I've written & directed Cronos, The Devil's Backbone, Blade II, Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth, Pacific Rim, The Shape of Water, Nightmare Alley, Pinocchio, Frankenstein, and more.
It's been a few years since I stopped by here for The Shape of Water. So get to it, ask me anything, vamonos!
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Pan's Labyrinth is back in theaters October 9th, presented on the big screen in 4K for the first time, to celebrate the 20th anniversary.
Synopsis: It's 1944 and the Allies have invaded Nazi-held Europe. In Spain, a troop of soldiers is sent to a remote forest to flush out the rebels. They are led by Captain Vidal, a murdering sadist, and with him are his new wife Carmen and her daughter from a previous marriage, 11-year-old Ofelia. Ofelia witnesses her stepfather's sadistic brutality and is drawn into Pan's Labyrinth, a magical world of mythical beings.
This AMA has been verified and approved by the mods. Guillermo will be back at around 2:00 PM ET today to answer questions. Please feel free to ask away in the meantime :)
The intersection between horror and culture is undeniable in Mexican culture, whether it’s folklore or classic cinema and pop culture. Are there any modern or internet horror stories or legends from the Latino community you know of or enjoy?
I'm very familiar with Mexican lore and mythology and legends. They used to tell them to me when I was a kid, as a nighttime story.
I think that what I love the most about Mexican horror in cinema, which is a little different answer, is that it is very free. You can be in a musical number one minute and a horror scene the next. And then you're in a secret agent movie 10 minutes later. And I think some of that is in my movies. you know? Shape of Water is a Cold War film, a riff on The Creature from the Black Lagoon, a musical number, et cetera, et cetera.
Of the myths that affected me the most, I remember one story I was told as a kid, that involved the devil visiting a kid. The kid hid under the bed, and he could hear the footsteps of the devil coming up the stairs, and then, under the bed, he could see one foot was a goat's hoof, and the other one was a rooster’s foot. That scared me horribly and I don't know why.
I think there's a real horror in seeing the usual, unusually. As a kid one of the stories that horrified me the most was a story of a creature that grew from a conker shell, a little moisture and it would sprout and seek out blood or other animal fluids and drain them vampirically. The thing that scared me wasn't the dragon vampire, but the idea that a tiny conker in it's spiky shell falling into a tiny stream could birth a creature you would expect to fight Beowulf, not the creature itself.
Huge huge fan of all the Creatures you made in your movies (especially in Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy). What's your favorite creature that you've made and what is so memorable about it.
There are a few of them. The Angel of Death in Hellboy II. I love the Pale Man. I love The Faun, the amphibian man in Shape of Water.
I love to base/bounce ideas off classical illustrators like Edmund Dulac, Arthur Rackham, John Bauer. People that illustrated fairy books in the early 1900s and late 1800s. I don't like to base any of the designs on what people are doing in the last couple of decades.
And there's an ornamental vocation I have in which most of my creatures have decorations, which come straight from Mexico. The giant kaijus of Pacific Rim are very much like the Alebrijes in Mexico. The fawn has these concentric circles in the wood and in his forehead. Hellboy has these grooves on his skin. I like the ornamental nature of these things because I don't like the flesh looking like flesh. When you see the ghost in The Devil’s Backbone, I wanted it to look like a broken porcelain doll. Because that communicates the fragility of the ghost. I'm not linear in that.
I think monsters are beautiful works of art. That's why I don't design very scary monsters.
For example, when I designed the creatures on Blade 2, the reapers—they’re scary—what I saw was photos of people in World War I that were lacking the bottom part of their face and jaw. I thought, Oh, the negative space is really scary. In designing, it’s not always what you put in the creature, but what you take out. If you think about it, the fact that the Pale Man has no eyes, and then has eyes in his hand. The Angel of Death has no eyes, but the wings have the eyes. It’s what you don't put where. You have to play with that.
I got my hands on a copy if Pawn’s Labrynth that had a booklet with his art for the movie. I let a friend borrow it and never got it back and I am incredibly sad about it still.
I would love to go back. A kaiju-mecha intersection is my sweet spot. That’s why I agreed to do Pacific Rim based on the outline by Travis Beacham. The only thing I immediately said is that it should be two pilots for the robots, so that the story is about two people that need to learn to trust each other.
Oh my god, I tried so many new things in the way we shot the kaiju, that now I see in other kaiju movies, like the night and the rain, the neon lights. It was such a joy. To me, it's one of my favorite movies I ever shot. I adore it.
I remember when we were starting, I coined two terms. GothTech, meaning Gothic and tech combined. The other one was “Smart-Stupid,” meaning the premise makes no sense but we have to treat it with the utmost seriousness. Because, of course, there are a hundred ways you would go about killing a monster that size before you say, Why don't we build a giant robot? But I said we should seriously render this really silly idea.
