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Guillermo del Toro
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Guillermo del Toro Gómez (born October 9, 1964) is an Academy Award-nominated Mexican filmmaker. He is one of the film directors known as the Three Amigos (Spanish: Cineastas, Trío de Amigos) that include Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu.
Toro was born October 11, 1964. He studied in the Instituto de Ciencias, University of Guadalajara, and was raised by his devout Roman Catholic grandmother.
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Guillermo del Toro Gómez (born October 9, 1964) is an Academy Award-nominated Mexican filmmaker. He is one of the film directors known as the Three Amigos (Spanish: Cineastas, Trío de Amigos) that include Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu.
Biography
Early life
Del Toro was born October 11, 1964. He studied in the Instituto de Ciencias, University of Guadalajara, and was raised by his devout Roman Catholic grandmother. Del Toro first got involved with filmmaking when he was about eight years old. He executive-produced his first short film, Boner, in 1986 at the age of 21. After that he spent eight years as a special effects make-up designer, and formed his own company, Necropia. He also co-founded the Guadalajara-based Mexican Film Festival. Later on in his directing career, he formed his own production company, the Tequila Gang.
In 1998 his father was kidnapped in Mexico, which prompted del Toro to move abroad to live as an expatriate. He currently lives in Westlake Village in Los Angeles, California with his wife Lorenza and his two daughters, Mariana and Marisa.
Professional career
Guillermo del Toro has directed a wide variety of films, from action hero comic book adaptations (Hellboy and Blade II) to historical fantasy and horror films, two of which are set in Spain in the context of the Spanish Civil War under the authoritarian rule of Francisco Franco. These two films, El espinazo del diablo (The Devil's Backbone) and El laberinto del fauno (Pan's Labyrinth), are among his most critically acclaimed works. They share similar settings, protagonists (young children), and themes (including the relationship between fantasy/horror and the struggle to live under authoritarian or dictatorial rule) with the 1973 Spanish film The Spirit of the Beehive, widely considered to be the finest Spanish film of the 1970s.
Del Toro, as interviewed on WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show, lists several fascinations that have become regular features in his films: "I have a sort of a fetish for insects, clockwork, monsters, dark places, and unborn things." In recent interviews, he has stated that he has always been "in love with monsters. My fascination with them is almost anthropological... I study them, I dissect them in many of my movies: I want to know how they work, what the inside of them looks like, [and] what their sociology is." He also mentions as influences Arthur Machen, Lord Dunsany, Clark Ashton Smith, H.P. Lovecraft, Jorge Luis Borges and Juan Rulfo.
He is close friends with two other prominent and critically praised Mexican filmmakers, Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu. The three often influence each other's directorial decisions, and have been interviewed together by Charlie Rose. Cuarón was one of the producers of Pan's Labyrinth. Del Toro turned down The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to do this film. Del Toro also received a Nebula Award for Best Script for his Pan's Labyrinth script. He turned down a chance to direct I Am Legend, One Missed Call (2008), Halo, and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (the latter being a movie whose predecessor was directed by Cuaron) to work on Hellboy II: The Golden Army.
Several of del Toro's films have included Ron Perlman as the main or secondary actor. This includes Blade II and the Hellboy movies for which he had to petition for seven years to have Perlman in the role of Hellboy due to the fact that the producers originally wanted someone better known.
Future projects
In April 2008 del Toro was officially announced as director of The Hobbit in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series alongside executive producer Peter Jackson. Del Toro stated that "Contributing to the 'Lord of the Rings' legacy is an absolute dream come true." For the next four years, del Toro, his wife, and two daughters, will live in New Zealand. As a consequence of his taking on The Hobbit, projects he had been planning to take on in the next few years, including a follow-up to Hellboy II: The Golden Army, have been put on hold. "I think we would all come back to do a third Hellboy," said Del Toro in an interview with IGN, regarding a third movie in the franchise. "If they can wait for me to get out of Middle-earth, but we don't know. Ron may want to do it sooner, but I certainly know where we're going with the movie on the third one." In a separate interview, Del Toro remarked that in comparing the trade-off of doing personal projects for The Hobbit, "It's a great cancel."
After The Hobbit and its follow-up, Del Toro is scheduled to direct four films for Universal; Frankenstein; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; a remake of Slaughterhouse-Five; and Drood, an adaptation of a Dan Simmons novel due for publication in February 2009. He still has his sights set on filming At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft. Drood is expected to be his first project after the two films set in Middle-earth. These projects will fill up his schedule until 2017. Part of the Universal deal entails continuing research and development for the creatures in At the Mountains of Madness.
Del Toro said his Frankenstein would be a faithful "Miltonian tragedy", citing Frank Darabont's "near perfect" script, which evolved into Kenneth Branagh's Frankenstein. Del Toro said of his vision, "What I’m trying to do is take the myth and do something with it, but combining elements of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein without making it just a classical myth of the monster. The best moments in my mind of Frankenstein, of the novel, are yet to be filmed [...] The only guy that has ever nailed for me the emptiness, not the tragic, not the Miltonian dimension of the monster, but the emptiness is Christopher Lee in the Hammer films, where he really looks like something obscenely alive. Boris Karloff has the tragedy element nailed down but there are so many versions, including that great screenplay by Frank Darabont that was ultimately not really filmed." He has also cited Bernie Wrightson's illustrations as inspiration, and said the film will not focus on the monster's creation, but be an adventure film featuring the character. Del Toro said he would like Wrightson to design his version of the creature. The film will also focus on the religious aspects of Shelley's tale.
Del Toro is also in the early stages of development of Saturn and the End of Days.
Filmography
External links
- The New Master of Horror Cinema, Jaime Perales Contreras, Americas Magazine, Organization of American States, April, 2009.* Fansite
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