Of all the actresses working in horror today, none is more exciting than Mia Goth. It’s tempting to call her the greatest scream queen of our era, but Goth’s performances are different. She’s almost more like the Robert De Niro or Daniel Day-Lewis of horror, with her contributing shocking, lived-in, and realistic performances to a whole slew of the most shocking movies of the last couple of years. Her performance in Ti West’s X– Pearl – MaXXXine trilogy remains a striking achievement, with many taking serious issue with the fact that she was overlooked by the academy, especially in Pearl. Additionally, she was superb in Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool and has consistently delivered standout work since many of us first noticed her, notably in Gore Verbinski’s A Cure for Wellness.

As such, when she was cast in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein,I thought she would be playing The Bride of Frankenstein, even though this wasn’t part of Mary Shelley’s novel (although Kenneth Branagh included it in his film). Of course, I was wrong and Goth is cast in a role that totally subverted my expectations of her, with her cast as Victor Frankstein’s love interest, Elizabeth. In other versions of the story, Elizabeth is Victor’s steadfast fiancée, but here she is married to his brother, and actually becomes far more enamoured of Jacob Elordi’s The Creature, who she views with total and utter compassion, with their relationship giving the movie a tragic dimension. It’s rare for Goth to play a character who radiates kindness and goodness from start to finish, so I was eager to see her take on the role when I interviewed her recently for the film’s streaming release (it’s now streaming on Netflix). Goth proved to be a considerate, thoughtful interview, and it’s clear that both this role and her work with del Toro meant a lot to her. Check out the interview embedded above and let us know in the comments what you thought of the film.