Interview: Guillermo del Toro on Rudo y Cursi, The Hobbit, and More

Co-founder, along with Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu, of the Mexico-based production company Cha Cha Cha Films, award-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has established a wildly successful career making films on his own terms. With the production company, del Toro has been able to cultivate new homegrown talent as well as produce the work of friends and filmmakers he admires, most recently Carlos Cuarón’s feature-length directorial debut Rudo y Cursi. With the Hellboy movies and the Oscar-winning Pan’s Labrynth, his macabre sensibilities fully infected the cinematic zeitgeist and skyrocketed him into the public sphere, and much like Tim Burton before him, del Toro has cultivated a distinctly visual brand of deranged beauty. Recently, Slant caught up with del Toro in Beverly Hills to discuss his work with his fellow Mexican filmmakers and how much his life will change once principal shooting begins on The Hobbit.

How did Cha Cha Cha come about?

Guillermo del Toro: [Cuarón, González Iñárritu, and I] are already so deeply embedded in each other’s movies that we thought we should formalize it. We don’t operate differently. We operate the same way we always operated, which is: We ask an opinion of each other and we ask the advice of each other. Now it’s formal, not very different.

How long have you known Alfonso and Alejandro?

Alfonso, 22 years.

Did you go to school with him?

No, he went to school in Mexico and he was expelled. But I went to school in Guadalajara, but it was a very small film school that we created. It became the film school of the university—but we created it. There was no film school in Guadalajara as a kid, so we said “let’s make one” and eventually the university formalized it.

Were you teaching there for a while?

The first year I was learning, the second year I was teaching.

Did you like being a professor?

Yeah, I’d actually love to teach again. I really enjoy that process.

When did you meet Alejandro?

I met Alejando either in ’99 or 2000. Alfonso called me and said, “There’s this guy who did a movie called Amores Perros and it’s a fantastic movie, but it’s really long. We need a guy who is really stubborn to fight him in the editing room, and everybody thinks of you about that.” I saw that movie and I called Alejandro out of the blue and I said, “Look, it’s a great movie, but it’s too long.” Depending on who you ask, we took out a lot of time. Alejandro started saying it was seven, I thought it was 17 minutes, and now he says it was three. [laughs] Regardless, we took out a chunk of time.

How hands-on were each of you on Rudo y Cursi?

As I said, I knew Alfonso and I knew Carlos for 22 years. I knew Carlos when he was a kid. We talked about the screenplay, we talked about the storyboards, we talked about the dailies. Alfonso and I supervised some of the final visual effects, but it’s Carlos’s movie. We were not in any way responsible for any of his failures or virtues. It’s his movie.

That’s an amazing opportunity for Carlos to be working with friends.

That’s what we kept telling him.

No one would give him that much control I’m guessing.

It was a privileged first outing because he got the money and the access and the size of movie he needed.

What is your ideal location to shoot at? If everything you made were suited to Mexico, would that be the ideal place?<

In an ideal world, yes. I would shoot all movies in Guadalajara, my hometown. But it is not an ideal world.

Did you know any kids growing up like Rudo and Cursi?

Yeah, some, but I don’t give a shit about football. I knew some but I wouldn’t say they were huge influences on my life.

Do you enjoy any sports?

Nothing. I fucking have no interest in sports. Watching them, playing them, nothing. Swimming—I love swimming. It’s sort of a liberation. I have whale genes in more ways than one.

Where are you and your family settled right now?

We’ve now moving to New Zealand. I already moved.

Oh yeah?

They’re joining shortly.

Are you excited about living there?

I love New Zealand. Absolutely, utterly love New Zealand. I’m head over heels.

Were you worried taking The Hobbit on or were you just invigorated?

Invigorated. I think that fear is not a good advisor.

How much of the sets and props are still left over from The Lord of the Rings?

Some, but I won’t use barely any.

Do you, a la Pan’s Labrynth, create this whole world that is distinctly yours or do you want to reference Peter Jackson’s?

I must say we don’t go about it either way. We go about saying what we want the movie to be. I don’t want to purposely make it mine and I don’t want to purposely make it a copy.

An extension of?

No, I think that would be very boring. It would be boring to even try it. I’m not doing an imitation. I think the universe should feel the same, in other words, but the gaze and the look of the universe should be [my own].

Do you find this opportunity more challenging than making an original film?

