We got the chance to sit down with the one and only Guillermo del Toro as part of our IGN30 Icons Series, where he let us in on his favorite games, how he made his iconic movies, and his experience working with some of the biggest stars in filmmaking.
He also chatted about Pan’s Labyrinth, which is turning 20 years old this year. To celebrate, it’s coming back to theaters this weekend — but if you’d like some extra context before you sit down to see it again, check out our conversation with del Toro, who told us about the inspiration behind the Pale Man and how he stretched the movie’s budget to create some of its massive set pieces.
We’ve transcribed the interview in full below, where del Toro explained what it was like working with Wesley Snipes on Blade 2 and how he almost made a BioShock movie.
Brian Altano (IGN): From Kronos to The Shape of Water to Frankenstein, it is an honor to be talking to the maestro of movie monsters, Mr. Guillermo Del Toro. It's very nice to meet you. Thank you for coming. This is the 20th anniversary of Pan's Labyrinth, which makes me feel old. I don't know how you feel about it.
Brian Altano (IGN): So, you have been making crazy monsters in beautiful worlds for the longest time. You started off inspired by things like Universal’s monsters, [like the] Creature from the Black Lagoon. What is it about that era that spoke to you then, and continues to resonate with you now?
Guillermo del Toro: I think I was a monster kid, which means that the creatures are important in the storytelling of these fairytales, because I think they're fables or parables or fairytales. And it has to be creature-centric for me to be attracted to it. Everybody says, "Oh, don't show the creature." I think, show it, please. I'm seven years old. I want to see it. I want to love it. I want to see how well designed it is. I want to discover the whole world that comes in with the creature design. Creature design ushers a different reality. So those are important. When Milicent Patrick — who designed the Gill-man for Creature from the Black Lagoon — designed the Metaluna Mutant on Island Earth, when they gave her an opportunity, it came from outer space. She designed the creature. She has a signature, and I can see what her design signature is. And as a kid, it's like meeting a movie star. You say, "Oh, this was Jack Pierce designing this creature. This was Dick Smith. This was the Wesmers. This was all the makeup heroes of mine."
Brian Altano (IGN): So when you saw the sort of less tangible horror, which it's like a fog or a mist or something like that, you're like, "That's cool, but I want a monster.”
Guillermo del Toro: Well, that's what I want to make. That doesn't define what I want to watch. I want to watch everything that is good. But as a filmmaker, up until Frankenstein, I'm very creature-centric. I think that has changed now. I don't know what I am or where I'm going. I have sort of a new horizon, but Frankenstein was a culmination of my creature-centric period, which is, by the way, where is it rooted at? Little Red Ridinghood. You need the wolf. The wolf is the creature in that. And you need something that embodies a concept. Good, evil, purity, tragedy. The Creature in Frankenstein is a tragic humanity. Pan is a trickster. The Pale Man is a blind veracity. It's not just that they are cool-looking. It's that they embody the conceptual part of the tale. They actually mean something tangible. Godzilla is absolutely a first large-scale God, the power of nature, the tragedy of atomic energy. It's a concept made flesh.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.ign.com/articles/guillermo-del-toro-on-blade-2-working-with-kojima-and-lots-of-red-bull
