Maggie Gyllenhaal says The Bride! was inspired by Bride Of Frankenstein tattoo
The 48-year-old’s film is heavily inspired by the 1935 original.
The Bride! director Maggie Gyllenhaal has said her latest film was inspired by a man’s tattoo of The Bride Of Frankenstein which she saw at a party.
The 48-year-old’s film is heavily inspired by the 1935 original The Bride Of Frankenstein and sees actress Jessie Buckley play The Bride and Christian Bale play Frankenstein’s Monster.
Gyllenhaal said: “I was at a party, and I saw a man with a tattoo, on his whole forearm of The Bride Of Frankenstein – and it hooked me.
“People have been pitching me things… different ideas, different IP, even just bouncing things, and nothing was sticking, and I saw this tattoo, and I was like, ‘oh, yeah, have I even seen that movie?’, I know the image, I know the character.
“And I went back home, I was doing press in LA and I went back to my hotel room, and I looked her up online… the Elsa Lanchester original, Bride Of Frankenstein, just has this impact the way she looks, something about her is like formidable.
“And then I watched the movie, which I hadn’t seen, and I realised she doesn’t speak… here’s this movie called The Bride Of Frankenstein, which is really not in any way about The Bride Of Frankenstein, and yet Elsa Lanchester makes this impact, even though she’s in the movie for three minutes and doesn’t speak.
“Why? Well, because she’s kind of a badass, and also because… she wakes up and says, ‘no’, I mean, that’s basically what she does, and that’s unusual and also I just think she just has this formidable power.”
The film follows Frankenstein’s Monster as he travels to 1930s Chicago to ask scientist Dr Euphronious (Annette Bening) to create a companion for him, the two revive a murdered young woman and The Bride is born.
Gyllenhaal added: “I was like, ‘well, okay, what can I do with that?’, and how can I take this idea, which has fundamentally got some major problems with it…
“Frankenstein is a monster, of course, who does monstrous, awful things, but he’s also beautiful, human, kind, and so lonely, so his ask for a mate, which is part of the book, which is part of the mythology, is really understandable, but at the same time, what about the mate?
“He’s asking to have someone brought back from the dead to be his girlfriend, what about her, and that’s what this movie really gets into, what if she comes back and she has her own needs, and her own agenda, and her own wants, and her own terrors?”
The film will also star Peter Sarsgaard, Jake Gyllenhaal and Penelope Cruz.
The Bride! will be released in cinemas in the UK and Ireland from March 6.
