Ovations at the Toronto Film Festival are rare, but Guillermo del Toro’s lifelong project Frankenstein certainly got one during the film’s North American premiere here Monday.

Following a 15-minute ovation at its Venice Film Festival world premiere, the Netflix film’s screening today was attended by del Toro along with his stars Oscar Issac (Victor Frankenstein), Jacob Elordi (The Creature), Mia Goth (Elizabeth) and Christoph Waltz (Harlander). Producer and former Netflix film boss Scott Stuber was also in tow, along with fellow producer J. Miles Dale.

The screening audience clapped for two minutes straight after the closing credits began, stopped only when the del Toro and cast came onto the stage for a Q&A, which started another round of clapping.

In the Q&A, del Toro emphasized how the film’s story had to be told on a large scale, in “Barry Lyndon” style, as it’s a modern Prometheus story. It was also discussed how del Toro saw Isaac’s Victor Frankenstein as a rock star.

Earlier in the day, del Toro, Isaac, Elordi, Goth and Waltz also stopped by the Deadline Studio to chat about the project.

“The reality is for many years, I tried to do (a story) about my father and me as the son,” del Toro told us of his adaptation of the classic Mary Shelley novel. However, del Toro eventually became a father of two, and Frankenstein became a story about two fathers.

But Frankenstein is also something else for del Toro: “Forgiveness. As you cross the line of 50, you start thinking of it,” he says in the video Q&A above, not mention “the movie is as much a biography for me as it was for her (Shelley).”

When Isaac first read the script, he said he broke down and cried.

Elordi also briefed us on his approach to playing The Creature, a challenging, largely physical performance for the Euphoria star. “It was all quiet, unspecific,” he said. “If you can employ the subconscious, I feel like that’s what I was actively trying to do the whole time, was to let go and not break the script down and be technical about delivery or how you’re moving because it would be counterintuitive to playing a creature.”

The last time del Toro was at TIFF was for 2017’s The Shape of Water, which ultimately became his Oscar Best Picture- and Director-winning title. Out of its Venice premiere, Frankenstein stands at 81% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

To watch the full conversation from the studio, click on the video above.

The Deadline Studio at TIFF is hosted at Bisha Hotel and sponsored by Cast & Crew and Final Draft.