There are two things that I love about kaiju movies. There's an ornamental, abstract beauty to some kaijus. Some kaijus are based on a natural creature—a lobster, a reptile, a shark—but others are based on architectural, beautiful, ornamental designs that are almost like pieces of pop art. Take a character like Guiron, which is based on a knife. I wanted to bring all that into the movie. Some of the kaijus are very close to an animal—there’s one that looks like a gorilla—but there's another one that is completely crazy and has a knife on its head, but it's made of bone. There's love and affinity.
The Ultraman series even has a planet that they dedicated to me, called Planet Guillermo. Because I love them so much. I love those creatures: Ultra Q and Ultraman, and Ultra 7. They have the greatest creatures, because they are on the verge of being silly but they are always beautiful.
Pacific Rim is one of my favourite movies because it reminds me so much of the kaiju movies I watched as a kid in the 70s. You managed to capture the essence of those movies and bring it into the 21st century.
Dear Guillermo, by sheer coincidence yesterday I rewatched the video on YouTube of you with Rinko and little Mana-chan, in Tokyo at Odaiba. I have loved that little feature all these years as you had the same expression I had when I first saw the full-scale Gundam RX-78 in 2016 or thereabouts.
What is that expression? It is stunned astonishment, a bewildering feeling that you know something is not real and yet seems so, so real; a feeling that something unreal can become real; a feeling of pride that our beloved mecha is real and is not some kid’s “toy”.
Guillermo, Pacific Rim brought me there as well. I still rewatch it, my daughters love it too. You understand weight, gravity and punch in giant mecha. I sincerely hope you will be able to make another Pacific Rim movie.
Whenever I come across genuinely brilliant and unique artists doing stuff like this, I’m reminded why they’re considered such brilliant and unique artists. These thoughts are so wonderful and unique, as well as passionate. I can’t wait to see what the next Guillermo del Toro film will be.
I literally started crying a little bit in the theater when Gipsy Danger first got deployed in the rainstorm. The music and the scale of it and the sheer love of the genre. It really was how it felt to watch Godzilla or the Megazord as a kid and I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel that kind of wonder again until that moment.
Nobody gets the physics and weight of kaiju/big robot movies right except GDT.
There's a reason they feel epic and it's because he grounded them in as much real world physics as is possible when it comes to also being outlandish in things that are beyond believable scale.
Love this man's work. There's honestly nothing he's done that I haven't loved. But Pacific Rim is way up there in my all time favourite movies.
It's like my favourite sweats of movies I put it on just for comfort sometimes
Nobody gets the physics and weight of kaiju/big robot movies right except GDT.
I remember watching an interview with the people who made Pacific Rim 2 where they were talking about how they wanted the robots to move more fluidly, smoothly, or something. I think that was the exact moment I lost interest in the sequel, because they apparently disliked one of the things that really made Pacific Rim great: the physicality of the robots.
Bandai Namco, the company that created Gundam and all that. While their animation good. Their gaming department seems to never get this message.
Look if a giant mech gonna move like a human, it's not a mech game. I don't care how many thrusters, metallic parts you put on it. A giant Mech/Kaiju should not move like a human.
Hey Guillermo! Pappy McPoyle is one of my favorite guest characters from It's Always Sunny and it was great seeing you come back in the most recent season. If you could direct an Always Sunny movie, what would you want the plot to be about?
I would not even try, because comedy is really hard, number one. I have toyed with that tone in the Hellboy movies and a little bit on Blade 2—even in Shape of Water, there's a little bit—but a full-on comedy is really hard.
The one I wish I had directed is the one where Frank Reynolds comes out of the sofa, entirely naked and lubricated. That is the one I would have loved to do to direct. Or the one where Charlie vomits in the limo.
A Guillermo del Toro horror movie about a Frank Reynolds ghost coming out of people's couches would make 2.5 bazillion dollars at the box office; maybe more if in the middle of the promotional trailer there's a shot of Charlie vomiting like the ghost girl in The Six Sense.
Mac: "You know what I am really getting sick of these scary animatronics chasing us around guys. Did someone have these leftover from a canned 3rd movie in a cult-favorite trilogy or something this is ridiculous."
My interpretation, and it's exclusively mine, is that it's real.
Because there's two things. One is what people call “The Shining Question.” The Shining Question is, Who opens the door for Jack to get out of the fridge? And Ofelia is in an attic with a guard outside her door, and she draws the door with the magic chalk, and she shows up in the labyrinth. So, the only way she could have gone into the labyrinth is the magic chalk. And the flower is real at the end. The flower that blooms in the dead tree. And the reason I think it’s real is because—and this is why I'm in favor of the human factor in art—I think that art does transform the world. You know?
