia Goth as the love interest. The supporting roster is stacked, including Christoph Waltz, Felix Kammerer, Lauren Collins, Lars Mikkelsen, Charles Dance, and Ralph Ineson. If you are sensing an awards-angled cast list, congratulations, your cynicism is functioning.

In a recent interview with Variety, Elordi said he spent 10 hours in the makeup chair to transform, a marathon sit that shaped the character’s physical arc. He described early scenes where the creature’s chest is exposed and posture is open, followed by a curling inward as pain accumulates, then a final closing off in adulthood. It is method by posture, with prosthetics. He also admitted he was a last-minute addition after Andrew Garfield exited the project, a casting pivot that spawned the nervous actor’s ritual: setting up the iPhone for a Zoom with del Toro, then second-guessing everything from shirt choice to whether a fedora or crucifix would somehow impress a beloved filmmaker. After that call, he waited nine excruciating days for word he had the role. If anxiety were a PR strategy, it worked.

According to the New York Post, this Venice appearance doubled as Elordi’s first red carpet since splitting from Olivia Jade Giannulli. Before the premiere, he hit a photocall in an all-white outfit, then kept it timeless for the evening. Expect those two looks to get dissected within an inch of their seams by fashion accounts and stan cams in approximately five minutes.

Let us talk about the ovation. At Venice and Cannes, these extended applause sessions have become their own headline economy. Six minutes means polite enthusiasm. Ten minutes means publicist confetti. Thirteen or fourteen minutes means someone is about to cry on camera. The festival circuit loves a stopwatch and a narrative. And if you are doing the math, that is close to a quarter of a sitcom runtime dedicated to clapping. On Saturday, Elordi delivered the expected emotional payoff, which is why you are reading this and why social feeds are looping the same fifteen seconds of glossy tears, again.

For viewers who prefer watching their monsters from the couch, there is a calendar to mark. Frankenstein will play in select theaters starting October 17, then heads to Netflix on November 7, a rollout the streamer has put on the books. Translation: you will have three weeks of think pieces about the performance, the makeup, and whether the ovation length correlates to actual quality before the general public weighs in with an overnight consensus.

If you are keeping track of career momentum, Elordi has quietly shifted from teen-show fame to auteur-adjacent leading man. Perform for a camera, cry for a festival, land a prestige title with del Toro. The pivot writes itself. Whether this is his final form or just a strategic midgame depends on how the film plays outside the lagoon glow of Venice.

One more reality check. The cheek kiss with Isaac will become a meme. The 10-hour makeup sit will become a resilience anecdote on talk shows. The nine-day wait for the role will get folded into a tidy origin story about patience and grit. And the ovation math will keep escalating because if there is one thing awards season knows how to do, it is inflate the dramatic gesture. Still, the craft is real. The prosthetics look intense, the cast is undeniable, and del Toro does not turn up to tell half a story. The circus is loud, but the work might justify the noise.

So where does that leave us? A festival floor sticky with applause, a rising star in tears, a monster reborn for the algorithm, and a release plan timed for maximum buzz. Anyway, set your timers. We are about to find out whether a 13-minute standing ovation translates into two solid hours of unforgettable cinema or just a shiny prelude to another weekend of streaming chatter. Bookmark this for the inevitable I told you so moment.

Sources: Celebrity Storm and New York Post, Variety, Netflix
Generated by AI