Guillermo del Toro
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Guillermo del Toro | |
|---|---|
 Guillermo del Toro, 2006 | |
| Born | Guillermo del Toro Gómez |
| Occupation(s) | Film director, producer, screenwriter and special makeup effects designer |
| Years active | 1984 - present |
| Awards | George Pal Memorial Award 2008 Lifetime Achievement Best Original Screenplay 2006 Pan's Labyrinth |
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 9, 1964. He studied in the Instituto de Ciencias, University of Guadalajara[1], 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, Doña Lupe, 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 and his two daughters, Mariana and Marisa.
Professional career
Guillermo del Toro has directed a wide variety of films, from 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[1].
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." Del Toro's work notably frequently includes monsters. 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, and Jorge Luis Borges.
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. All three received Oscar nominations when the 2006 Academy Award nominations were unveiled in January 2007 - del Toro for his original screenplay for Pan's Labyrinth (the film itself received 6 nominations, including Best Foreign Language Film), Cuarón for editing and co-writing Children of Men and Iñárritu for producing and directing Babel. 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.[2] He turned down a chance to direct I Am Legend, One Missed Call (2008) and Halo and Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince to work on Hellboy II: The Golden Army
In addition to having close relationships with other directors, del Toro seems to have a working relationship with actor Ron Perlman. Many of his films have included Perlman as the main or secondary actor. This includes Blade II and the Hellboy movies in which he had to petition for seven years to have Perlman as the role of Hellboy due to the fact that the producers originally wanted someone better known.[3]
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.[4] Del Toro stated that "Contributing to the 'Lord of the Rings' legacy is an absolute dream come true." For the next four years, he and his wife and two daughters[5] will be moving to New Zealand[6]. As a consequence of his taking on The Hobbit, the projects he had been planning to take on in the next few years have been put on hold. Del Toro remarked in one interview "It's a great cancel."[7]
Del Toro expressed interest in adapting Frankenstein as a faithful "Miltonian tragedy". He has read a draft by Frank Darabont which he considered near perfect.[8] 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."[9] 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.[10]
Filmography
As director
| Year | Film |
|---|---|
| 1993 | Cronos |
| 1997 | Mimic |
| 2001 | The Devil's Backbone |
| 2002 | Blade 2 |
| 2004 | Hellboy |
| 2006 | Pan's Labyrinth |
| 2008 | Hellboy II: The Golden Army |
| 2011 | The Hobbit |
| 2012 | Unnamed "Lord of the Rings" prequel |
| 20?? | Frankenstein |
| 20?? | Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
| 20?? | Drood |
| 20?? | At the Mountains of Madness |
| 20?? | Hater |
| 20?? | Crimson Peak |
As producer
| Year | Film | Director |
|---|---|---|
| 1985 | Dona Herlinda and Her Son | Jaime Humberto Hermosillo |
| 1998 | Un Embrujo | Carlos Carrera |
| 2001 | The Devil's Backbone | Guillermo del Toro |
| 2002 | Asesino en serio | Antonio Urrutia |
| 2004 | Crónicas | Sebastián Cordero |
| 2006 | Pan's Labyrinth | Guillermo del Toro |
| 2007 | The Orphanage | Juan Antonio Bayona |
| 2008 | Rudo y Cursi | Carlos Cuarón |
| While She Was Out | Susan Montford | |
| Cosas insignificantes | Andrea Martínez |
References
- ^ Curran, Daniel, ed. Foreign Films, film review and analysis of The Spirit of the Beehive, page 161-2, 1989. Evanston, Illinois: Cinebooks. ISBN 0-933997-22-1.
- ^ Mills, Nicole. "NEWSMAKERS: 'Brothers & Sisters' and 'Ugly Betty' win GLAAD Awards; 'Baby Mama' tops the box office", The Austin American-Statesman, published April 28, 2008, accessed May 19, 2008.
- ^ Guillermo del Toro - Biography
- ^ Associated Press (2008-04-24). "Guillermo del Toro to direct 'The Hobbit' and sequel". Yahoo! News. Retrieved 2008-04-24.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "'I try to pour a lot of me into every film'". Telegraph.co.uk. 2006-11-24. Retrieved 2008-04-29.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "Guillermo del Toro Chats with TORN About 'The Hobbit' Films!". TheOneRing.net. 2008-04-25. Retrieved 2008-04-29.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Exclusive Guillermo del Toro Red Carpet Video Interview
- ^ Mike Sampson (2007-10-26). "Guillermo talks!". JoBlo. Retrieved 2007-10-27.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Chris Hewitt (2008-02-08). "Guillermo Del Toro Talks The Hobbit". Empire. Retrieved 2008-02-08.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Michael Fleming (2008-09-03). "Guillermo Del Toro booked thru 2017". Variety. Retrieved 2008-09-04.