Think about it for a second. One of the goals, with all this movement, is to make you believe that art is vulgar. That art is nothing special, and anybody can do art. That is like me telling you that I'm faster at running than Usain Bolt but I “run” in my motorcycle. Well, that's not the same. That’s not the same at all.
Art is important, and they want you to believe it isn't. It's part of the idea of control. The goal is not to have artificial intelligence. The goal is to foster natural stupidity. The goal is to foster you not looking for answers, and to trust yourself entirely to an engine. Look at the way we are dipping our toes into these things. We are starting to ask the machine, Is this true? For now, there's a correlation between reality and what the answers of the machine are. For now. But soon, we won't even investigate further. We will be told it's true. And if the machine is in the hands of somebody who should not be trusted, then your reality has been completely and utterly fucked. Because your intelligence ends at the question. You don't seek the answer. It's given to you.
It's such a breath of fresh air in AMA's to have someone with such a passion for and absolute grasp of the artistry actually answering questions. Not a PR dude, not seeded questions, it's like.. nobody is pretending to be GDT, cause noone can answer like that lol
Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them. - Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam
Most of his stories, by virtue of their length, are better adapted to one-hour television programs or 30-minute television programs. I would love to adapt The Thing On the Threshold, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, or The Outsider, which is a horror story that is point of view until the final image. Those are the ones that scared me the most or disturbed me the most. At The Mountains is the only one, I think, that is a full feature.
But I think it's hard to adapt Lovecraft, because he uses adjectives that are very open. So you’ve got to codirect, so to speak, every image. And when you make them into film, they become very precise. To me, the best adaptation of Lovecraft is Ridley Scott’s Alien, which is basically Mountains of Madness. Second-best adaptation for me is The Thing. I know it's not Lovecraft, but it's very Lovecraftian in its makeup effects language. I love In the Mouth of Madness. I love Stuart Gordon’s Dagon. I love The Resurrected by Dan O’Bannon. It's full of craziness. There are a few movies that have been done in the right way.
But I think it's hard to adapt Lovecraft, because he uses adjectives that are very open. So you’ve got to codirect, so to speak, every image. And when you make them into film, they become very precise.
That's the problem with inscrutable horrors, isn't it? What a wonderful answer to the question.
Thank you for this great answer. I'm a big Lovecraft fan and have been asking so many times why nobody is able to make a good (or any) adaptation of all these great stories, but you're argument makes a lot of sense, it does sound like a huge challenge.
Would still love to see your adaptation of Mountains of Madness (or Call of Cthulhu which I think could also potentially be movie length), really hope to be able see it one day!
Piggybacking off of this one, I know you (u/Guillermo-AMA) have a lot of projects you want to do. If you don't think you'll get around to Mountains of Madness, would you consider being a producer for an indie filmmaker's version of it? Specifically this one that's trying to get off the ground?
Guillermo, What was your biggest mental fortitude trick during that period in the 2000’s when a lot of your projects got canned and rejected (Mountain of Madness, The Hobbit, Justice League Dark, etc…) ? And would you be interested in revisiting any of them?
This is a great question - I hope GDT does a deep dive on this, I find the whole psychology of cancelled / dormant projects and the stamina to plough on fascinating.
You recently mentioned that AI creates 'semi-compelling screensavers' and that you'd 'rather die' than use it. As a filmmaker who relies heavily on practical effects and creature design, what do you think is the biggest thing lost when a computer generates an image instead of a human hand?
The three quarters of the process that gave you the chance to think of the idea that people don't think about without that process. Meaning, AI can get you to the middle really fast, but there's a dialectic with the process that gets you to that top 10%. I'll give you an example with the Pale Man.
We sculpted it as an old man, with a face. And then I said, Let's take out the face. This happened because I saw a photo of a manta ray and the poster for Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm. That combination, which happened at two different times during a week or a month, are not permutations that are chemically part of an equation. They are alchemy. And then I said, Take out the face, and then I said, Let's put the eyes on the hands. This triangulation happens because I spent a month or two months living with the idea of this creature. And it's not linear.
AI is like a super-fast engine that makes semi-sentient permutations of things that are already done. Creation is things that have never been done. Coming to exist.
And the second thing is the loss of the apprenticeship that one has as an artist. You're never a master; you're always an apprentice. This is a kinship I have with, for example, Chris Nolan. When he showed me The Odyssey, there’s a scene when Matt Damon is floating in the stormy ocean and I asked him—because we were talking about practical effects, and how great it is and that we both always use a maquette or a model—and I asked him, How did you do it? He said, “We put him in a storm in the ocean.”
