Filmmaker Danny Boyle borrowed ideas from Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein when drawing up plans for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in London this summer.
The Slumdog Millionaire director signed on to orchestrate the sporting spectacular's kick-off event in July and he admits the task of creating a jaw-dropping show to be viewed by millions of people hasn't been easy.
He tells Vogue: "It's a challenge, of course, because it can easily be just a cold spectacle - awe-inspiring but not necessarily of the heart - and we want the ceremony to have a visceral effect on the people, for it to be a collective experience. Stirring emotion is hard in a stadium."
But the Oscar winner reveals he found inspiration in an unlikely place - Frankenstein, which fuses elements of romanticism and the creation of life.
He adds, "(There is) quite a lot of Frankenstein in the show. I mean, we don't reanimate dead creatures, but we did use Frankenstein as a dry run for a lot of ideas for this."
And if Boyle's vision is realised, he says the the venue will look "more like a cauldron, with all the people hovering over and around you".
The filmmaker has had a lot of experience with the theme - he directed a production of Frankenstein for the National Theatre in England last year.
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