Adrian Griffin

> Wherever you go, I'll be standing right behind you.
>
> Adrian vowing to stay by Cecilia forever.

***Adrian Griffin*** is a Fictional Character and a moden incantation of the Character *Griffin* from H. G. Wells's novel *The Invisible Man*.

Adrian Griffin was played by *Oliver Jackson-Cohen* but Johnny Depp was originally planned to portray the Invisible Man as part of Universal's Dark Universe, a shared cinematic universe based on the classic Universal Monsters. It was uncertain if the character would be Dr. Griffin or a very different character. But on November 8, 2017, producers Alex Kurtzman and Chris Morgan moved on to other projects, leaving the future of the *Dark Universe* in doubt. In January 2019, Universal announced that the plan moving forward was to focus on filmmaker-driven films, and less of an interconnection in the Dark Universe. Ultimately, Elisabeth Moss was given a starring role in the film as Cecilia Kass, while Oliver Jackson-Cohen and Michael Dorman were respectively cast as Adrian Griffin and Tom Griffin. *The Invisible Man* re-entered development, written and directed by Leigh Whannell and produced by Jason Blum. Johnny Depp still had option to star in the lead role, though all parties ultimately passed. *The Invisible Man* was released on February 28, 2020, receiving positive reviews.

In this version, Adrian Griffin is a scientist billionaire and pioneer in the field of optics who fakes his death and becomes invisible to torment his ex-girlfriend Cecilia, whom he constantly abused. Unlike the novel and 1933 film, the invisibility is achieved through a suit fixed with hundreds of micro-cameras instead of an invisibility formula. When Adrian's brother Tom was found in the invisibility suit, Adrian used him as a scapegoat claiming to Cecilia that he was holding him prisoner. In an attempt to get Adrian to confess, she meets him at his house to discuss her pregnancy while James listens in on a wire. Adrian insists that he had actually been kidnapped, claiming that his experience has changed his outlook on life and their relationship. Cecilia departs to use the restroom. Moments later, the room's security camera captures Adrian seemingly committing suicide by slicing his throat. Cecilia emerges from the bathroom and "frantically" calls the police. Off-camera, she taunts him to reveal that she had retrieved the earlier-hidden second invisibility suit to kill Adrian, regardless of whether he was the invisible figure, just to finally be free of Adrian's abuse and evilness forever, and a horrified Adrian then dies, realizing that Cecilia has won and he has ultimately lost. When Detective James Lanier arrives and asks what happened, she confirms what the camera saw. He spots the invisibility suit in her bag, but accepts her story and allows her to leave.

## Biography

### ***The Invisible Man***

Adrian’s past remains completely unknown and mysterious in nature, however the only information about him is that he is a successful optics engineer, the older brother and client of Tom Griffin and the abusive boyfriend of Cecilia Kass. One night he met Cecilia he met at a party and the two began dating. However as time went on, he began to show his true colours and trapped her in an abusive, toxic and damaging cycle of a relationship.

Adrian would control everything around the house including her, from what she said to what she wore, ate, thought and ever exited the house. This control would go at the cost of her own personal and individual liberty as a human being. To make matters even worse, whenever he assumed he thought something he didn’t like, he would hit her and do “other things” to her, whatever they were. One time he told her that he would always be with her no matter where she went.

Her boyfriend was also such a paranoid control freak that he would install cameras to keep tabs on her at all times and he would one day rape her to conceive as a means of bounding her to him forever. One day she began to think in her mind a way to leave him with Adrian sitting right in front of her, analyzing and studying her body and non-verbal language. Once he realised what was really going on in her mind, he told her with absolute certainty that she would never be able to leave him. this cruelty even extended to animals as he puts a shock collar on his pet “Zeus”, however this might be debatable as many people use this to regulate animal behaviour but given his abusive attitude, he might’ve done it out of sheer spite and sadism.

Cecilia had enough of Adrian’s traumatic abuse and controlling behaviour so she decided to abandon him for good. One night, Cecilia escaped from him with the help of her sister Emily and their friend James, who was also a police detective. Before they manage to escape, Adrian angrily attacks a window of the car in his attempt to get Cassie back. Two weeks later, Adrian is pronounced dead from committing suicide, yet oddly enough, he left a huge portion of his estate to her.

It is revealed that Adrian was actually cheating his death and created a uniform comprised of several small cameras that grant him the ability to turn invisible. With the suit, he psychologically tortures Cecilia to make her seem insane. He steals her work causing her interview to end badly and also heavily drugged her into collapsing. Adrian then pretends to be her and sends an inflammatory message to Emily causing a schism between them. When Sydney, James's daughter, tried to comfort the depressed Cecilia, Adrian slaps her thus leading Sydney and James to believe that Cecilia did it.

She returns to Adrian's home to investigate and discovers one of the invisibility suits. She invites her sister to dinner to discuss the discovery only for Adrian to take a knife and slit Emily's throat with it before placing it in Cecilia's hand. She is implicated in the murder and is sentenced to a mental institution.

Adrian's brother Tom pays her a visit revealing that her suspicions about Adrian being alive and that he was working with him to force her to return to him. It is also disclosed that Adrian had impregnated Cecilia when he inevitably realized that she was using birth control to prevent any pregnancies.

Upon learning this, Cecilia tries to fake a suicide in her room by slitting her wrist with the edge of pen, knowing Adrian would stop her. Once he grabs her hand, she stabs him with the pen, damaging his suit and causing it to glitch. He ends up assaulting and killing some guards who try to get in his way and Cecilia is able to escape the hosipital - but not before Adrian tells her he plans to murder Sydney - spurring her to warn James about it. Once she goes over the James' house and shoots to death what appears to be Adrian, but it turns out that Tom was donning the invisibility suit at the time being set up as the fall guy for Adrian - who fakes having been kidnapped by his brother and held hostage at his own house.