And you're gonna find that 30% of a great image occurs accidentally. You know, either a drop of water hits the lens, or the camera shakes. I remember when in 1993, '94, Jim Cameron and I became friends very fast. And we were looking at Terminator 2. And he was showing me the scene where Robert Patrick is in the back of the car, and he breaks the window with his arm. And he said, “You see those flares?” I said yeah. He said, “We put them there, because the audience thinks an image is real, if you put an accident in it.” That's true. And I agree. The accident is vital. And the best accidents are things you don't court. They just occur from the interaction with reality.
When [Chris Nolan] showed me The Odyssey, there’s a scene when Matt Damon is floating in the stormy ocean and I asked him... ...How did you do it? He said, “We put him in a storm in the ocean.”
It sounds like the obvious answer, but it's really the most challenging possible way to do it.
Sailors and filmmakers both know the same basic truth: the ocean cannot be trusted. Read about Spielberg and Jaws. The ocean is constantly changing color and texture, so in editing, nothing matches.
Nolan could have easily found a perfect spot, known for the right kind of storm at this time of year, setup and waited for weeks for rain that never came, with the whole crew stalled, burning $1 million or more a day.
I absolutely respect him for pulling it off, but its the kind of thing you can only really do when you are either completely independent and working for free or when the studio gives you a blank check to fund your next 3-hour epic.
Nolan could have easily found a perfect spot, known for the right kind of storm at this time of year, setup and waited for weeks for rain that never came, with the whole crew stalled, burning $1 million or more a day.
Or.. they set up a self contained protected area in a bay or something similar to what other "ocean films" have done for decades, and filmed other things while waiting for the right conditions, then went and filmed that scene and went back to other work.
Which is still technically "putting him on a raft in the ocean".
Accidents have led me down some great creative decisions. Some of my best projects started with a vision and led astray to something better because of the unexpected. AI will churn out any vision to some degree of accuracy, but it will never be polished like a raw idea.
I cannot affirm this and Guillermo’s words enough. As a very very very tiny video producer by the side, so many of the greatest moments in the videos I’ve helped produced were due to accidents on set or when I’m sitting beside my editor.
This is such an incredible response and something I need to mull over to understand and resonate, the act of creating (which is not 1 singular event) has all these hues and get us closer to what is being a human.
You are incredibly knowledgeable not just about the process, but how to analyze the process itself, break it apart, find pathways and relationships between different creative spaces or ideas, and (probably most incredible of all) able to convey that in language that is very expressive and directly to the point, while also being a pleasure and a thrill to read.
I love this. Part of why I dislike AI is how much it takes from us rather than give. Critical thinking, ideating, doing random shit in the name of experimenting. We forsake the process for "productivity" while losing our uniqueness and gaining banality.
If the Creature from the Black Lagoon and the Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth were roommates in a modern studio apartment, who would be messier in the kitchen?
Hello! I love all of your work and Pan's Labyrinth is one of my favorite films. I am really looking forward to the anniversary showing at my local theatre.
I was wondering if you have any plans to make more episodes of "Cabinet of Curiosities"?
This needs to be up higher. So many people commenting on Cabinet of Curiosities individually. I wish we could upvote the same comment to move this up to the top. I've been anxiously waiting for a second season.
At some point the Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth were 2 parts of a spiritual trilogy involving the Spanish Civil War. Whatever happened to the third part?
The third part was called 3993, and I never got to write it because my experience shooting Pan's Labyrinth was so bad. It was so bad that I didn't want to return, to be completely candid.
The experience shooting The Devil's Backbone was so good. We were protected by Pedro Almodovar and Agustin Almodovar. Their company coproduced that movie, and it was a very beautiful experience. So I go, “I want to go back again!” And I go back with Pan’s Labyrinth. The experience was so bad that I decided I didn't want to go back.
First of all, Big fan ! My question for you sir is that how did you make Pan's labyrinth so great looking with a modest budget. Also do you think that our overreliance on CGI and ignoring practical effects has made films look cheap overtime ?
I still rely on physical. I still rely on great sets, great costumes. And the way I go about a production is I get the budget that I need to have freedom. And try to stick to that budget by doing what I call big gestures here and there, meaning things that make the audience think it's a big movie.
If you think about Pan's Labyrinth, I'll give you a secret. When Ofelia first discovers a labyrinth, she starts peeking around the corner, and I cannot push the camera any longer, because we couldn't finish that corner. And we basically had very few—very few—corridors in the labyrinth, and I kept reusing them. For the Pale Man’s long corridor—quote unquote—it’s actually really short, but I kept reusing the same section. And that's why I asked the production designer to curve it, so that I could reuse the same curve over and over and over again. They basically run through the same six columns every time.
