Jacob Elordi and Mia Goth Were Banned by Del Toro from Meeting or Touching Before Filming the Prison Scene.”

What happened when the dungeon door finally opened will haunt the crew forever.

Guillermo del Toro has always been obsessive about first encounters. On the set of his upcoming gothic horror-romance (working title: Frankenstein), he treated the moment Dr. Frankenstein’s Creature (Jacob Elordi) sees a living woman for the very first time as sacred.

That woman is the captive bride, played by Mia Goth. Del Toro’s rule was absolute: the two actors were forbidden from meeting, speaking, rehearsing, or even accidentally brushing past each other in the makeup trailer for the entire 11-week shoot leading up to the dungeon sequence.

“No eye contact. No hellos. No names,” del Toro reportedly told them on day one. “I want the Creature to register her the way Adam registered Eve: as something impossible, terrifying, and magnetic. If you two know each other, the miracle dies.”

Crew members confirm the ban was enforced with military precision. Jacob and Mia were given separate entrances to Pinewood’s Stage 13. Their call sheets were staggered by 45 minutes. If one was on set, the other was locked in a soundproofed dressing room.

Even the daily sides were printed on different colored paper so runners wouldn’t get confused.

The dungeon set itself was a masterpiece of slime-covered stone, dripping chains, and flickering gas lamps was kept under black tarp when not shooting. Only essential personnel were allowed inside. Phones were confiscated. Del Toro himself stood guard like a priest protecting a relic.

Then came the night of the scene.

Jacob, in eight hours of prosthetic makeup, 7’10” in platform boots, yellow contact lenses, neck bolts, and stitched gray-green skin was walked to his mark in total darkness.

Mia, barefoot in a blood-stained linen shift, was already chained to the far wall, breathing controlled and shallow, eyes fixed on the floor. The only communication either actor had received was a handwritten note from del Toro slipped under their doors that morning:

“Tonight you meet God. Do not blink.”

The slate clapped. The massive iron door groaned open on hydraulics. A single shaft of sickly torchlight cut through the black.

What happened next was not acting.

Jacob’s Creature took one lumbering step forward. His breathing (real, ragged, amplified by the prosthetics) filled the entire stage. Mia slowly lifted her head. For three full seconds the only sound was the drip of water somewhere in the darkness.

Then their eyes locked.

Multiple witnesses describe the same impossible phenomenon: the temperature in the 3,000-square-foot stage seemed to drop ten degrees in an instant. One gaffer swears the flame on his work-light shrank to blue.

The script called for the Creature to tilt his head in confusion and fear, but Jacob did something else entirely: his shoulders loosened, his stitched mouth parted, and he exhaled a sound that was half-sob, half-prayer.

Mia, chained and supposedly terrified, leaned forward against her restraints as if pulled by an invisible wire. Her lips trembled, but not from fear; something hungry flashed behind her eyes.

Del Toro did not call cut. He simply whispered “keep rolling” into his headset and let the cameras turn for a full four silent minutes.

When he finally yelled “Cut… print that, my God, print that,” the spell broke. Jacob staggered backward, ripping off the restrictive jaw prosthetic in one violent motion. Mia’s chains were unlocked and she slid down the wall, knees to chest, shaking.

Then Jacob crossed the set in three strides, crouched in front of her, and said the sentence that every single person on that stage still quotes word-for-word when they tell the story in hushed tones:

“I thought it would be harder… until I saw you.”

He said it softly, almost laughing in disbelief, voice raw from hours of restricted breathing.

Mia looked up, mascara streaked, and answered only with a tiny nod, as if the words had punched the air out of her.

The first AD, a 30-year veteran who has worked with Scorsese and Nolan, later admitted: “I’ve seen De Niro cry, I’ve seen Day-Lewis bleed, but I have never felt a set go that quiet. You could hear blood in your ears.

Whatever happened between those two in that moment was not performance. It was recognition.”

Del Toro, visibly shaken, called wrap twenty minutes early, something he has never done in his career. He gathered the crew in a circle and said only: “Some doors, once opened, cannot be closed again. Guard what you saw tonight.”

Post-production sources say the raw footage of that first take is being kept under digital lock and key. Test-screening audiences reportedly gasp aloud at the moment their eyes meet, even without music or sound design.

Jacob and Mia have still never spoken publicly about the ban or that night. When asked in separate interviews, Jacob deflects with a cryptic smile: “Some things are bigger than craft.” Mia simply says, “I felt him before I saw him. And then I couldn’t unfeel him.”

One thing is certain: after that take, the no-contact rule quietly dissolved. Crew members began noticing the two actors arriving together in the same car, sharing headphones between setups, speaking in low voices that stopped whenever anyone approached.

Del Toro, when pressed by Variety, offered only this: “Cinema is alchemy. Sometimes you put two elements in a jar, seal it tight, and wait for lightning. That night, the storm came.”

The film is still deep in post-production, but those who were on Stage 13 that night know the truth: Whatever appears on screen next year will be powerful, beautiful, and terrifying, but it will only be an echo of the real voltage that passed between Jacob Elordi and Mia Goth the first time the monster met his bride.

And it began with eight quiet words that changed everything:

“I thought it would be harder… until I saw you.”