In the 1930s, movie audiences were first introduced to Frankenstein’s Creature and the Wicked Witch of the West, and were terrified by them for decades afterward. But in 2025, audiences and Oscar voters are less likely to fear the Creature and the Witch than they are to root for and cry for them. Between Jacob Elordi’s Creature in Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” and the imminent final chapter for Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba in “Wicked: For Good,” these two former monsters are each getting a heroic or antiheroic victory lap from viewers, and perhaps soon from Oscar voters with two very historic nominations.
Fantasy creatures, monsters, and tragically inhuman beings are the backbone of their genres, but they are very rarely nominated by the Academy. In fact, until 2024, only four actors had been Oscar nominated in this century for playing characters who are something beyond human: Willem Dafoe as a real vampire version of actor Max Schreck in 2000’s “Shadow of the Vampire,” Ian McKellen as the wizard Gandalf in 2001’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” Meryl Streep as a different Witch in 2014’s “Into the Woods,” and Ryan Gosling for technically playing a male doll in 2023’s “Barbie.” Otherwise, when it comes to actors in extensive prosthetics playing fantasy beings, they are rarely nominated and barely considered.
Actors buried under tons of makeup are Oscar-nominated and Oscar-winning all the time. Still, those examples are largely for playing real-life figures or characters who are clearly human beings. Even when “The Substance” won Best Makeup and Hairstyling last year, largely for the climactic “MonstroElisasue” creation in the third act, it was the un-nominated Margaret Qualley who actually wore that suit instead of near Best Actress winner Demi Moore. And when “Nosferatu” transformed Bill Skarsgård into the far more monstrous Count Orlok last winter, he was not nominated, although his makeup team was.
It was a different story for “Wicked” and Erivo last year, as both she and the artists who turned her into the green but no longer purely villainous Wicked Witch were nominated. But as historic as this nomination was, it barely raised an eyebrow, given the already decorated Wicked legacy in novels and especially on Broadway, and its tradition of turning a famous monster into a misunderstood revolutionary.
Nowadays, remakes and reboots that rethink and sympathize with notorious villains and monsters are commonplace, from “Joker” to “Cruella” and so on. This was not as ordinary when Wicked first took over Broadway and began changing the image of Margaret Hamilton’s cackling, dog-hating Wicked Witch into Idina Menzel’s soaring, persecuted Elphaba. By the time it finally came to the big screen last year and featured Erivo in the green makeup and black hat, movie audiences and Oscar voters were already primed to look past the façade and the propaganda.
Now, a year later, with “Wicked: For Good” just one day away from completing the story, Erivo being nominated again for the second year in a row as a fantastical character would be even more historic, yet it feels even more predictable. However, in 2025, she might not be the only acting nominee for playing a fantasy monster who is no longer merely feared and reviled.
“Wicked” and “Wicked: For Good” pose the primary question, “Are people born wicked, or do they have wickedness thrust upon them?” In a way, the story of “Frankenstein” has asked that question in novels and movies for over 200 years, and Del Toro’s new version answers that it is the latter. It certainly is not the first or even tenth version of “Frankenstein” to argue that Frankenstein’s Creature had his wickedness thrust upon him by his reckless and ill-equipped father Victor, but this subtext is more overt than ever.
Like Elphaba, the Creature was doomed from birth by his father and was discarded and left to fend for himself in a world designed to fear and hate him. Both educated themselves, came to long for companionship, had it, and then lost it just as quickly, and then returned to bring down everything their fathers built, whether intentionally or not. By design or by the canon of their legends, these two are usually doomed to death, tragedy, and cautionary-tale endings in most versions.
In the old days, the Creature had to die, come back to life, try again to find peace and love, fail, go on rampages for it, die again, and then repeat that cycle in various sequels. Whereas he was most vulnerable to fire, the Wicked Witch was most vulnerable to water in “The Wizard of Oz,” which is how her reign ended in 1939. But in Del Toro’s “Frankenstein” and in the musical and movie-musical versions of “Wicked” and “Wicked: For Good,” these two beings, who are almost always doomed by narrative tradition, receive far more merciful outcomes.
Some might argue that softening the Creature and Elphaba and their fates goes too far and oversimplifies them into overly sympathetic figures, just as the older versions oversimplified them into overly monstrous villains. But this appears to be a minority opinion, given how Broadway audiences have cheered and cried for Elphaba for decades, how movie audiences did the same for “Wicked” and are set to do it again for “Wicked: For Good,” and how audiences in theaters and on Netflix helped “Frankenstein” surge from a Venice disappointment to a near locked Best Picture nominee, largely because of the Creature’s story. Much of this comes from actors like Elordi and Erivo, who have made these figures feel fully human.
Oscar voters took that same view with Erivo in 2024, and few expect that they will not again in 2025. But given Wicked’s Broadway legacy and the larger legacy of “The Wizard of Oz,” it was not exactly a surprise, even though characters like Elphaba are rarely recognized by the Academy. On the other hand, it would be unprecedented if Elordi were to be nominated in 2025 alongside her.
It is one thing to nominate someone for playing a green and not-so-wicked witch, but the Academy almost never honors someone for playing a so-called monster like the Creature. Elordi is covered in head-to-toe prosthetics, much like many actors in Oscar-nominated and winning roles, yet those roles are for playing humans, not creatures. Even when Dafoe was nominated and unrecognizable as a vampire in “Shadow of the Vampire,” it was for playing a real-life actor who played a vampire. Streep was heavily made up as a witch for “Into the Woods,” just like Erivo, but Streep is usually an exception to any trend.
“Frankenstein” may stand apart from other monstrous legends like Dracula, the Mummy, and the Wolfman. Yet such legends rarely get Oscar recognition beyond technical categories, even though the actors who play them often become iconic. As such, if Elordi is nominated, unlike so many before him and like him, it would be one of the more unlikely nominations of the modern era. It would also be ironic and fitting if it happened the same year Erivo achieves something similar for a second straight time, for another feared monster turned unlikely antihero.
Their circumstances remain different. Erivo is considered locked for her nomination because she got in last year, while Elordi remains on the bubble. All Erivo needs is for “Wicked: For Good” to make as much, or more, at the box office as “Wicked” and to receive better, or at least comparable, reviews. As for Elordi, the Best Supporting Actor field appears manageable, even with Stellan Skarsgård, Sean Penn, and Paul Mescal considered locked for three of the five spots. The online community has already embraced Elordi and Benicio del Toro as the likely fourth and fifth. But the Academy must also consider Adam Sandler, Delroy Lindo, Jonathan Bailey, and others.
The Creature and Elphaba have already defied much longer odds, decades of precedent, and far greater opposition to be embraced by humanity, or at least by people willing to hear their sides of the story. Compared to that, the odds for both Erivo and Elordi to be embraced by an Academy that almost never honors performances and characters like theirs, let alone two in the same year, are small in comparison.
So what do you think? Between Jacob Elordi and Cynthia Erivo, do you think both of them will be Oscar-nominated this year? Only one of them? If so, which one? Please let us know in the comments section below and on Next Best Picture’s X account and check out the team’s latest Oscar predictions here.
You can follow Robert and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars & Film on X @Robertdoc1984
