Guillermo del Toro was 'blown away' by Mia Goth's performance in Pearl

Guillermo del Toro cast Mia Goth in Frankenstein after being "blown away" by her performance in the 2022 horror Pearl.

The Mexican filmmaker was stunned by Goth's performance as the titular Pearl, a young woman on the brink of madness who pursues stardom in a desperate attempt to escape the isolation of her parents' farm.

"Like everybody else, I was blown away," he told Elle magazine. "That's when I said, 'However she makes the sauce, I would love to cook with her.'"

Del Toro was particularly impressed by the complexity of her performance, explaining that he can see when an actor is "doing a gentle dismount, which is easy, or doing a triple somersault and landing properly".

He added, "And what she was doing in Pearl was incredibly hard to do. I thought, My God, she just did a quadruple somersault over a fire pit."

Del Toro met with the British actress for the first time in a Los Angeles restaurant in 2023 and asked her directly if she wanted to play both Victor Frankenstein's mother Claire and sister-in-law Elizabeth in his adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

The Shape of Water filmmaker had always imagined one actress playing both parts, and he knew Goth could do the dual role after seeing her play both Pearl and Maxine in Ti West's horror trilogy X, Pearl and MaXXXine.

While she left the meeting "floating for a good two weeks", Goth admitted to the publication that she was filled with nerves when she started production.

"(I remember) walking onto that set and being so nervous I could feel my heart beating in my body," she recalled.

Frankenstein will premiere on Netflix on 7 November.