Cecilia returns to Adrian's home where he shows her to the table full of food. Cecilia attempts to convince Adrian into admitting his misdeeds under the threat of their baby not being apart of his life to no avail. She then asks Adrian to grant her permission to tidy herself up and then wears the invisibility suit. Returning to the dinner table, Cecilia grabs a knife and slits Adrian's throat in a fashion similar to when he killed her sister. Furthermore, in an extra taste of irony, she also makes it look like a suicide. In his last moments, Adrian sees Cecilla reveal her ruse to Adrian, and taunting him with the same single word he used to taunt her at one point, "Surprise". A stunned Adrian then dies, realizing that Cecilla has beat him and he has now lost everything, his control over Cecilla, his millions, his child, and now his own life.

## Personality

> We’ve seen the villain so many times, so I think as an actor, you always want to try and think of the most interesting way. To me, it was a sort of a no-brainer when I read [the script] that I wanted to — these people who are narcissists and are so controlling in relationships, they are incredibly intelligent — make Adrian so good at performing, and pretending to be so charismatic and to fool people into a false sense of security. That’s the direction we’ve gone with him, which I personally think is the right way to do it. It’s been really good fun because we kind of want to mess with an audience as well, and mess with them going, ‘Wait, but he’s not… he didn’t seem to be a bad guy. He seemed nice.’ But then he does these horrific things.
>
> Oliver Jackson-Cohen about Griffin.

He's a classical example of a realistic textbook abuser and was great at gaslighting his victim. Throughout the movie, he managed to turn many people against Cecilia despite some being aware of how he treated her before his supposed death. This makes him a highly realistic representation of how abusers treat their victims in reality. He was physically and emotionally abusive towards her, even going so far as to hit her if he suspected her of thinking something he didn't like. His desire for a child may very well have been a manifestation of his own lust for control over her life considering she knew she could never leave him had she given birth to one. He also considered Cecilia as a thing to have under his thumb rather than a person to love. A true control freak, Adrian wanted to have absolute control on her, by dictating her how she must dress, talk, eat or think. This cruelty also extended to Cecelia's pet dog-as it was revealed at the beginning of the film that he kept a shock collar on the animal.

Adrian has blatants signs of narcissism and psychopathy. Like a narcissist, he is very self-centered, has a disregard for the needs, rights and well-being of others as seen with Cecilia and his brother who he involved into his diabolical plan without considering his limits, he also has a great lack of empathy toward everyone and a extremely fragile ego, has violent outbursts and lacks a conscience or the ability to empathise with others and revels in the suffering of others. The fragility of his ego is displayed when Cecilia ran away from him. Rather than accepting his responsibility for this, he lets his ego getting the better of him and psychologically tortures her to have her back. For the psychopathic part, he has no remorse, no will to admit his own faults and a capacity to put himself a superficial affable personality.

His biggest deep-rooted issue is his codependent nature as he need to have Cecilia over anybody else throughout the course of their relationship, as Cecilia states he could’ve had anyone else since money buys anything. However it is implied that he has had a history of abuse and other victims as his brother stated that “nobody has ever abandoned him before”, however this could also be a lie from Adrians brother given that he was being manipulated by a man of deceptive nature. However what is true is that he fears that she might leave him and this forces him into a position of needing her since she doesn’t need him which reinforces the idea of his paranoid, codependent, obsessive and controlling nature.

He resorts to frantic efforts to avoid being abandoned by Cecilia via installing cameras all around his house to keep tabs on her. Her leaving him wounds his fragile ego to the point that he violently attacks her while trying to get her out of her friends car in a frenzy but to no avail. This abandonment leaves Adrian resentful, angered and vengeful and out of spite resolves to destroy her life if he cannot have her which might hint that he also suffers from borderline personality disorder but it isn’t clear. Being a skilled manipulator and controlling those weaker than him; he inflicts psychological and physical pain upon Cecilia, gaslighting and isolating her as well as hitting her. This also implies that not only is Adrian obsessed with her but is driven to control her life. He turns Cecilia's friends and family against her, and even frames her for murder, all so she will have nothing and nobody unless she submits to him. Even his desire to have a child is born from this desire for control, as he believes that having his baby will bind her to him forever. Even his brother Tom, who claims to despise him, is completely under his sway; however it’s ambiguous as Adrian himself also claims to have been controlled by him.

## Abilities and Powers

### Powers

**Invisibility Suit**: Instead of a chemical formula, this iteration of Invisible Man invented a combat suit that can turn its wearer invisible through his work in optics.

* **Invisibility**: Befitting to its namesake, the suit's main quirk is rendering the wearer imperceptible to the naked eye via. tiny cameras that bending light waves while still allowing the user to see through the mask that come to it. Slight damage on the suit however, can potentially causing this system to glitch, thus giving away the wearer's location.
* **Superhuman Strength & Mobility**: To get around the fact of the suit lacked armor plating and therefore provide poor defense against attacks, Adrian also designed the suit to increase the strength and speed of its wearer beyond that of average human, making the wearer a one-man army provided that his enemies not exposed him somehow.

### Abilities

* **Genius-Level Intellect:** Adrian was an incredibly intelligent scientist and capable inventor. A pioneer in the field of Optics, he used his wealth and power to build a beachfront mansion which housed his private laboratory, which he used to create his crowning achievement; his Invisibility Suit.
* **Skilled Combatant**: Adrian is also a very formidable adversary when it comes combat because it is not out of the realm of use when his imvisibility suit is malfunctioning. This is evident by his massacre at the asylum hallway in which he easily defeated armed guards and even disarmed them at the same time through combination of combat experience and advantages provided by his suit.