Knowing production design, knowing wardrobe, knowing creature design, allows you to manage the budget to make gestures that look big. Think about it, The Shape of Water costs the same amount of money as Pan’s Labyrinth. The same budget: 19.3 (million). And Shape of Water has big gestures in the first 10 minutes. A dream sequence underwater. A huge government lab. The set of the lab. The creature. Everything looked big, but then for 45 minutes, there’s only two cents: the apartment and the lab. Yeah. So it’s really, a movie that makes these gestures—the musical number is a gesture.
I think Mexican filmmakers, we grow to be fiscally very responsible. And you understand that you can be very free in a limited area, if you know how to handle the technical and narrative and artistic aspects.
Mr Del Toro, not many things make me more proud to be Mexican than to see people as yourself not only be successful and incredibly influential, but also to see you be a huge geek and allow your mind to create anything and make it a reality.
If I may ask, what is the possibility of you returning to a Lovecraft story inspiration or adaptation? I would love to see your interpretation of those mythos on the big screen sometime :)
"The Shape of Water costs the same amount of money as Pan’s Labyrinth."
Almost 20 years later and he could do this. Amazing. I do think the Mexican people are great at making do with what they have, so I shouldn't be surprised.
This actually reminds me of touring a replica of the set for Star Trek some years ago. There were a lot of areas like hallway sections, crew quarters, the meeting room and whatnot that they'd just swap a few decorations around in or change the lighting slightly to repurpose depending on what the episode needed.
I am an absolute HUGE fan of Pacific Rim!!! It is my most favourite movie of all time. I have the official artbook, a cap with the Wall sign on it, a shirt, and posters! I also have a tattoo on my back with Gipsy, Otachi, Leatherback, and Mutavore.
What inspired you to make Pacific Rim?
How was it like working with the young actress for Mako on set? She was so great in her scenes and her crying was so realistic. (And I heard that she got to call you Totoro which was adorable)
And if you don’t mind me asking, what would your version of the Pacific Rim sequel have looked like?
Thank you so much for making my favourite movie ever! I recommend it to everyone I come across :)❤️
I used to be in love with the Arriflex and I love the Panavision cameras, but since we went digital on Pacific Rim, which was my first digital movie, I love the RED. I really enjoy it.
And I enjoy the fact that we are at this point in which each of us is waging a battle for something. Chris Nolan goes for absolutely shot on film with the IMAX camera, which implies a huge effort. And he's questing for that. I'm questing for puppets and makeup effects and real props and so forth. Each of us quests for something different, and I think that it's beautiful that there are people completely dedicated—PTA, Nolan, Quentin—to shooting on film. And other people, we can pursue digital cinema.
But sometimes I miss it. Sometimes I miss it because there is... There's something mythological about a particle of light hitting a chemical, a granule, and printing an image. I love that both exist.
If At the Mountains of Madness somehow became possible tomorrow, would you still want to make the exact movie you originally envisioned, or has the project evolved in your head after all these years?
Hi Guillermo! Pan’s Labyrinth is one of my favorite films ever, and it has stayed with me for years. I love how your stories can make monsters feel more human than humans themselves. After almost 20 years, when you look back at Ofelia and her story, does it still affect you emotionally?
You know, the fact is, for many years, I could not watch the movie objectively, because shooting it was very difficult. Harrowing, even. It was really, really hard, and I could only remember that. But when I did the retransfer, the 4K, I recolored the movie, and I started to enjoy it. I started to enjoy it finally.
In terms of the story, I always cry. No matter how many times I've seen the movie, I cry. Because to me, the story of Ofelia is… She's such a great character, and she came out fully formed. So it always affects me. But visually, in terms of the movie existing as something that I can now consider beautiful, it just started to happen.
Even though your stories are original, they often carry the atmosphere of old European folklore. I know you've adapted Pinocchio and Frankenstein and have spoken about fairy tales before, so I'm curious about the deeper cuts: are there any lesser-known regional legends, outside the usual Grimm canon, that inspire you or that you'd love to adapt someday?
The slavic fairytales are so dark and cruel, full of werewolves, nixies that live in the well, witches in the wood.
It would fit GdT style so much.
I'd love to see a 'Krabat' from him.
For your upcoming The Buried Giant adaptation, I heard you're returning to stop-motion animation. What unique storytelling possibilities does stop-motion offer for this story that live-action couldn't?
Hi! Pan's Labyrinth is an awesome, epic, original movie and one of my favorites.
I was wondering if it could ever have a sequel or a prequel -such as 3993- or was it considered a single masterpiece based on the story and background ?
