"I ALREADY HAD MARTY FELDMAN IN MY HEAD"

What does Max Landis brings to this as a writer?

He brings his voice and his take on things, which is incredibly, unashamedly entertaining and fast. The script goes at the pace his mind goes. And he has this ability to write incredibly verbose, highly intelligent, eccentric characters but also give them real heart. He understands that it’s not okay just to have cool, zany characters – you have to care about them. For somebody who’s part of the younger group of writers and is very cool and edgy there’s a real earnestness to his writing, a real sincerity.

Did you go back and watch the classic Frankenstein movies?

I didn’t particularly. I’ve been told for like a long time that I’m not a good mimic, and that it’s my tendency to mimic things. I already had Marty Feldman in my head! If we were doing a comedy Frankenstein or a straight-up horror Frankenstein I think I would have felt more compelled to watch those and incorporate more of that into what I was doing. I didn’t want to be second-guessing my choices because god knows I do that enough anyway.

Igor’s a hunchback – was it tough to create that kind of physicality?

It had to be painful and it had to look like it was real. Most of the scenes I did like that were 30 seconds to a minute and a half long but there was one scene that was like four and a half minutes long – when you’re walking around like that it gets really very sore, very quickly. After the four minutes were over James slammed me into a pillar and I was so fucking grateful to be slammed into a pillar! Yes! Good! Take me out of this godawful position I chose for myself!