Guillermo del Toro
Birthday: 9 October 1964, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico
Birth Name: Guillermo del Toro Gómez
Height: 185 cm
Guillermo del Toro was born October 9, 1964 in Guadalajara Jalisco, Mexico. Raised by his Catholic grandmother, del Toro developed an interest in filmmaking in his early teens. Later, he learned about ...Show More
[on whether he was thinking of directing a Star Wars sequel] It's like thinking if I want to date a Show more
[on whether he was thinking of directing a Star Wars sequel] It's like thinking if I want to date a supermodel. I don't think about these things. Hide
The natural state of a movie is 'not-getting-made.'
The natural state of a movie is 'not-getting-made.'
Do whatever the fuck you want, even if it's wrong, and then tell about it with honesty. That is film Show more
Do whatever the fuck you want, even if it's wrong, and then tell about it with honesty. That is filmmaking to me...Success is fucking up on your own terms. Hide
It would be a cliché to say that, because I am a Mexican, I see death in a certain way. But I have Show more
It would be a cliché to say that, because I am a Mexican, I see death in a certain way. But I have seen more than my share of corpses, certainly more than the average First World guy. I worked for months next to a morgue that I had to go through to get to work. I've seen people being shot; I've had guns put to my head; I've seen people burnt alive, stabbed, decapitated ... because Mexico is still a very violent place. So I do think that some of that element in my films comes from a Mexican sensibility. Hide
Aside from being a perfect Hellboy, he is a gentleman, a friend to die for, a great actor and - for Show more
Aside from being a perfect Hellboy, he is a gentleman, a friend to die for, a great actor and - for the ladies - he has the sexiest male voice this side of Barry White. What more can one ask for? - On Ron Perlman, 2002. Hide
These shots are not eye-candy, they are, to me, eye-protein. - regarding Pan's Labyrinth (2006).
These shots are not eye-candy, they are, to me, eye-protein. - regarding Pan's Labyrinth (2006).
[at San Diego Comic-Con]: I fabricate everything. There's not a single real thing in Pan's Labyrinth Show more
[at San Diego Comic-Con]: I fabricate everything. There's not a single real thing in Pan's Labyrinth (2006), because ultimately I'm very specific about [those details]. Context is everything in a fable, because every story has already been told. So the only variations I find are the voice of the storyteller and the context in which it's told. Hide
The sign of a true friendship is when you can forgive success.
The sign of a true friendship is when you can forgive success.
That's what I love about fairy tales; they tell the truth, not organized politics, religion or econo Show more
That's what I love about fairy tales; they tell the truth, not organized politics, religion or economics. Those things destroy the soul. That is the idea from Pan's Labyrinth (2006) and it surfaces in Hellboy (2004) and, to some degree, in all my films. Hide
I hate Hollywood movies with children as happy, brainless creatures that spout one-liners. What I tr Show more
I hate Hollywood movies with children as happy, brainless creatures that spout one-liners. What I tried to put in El espinazo del diablo (2001) is how unsafe it is to be a child. Many times in my life I saw children almost kill each other. Hide
If you're not operating on an instinctive level, you're not an artist.... Reason over emotion is bul Show more
If you're not operating on an instinctive level, you're not an artist.... Reason over emotion is bullshit, absolute bullshit... We suffocate ourselves in rules. I find fantasy liberating. Hide
The horror story was birthed when we became sedentary cavemen and started telling scary stories to k Show more
The horror story was birthed when we became sedentary cavemen and started telling scary stories to keep the children from wandering off into the night. Today, there's nothing more cathartic for a guy in a three-piece suit, someone super wound-up and super-tight, to get on a roller-coaster of a horror film and scream like a madman. Hide
I like pictures that are perverse and intelligent, something that you actually take home with you. I Show more
I like pictures that are perverse and intelligent, something that you actually take home with you. I tre volti della paura (1963) might not make you jump every minute but Mario Bava makes indefatigable images and Jack Clayton's The Innocents (1961) is so creepy and powerful, he's going to outlive the filmmakers going for short-term scares. Hide
I think that 50 percent of the narrative is in the audio/visual storytelling. I happened to think th Show more
I think that 50 percent of the narrative is in the audio/visual storytelling. I happened to think the screenplay is the basis of it all, but definitely doesn't tell the movie. It tells the story, but doesn't tell the whole movie. A lot of the narrative is in the details. Hide
History is ultimately an inventory of ghosts.
History is ultimately an inventory of ghosts.