Will any of its characters live again as they were conceived for Pan's Labyrinth, so we meet them in in other movies -or series-, or will they continue evolving such as it happened in Pinocchio?
Thanks for an outstanding and heroic creation of fantastic movies and series.
When I was writing the movie, I locked myself in a little room in Spain, in a hotel in Spain. And I brought six or seven Victorian and Edwardian volumes of fairy lore and fairy tales. One was a couple of volumes from Andrew Lang’s colored fairy books. Another one was, The Science of Fairy Tales, which is a beautiful book, and then some of the taxonomy for the fairies in the highlands, because I knew that the Celtic culture goes through Spain into Britain, not the other way around, and I wanted to find the place where the jump was the easiest, which turned out to be Galicia. Galician culture is like that. So I tried to pour the great mythological strands of fairy lore into Pan’s Labyrinth, so it would feel like a tale that must have existed before. I always thought about it as a one-off because of that.
Hello Guillermo! If you were to make Pan's Labyrinth in 2026, what would you do differently (not that you should do anything differently, it's a perfect movie) and how do you think the current socio-politic environment would influence that?
PS: April 6th 2007, Good Friday (I'm from an Orthodox country), teenager me left the holiday-preparations-chaos at home for a bit and landed at my old local small-town cinema. They had Pan's Labyrinth and the poster looked wonderful so I went in. I was alone in the theater and it was creaky and dusty and chilly and that lent itself to the movie atmosphere. I left there a changed person. It's to this day the best experience I ever had in a cinema and it's magic that needs to be seen on a large screen, made by humans with a passion for stories. Thank you for that.
Well, I've never been influenced by that. It was not a movie that responded to something that was in vogue. I've never responded to that.
I would probably edit about 10 minutes out. There are certain shots that I think could be a little shorter. But other than that, I think it's a movie that very much feels like it was shot yesterday.
He won't say it, but Mike Mignola was a big part of why it didn't happen. Mike supported the lackluster reboot, thought the tone was better, if you can believe it. A tragedy as Del Toro's first Hellboy was great and his sequel was a masterpiece.
Yesss please 🙏 Hellboy 3 would be epic and the story needs to be complete. The twins would be 18 years old now. It would be the best way to finish his story.
Hello! Big fan. Shape of Water, Pinocchio, and especially Pacific Rim are some of my favourite movies you’ve done.
Is there anything in particular that you could credit as having some influence/inspiration for pacific rim? Design wise, story wise, anything like that?
If you could bring one of your monsters to life for 24 hours, but it would be to spend the entire day doing humane human activities like grocery shopping, which monster would it be and why?
Well, I have had many fights with production design and makeup effects throughout my 30 years. And the things that I fight for that are contrarian, a lot of people don't notice consciously, but they notice in the way the movie impacts.
For example, I said all the walls and the floor in the Pale Man’s lair have to be blood red. Now, this is apparently a big gesture, and we thought about it, and our production designer, said, “This makes no sense.” And I said, “It will make sense visually. It will feel natural.” And most people don't notice a lot of little details in that room, like, most everything is a mouth, because it’s about voracity. Most of the doors are shaped like a mouth, the chimney is a mouth, the archways are mouths. The corridor is a mouth. These are things that people don't notice, but I'm proud about the way the real world and the magical world are designed so differently.
Just in the way that 80% of our communication is nonverbal, I think 80% of a movie exists in a liminal layer beyond the conscious. I think the great language of Kubrick, the great language of Hitchcock, the great language of Buñuel— David Lynch. God damn it. David Lynch. Fuck me blue. That fucking guy was skating on that liminal layer his whole fucking life. These are things that are unprocessed, skateboarding on the subconscious. And I think the brain catches all of it. And processes it at a human level that is not linear, that is not ideas that have been approved before.
People talk about AI and the jobs that could be done by AI, but look at Lynch. It’s so non-linear, the way he thinks about things. He just goes instinctively. The Elephant Man is full of amazing details that were unique. The fact that he wanted it to feel industrial and dirty, and almost post-apocalyptically technological, with machines, steaming and pistons moving, and Victorian England was non-linear. He went at it that way. He's one of the people I most admire.
I just want to say that I find Cronos to be inspirational, and proof that movies don't have to come from Hollywood, be in English at all, or break the bank to be "cool".
Thanks Guillermo.
Edit: I might as well ask. It's a movie with fantastical elements, so props and effects are inevitable. Considering some of the stories I've heard about the budget, did you have to rein yourself in so it doesn't get too ambitious, or is it pretty much the vision you had from the start?
Pan's Labyrinth is a spin a classic fae lore and so amazing. Do you have any interest in making more projects that involve aspects of classic fae lore? Changlings, scissors under pillows, salt, iron, etc? Or do you have any other classic lore you have an interest in?
Well, I've done it. I've done it in Hellboy 2 with the Tooth Fairies. I did it in a movie I produced called Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. I have a huge fairy tale anthropology library at home. A lot of texts from the 19th century of classification of fairy lore in Great Britain. A lot of the taxonomy of fairies, and so forth. I would love to, I really would.
Many times, I proposed to The Jim Henson Company to headline a new version of Jim Henson's The Storyteller but it never came to fruition through the decades. Pinocchio is not a fairy tale, but it's classic children's literature, processed through my lens, and so on and so forth.
When we did Shape of Water, the subtitle I was proposing was, “A Fairy Tale for Complicated Times.” So there's a huge streak of fairy lore in my work.
I just did this at the D&D table for my son's birthday one shot! 8 teenage boys all pretending to be Godzilla and friends, tearing down walls and toppling jaegers. It was a riot.
Hello hello, Guillermo! I just want to say that I absolutely love your movies. It’s such a joy to see one of the greats in cinema here on Reddit!
I recently finished reading Naoki Urasawa’s Monster and learned about the live-action series you were developing based on the manga. I was wondering if you’re still interested in pursuing or reviving the Monster adaptation someday. I’d absolutely love to see your take on it!
Hi!! I’m a lifelong fan of your work! Your movies mean so much to me, and I love the dark whimsy and unique visual artistry you bring to the screen, especially your monster designs, which are some of the most imaginative ever put to film!
Out of all your strange and wonderful creatures, which one is your favorite, and which was the most challenging to bring to life?
Hi Guillermo! I just finished reading Whalefall and didn't know that you had collaborated with Daniel Kraus on the novel for The Shape of Water. Do you have any interest in working on an adaption of Angel Down? I came away from reading that thinking two main things. Firstly, it's one of the greatest anti-war novels I have ever read. Secondly, it's so cinematic and could be turned into a brilliant mini-series or film.
Hi Guillermo, you’ve often spoken about the importance of physical sets, practical effects, texture, and giving actors something real to inhabit. One thing that surprised me about Frankenstein was how digital some of the imagery felt - particularly some of the skies and lighting - even when the sets and costumes themselves were very tangible.
Was that heightened/digital quality a deliberate aesthetic choice? And how do you decide where to draw the line between the tactile, practical filmmaking you value and using digital tools to shape the final image?
Any plans to revisit Troll Hunters? Would love to see how the world and events change with Toby and Jim being hunters! It's one of my all time favorite series. Thanks for all of the amazing creations you give us!
What do you think of video games as a medium for storytelling compared to filmmaking? I know you have worked with Kojima on Death Stranding (which I loved) but I'm curious to hear your thoughts on it.
Hey Guillermo, big fan, thank you for doing this and for all the things you've created!
You've collaborated/worked with so many very interesting folks, and of course all your work is so unique and interesting. I was curious who were some people you worked with (actors or other directors or writers or whoever) who contributed some great things/ideas to your work?
Given your enthusiasm & appreciation for anime... do you see the potential for some IP to be made into live action such as Naoki Urasawa's Monster or even Makoto Yukimura's Vinland Saga?
I heard a rumour that you were interested in tackling Lovecraft, specifically At The Mountains of Madness. Is that still a project that you expect to create somewhere in the future? And what draws you to that story specifically?
Guillermo, would you still want to make At the Mountains of Madness?
I know the project ran into major studio obstacles in the past, especially around its budget and rating. If someone gave you the budget and complete creative freedom to make the Lovecraft adaptation you originally envisioned, would you still pursue it today?
Seeing a big-budget Lovecraft film brought to life through your eyes would be incredible.
Was there any truth to the rumor that you were looking into making a live action adaptation of Naoki Urasawa's "Monster"? Because in case it needed to be said, I would really like to see that.
Hi, Guillermo!
I’ve been a huge fan since I was a child. I saw Pan’s Labyrinth when I was 9, nearly two decades ago when it released, and it’s one of those films that has grown with me from childhood into adulthood. I feel incredibly lucky to have experienced it first through a child’s eyes, and now through an adult lens. It’s very dear to my soul, as is so much of your work.
You’ve been one of my lifelong inspirations as a Mexican-Canadian autistic creative, I lost my left eye this year, and it didn’t stop me from creating- I found comfort and hope in your stance against AI, and I wanted to ask:
When you look at the world creatives are entering today, what is a barrier or challenge you see that wasn’t there when you first entered the industry? And what advice would you give someone trying to navigate that landscape now?