[on what's the scariest thing he's ever seen on a television show] When I was a kid, it's not a meta Show more
[on what's the scariest thing he's ever seen on a television show] When I was a kid, it's not a metaphor, but I actually soiled myself when I was a child watching Night Gallery (1969). There was an episode called The Doll. I remember when the doll smiles, I literally lost control of my sphincter. Hide
When you have the intuition that there is something which is there, but out of the reach of your phy Show more
When you have the intuition that there is something which is there, but out of the reach of your physical world, art and religion are the only means to get to it. Hide
You cannot aspire to do a movie that is as quirky as Pan's Labyrinth (2006) in the Hollywood machine Show more
You cannot aspire to do a movie that is as quirky as Pan's Labyrinth (2006) in the Hollywood machinery. It would get tested and noted by executives to death, and end up having a happy ending and all that bullshit, you know? And at the same time, you cannot end up with with a movie that is as spectacular and magnificent in showmanship as Pacific Rim (2013) if you do it in Mexico or Spain. Hide
[on Stanley Kubrick] I admire Kubrick greatly. He is often accused of being a prodigious technician Show more
[on Stanley Kubrick] I admire Kubrick greatly. He is often accused of being a prodigious technician and rigid intellectual, which people say makes his films very cold. I don't agree. I think that Barry Lyndon (1975) or A Clockwork Orange (1971) are the most perfect marriages of personality and subject. But in fact, Full Metal Jacket (1987) is even more so. It looked at rigidity and brutality with an almost clinical eye. It is, for me, a singular film about the military, about war and its consequences. The famous scenes, like the induction with R. Lee Ermey where he renames the soldiers and reshapes them into sub-human maggots, had a particular impact on me. Also the suicide scene with Vincent D'Onofrio in the bathroom. And the sniper set-piece at the end. Those are absolutely virtuoso pieces of filmmaking. Hide
I remember the worst experience of my life, even above the kidnapping of my father, was shooting Mim Show more
I remember the worst experience of my life, even above the kidnapping of my father, was shooting Mimic (1997) [del Toro's first Hollywood feature, in 1997, which was severely compromised by producer interference]. Because what was happening to me and the movie was far more illogical than kidnapping, which is brutal, but at least there are rules. Now when I look at Mimic, what I see is the pain of a deeply flawed creature that could have been so beautiful. Hide
[on what scares him] (jokingly) Politicians -- a lot. They are so deranged, especially these days. A Show more
[on what scares him] (jokingly) Politicians -- a lot. They are so deranged, especially these days. And human pettiness. Oh my God that's scary. It's so horrifying. I've seen a UFO, and I've heard ghosts twice -- once in New Zealand and once in Mexico, but those are not the scariest things. The scary things are real things like every day. Hide
Stanley Kubrick's absolute control over the medium turns his rock-solid framing and tense timing int Show more
Stanley Kubrick's absolute control over the medium turns his rock-solid framing and tense timing into real weapons pointed directly at the unsuspecting audience of The Shining (1980). No one has ever used the Steadicam as perfectly as he did in the tracking shots behind Torrance, Danny's tricycle. He uses the soundtrack brilliantly, fusing concrete music with sound effects and score to unsettle and position the uber-mannered, hyper-real performances of his actors. And, refreshingly, Kubrick is not above moments of Grand Guignol: the elevator doors spilling blood, the axe on the chest, the Grady twins bathed in blood or the old undead crone festering in the bathtub. He proves that great horror can be both shocking and a highly artistic endeavor. Hide
[on celebrating Halloween] I've been making myself up as a nasty zombie and playing the character re Show more
[on celebrating Halloween] I've been making myself up as a nasty zombie and playing the character really straight, never breaking and not giving out candy. I wander my neighbourhood with an eye socket gone, moaning and groaning, and the kids all freak out. But this year my wife and daughter begged me to go as a pirate, so that's what I'm doing. But I recommend everybody who has the option, to scare trick-or-treaters and freak out as many people as they can. Hide
[on what attracts him to genre films] The beauty and the horror. These directors have made great wor Show more
[on what attracts him to genre films] The beauty and the horror. These directors have made great works of art in a genre that most people just throw in the garbage bin, that they don't think is important. But The Innocents (1961) is as powerful a film as you'll see in any genre. It towers above other films. Hide
Kaiju [monster] movies, by definition, bring a completely escapist fun. When you're a kid and you're Show more
Kaiju [monster] movies, by definition, bring a completely escapist fun. When you're a kid and you're watching Godzilla stomp a bunch of tanks or jets or through a city, the proportions of these things are so enormous that you cannot correlate them to anything real. What I do is I then bring in visually a very different sense of style from reality. I have these super-colored lights illuminating the rain, so it looks like a living comic-book or a living anime, you know? And the things that I do very, very consciously is I vacated all the streets so they would be empty of people. So you're never thinking 'Oh, the kaiju just crushed 600 people'. Because the streets are vacated and everybody's in a refuge, all they can destroy is buildings and vehicles when nobody's there. Hide
My life is a suitcase. I am the traveling Mexican.
My life is a suitcase. I am the traveling Mexican.
Guillermo del Toro's FILMOGRAPHY
All
as Actor (112)
as Director (9)
as Creator (14)
Guillermo del Toro'S roles
Pappy McPoyle
Pappy McPoyle
Moustache Man