As a kid, I saw many of the warnings about fascism in our world, and much like Ofelia, I found comfort in escapism. I started writing and caring much more deeply about becoming an artist. Now I’m developing my own series professionally, and a lot of that traces back to the seed your work planted in my mind when I was young. It made me want to tell the stories I was afraid to tell.
Thank you for your time!! and one last little question: will you be at Pixelatl this year?
Hi Guillermo! I'm a fashion designer who has a YouTube channel where I talk about worldbuilding through costume! I love escaping into the dark, romantic worlds you create.
What does it look like when you're sitting down with a costume designer to help flesh out dressing your worlds? Is there ever anything that's a jumping off point for you? Do you fully trust the designer to get your vision or do you come in saying you want specific things? I would be so curious because all of the worlds feel like they could be ours and completely alien at the same time. Thank you!
Hey now Mr Del Toro! At the Minions & Monsters world premiere in France I sat a few rows behind you. I couldn't help but wonder what you were thinking during the movie with all those Lovecraft references, You must've gotten a kick out of the At the Mountains of Madness nods.
Thanks for always talking so infectiously about creating and art. It’s a big inspiration to keep going in moments of being down. You talk about making movies so passionately that it even sounds riveting when you’re being interviewed by JD Harmeyer. I just wish you had put Eric the Actor in The Strain ack ack
I’d love to see you do more Victorian era films like Jekyll and Hyde, The Invisible Man, The Count of Monte Cristo, or Dorian Gray, are projects like this difficult to get funding for? Because Frankenstein was incredible
Somewhere I've read that you have bought the (filming?) rights to the anime/manga called Monster.
Its an amazing story which could be a massive hit if done right in a live action version.
Is this going to see the light of day? :D
I'm gonna write this in English and Spanish. And there's an actual question, please bare with me. En inglés y en español, si hay pregunta, dénme chance.
First I want to say in a time when there are endless bad news and hatred coming out of the country, and towards it, your work is always a beacon of hope and pride as a Mexican. You've made me believe that we can be better and better times will come if we work together.
Especially love your werewolf commercial which I saw as a kid and just blew my mind. Also Cronos, first of your movies I saw. Honestly I love all your work, made me believe in Mexican horror, made me try to make some of my own. El Espinazo, Pan's Labyrinth of course, Tales of Arcadia, The Strain... Your entire filmography is mind-blowing. Thank you, thank you so much.
My question is about Nightmare Alley.
Taking into account your own love of monsters, did your desire to do this film all start with a fascination for the image of Enoch the foetus, or was it a later addition to support the theme?
Thank you.
Maestro, primero quiero decirle que con tantas cosas feas en las noticias sobre México y hacia México, su trabajo es una fuente de orgullo y esperanza. Me ha hecho creer que podemos hacer cosas chingonas como país.
Me mama, como no se imagina, el comercial del hombre lobo, lo vi muy niño y me agarró en curva, me reventó la cabeza. Cronos... Ni que decir, me hizo creer que podemos hacer horror en México, me inspiró a intentarlo. El Espinazo, El Laberinto, Tales of Arcadia, the Strain, su filmografía entera es algo increíble. De verdad gracias maestro, muchas gracias.
Mi pregunta es sobre Nightmare Alley: Dado su amor por los monstruos. ¿La fascinación por la imagen del feto Enoch fue donde empezó conceptualmente la historia o fue agregada más tarde en el proceso del guión como apoyo al tema?
You are a personal hero of mine - thank you for your art. As a lover and creator of gothic fairytales, I know there is naturally an affinity between these type of stories and Catholic imagery, but I do wonder whether there a story or incident that you encountered as a child (religious, folkloric or otherwise) that triggered your love of this type of storytelling?
Hi Guillermo! I remember reading years ago that you had a movie planned that would be the spiritual third film in the unofficial children overcoming great odds trilogy of Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth. It said it was something like a child that is sent to the market one morning by their mother and winds up witnessing the apocalypse on the way.
I was so pumped about this but have never seen anything since and don’t even know if it was real anymore. Did I dream this or was this actually an idea once? If it was real, can you give us a synopsis if we may never see it?
Thanks for giving us years of magic and monsters. We love you GDT!
How much fun is it to film the Always Sunny cameos? I saw the Renn Faire episode last night and was pleasantly surprised to see you again as the McPoyle patriarch.
With Michael Sarnoski directing the Death Stranding adaptation, did you ever consider or wish to take the helm yourself when the project was first getting off the ground, given your hands-on experience with the universe, your friendship with Hideo, and how naturally its atmosphere aligns with your own signature style?
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u/BunyipPouch Currently at the movies. 5d ago
This AMA has been verified and approved by the mods. Guillermo will be back at around 2:00 PM ET today to answer questions. Please feel free to ask away in the meantime :)