They’re different challenges. Look, to create something completely from scratch is very challenging, but it is a different sort of challenge. No movie is easy. The Hobbit has so far been an absolute delight to do.

Stemming from making smaller films in Guadalajara—wait, was Cronicas shot in Guadalajara?

In Ecuador.

Well, do you feel like you have a lot more freedom with money behind you now?

I think when you have the money you’re more restrictive creatively, and when you’re free creatively, you’d like the money. I don’t think you can have the money and the creative freedom at the same time. It’s never happened to me, and I don’t think it ever well. I think there is such a thing as having too much freedom and too much money, and it never leads to great films, I don’t think. I’ve never seen a movie that was done with unlimited budget and unlimited creativity that was great.

As successful as you would hope…

No, not even when you think of movies as big as the Lord of the Rings trilogy. People imagined what they cost, but they were costing half or less of what the normal Hollywood blockbuster was costing. It was creativity that held them together.

Because he had a set budget for all three films, right?

That’s correct. I think he did a wonderful, fantastic job for the money.

I think that was one of the most memorable experiences sitting in the theater, seeing that first Lord of the Rings film.

The same with me.

Have you seen Watchmen yet?

No, I just got in last night. I’m seeing it today or tomorrow.

Are you a big fan of the graphic novel?

Massive.

How do you feel about Hollywood making larger-than-life experiences for these beloved comics? Do you think they should remain untouched?

You know, as Raymond Chandler once said, “The books are still on the shelf.” When somebody told him we don’t like one of the adaptations of one of his books, he said, “The books are on the shelf, they haven’t changed.” A good or a bad movie from a different source doesn’t change the source. I don’t see how they could be damaging. On the other hand, they can increase awareness of the original work, to a point. I don’t think it’s a bad thing. As long as they don’t go back and edit the original novel, I’m fine with it.

What was the Oscars like with Pan’s Labrynth?

It was very good. It was very fast. I had a blast. I definitely did not become addicted or too caught in it. I lived it, ultimately, life-affirming and beautifully: “Great to be here and great when I’m not here next year or the year after.” I really loved following the Oscars with Hellboy II. I was not concerned at all now with: “Oh my god, I should do Gone with the Wind.” I was blissfully unchanged in that sense.

Do you plan on making another Hellboy movie?

I would love to, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. It’ll be three and a half years before I finish The Hobbit. Ron is nearing a considerable age and I don’t have any interest in doing Hellboy with any other actor. If somebody else wants to do it, it’s fine. I don’t want to do it without Ron and Ron is growing tired of being in makeup for seven hours a day.

That must be hellish.

No joke.

How do you view the prospects of taking on projects like The Hobbit for three and a half years, dedicating your life to one thing?

You always do that. Pan’s Labrynth took three years almost. It was from 2004 to 2007, I think it was. You always end up giving every movie two years. So the prospect of giving three to three and a half years on two movies is actually great. I think it will completely and utterly absorb my life, but that’s what I expect. You cannot make a movie if it doesn’t absorb your life. I didn’t think of anything else but Pan’s Labrynth, I didn’t think of anything else but Hellboy II. My head was in the movie I had [at the time].

I’ve read that you sketch a lot of your ideas. How does that process work with your production designer and wardrobe designer? Is it an ongoing process or do you just show them what you’re going for and hand it off to them?

I think it is half and half. I show them the initial drawing and tell them to do whatever they think represents this the best way. They change stuff and I sanction their changes, but at the end of the day before anything is built, I have to sign the blueprints. Physically, I grab a pen and sign the blueprints and I say, “Go ahead.” Sometimes I send the blueprints back 20 times, sometimes I don’t send it back and approve them right away. But it’s about controlling those things. I think my job is controlling anything visual in the movie or audio.

That’s what a director should do.

I think it is.

Not to say anything bad about Hollywood, but aesthetically there’s no interest in those details.

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.

I feel like a simple, good costuming choice, like putting the actress in a bright blue dress…

A costuming designer said to me, “Look, if you put a character in a white shirt that is dirty, it is different than a character in a white shirt that is clean. If you put a character in a white shirt and all the buttons are up, it is different than with two buttons down, or three buttons down, or four buttons down.” It’s telling you something about that character. Are the sleeves rolled or are they not? I mean, seriously, so much of that information you absorb without ever knowing you’re absorbing it. I really think there is not such a thing as form and content in film. Form is content and content is form. It can only be expressed in form. No, I think it’s one of the same.

Where they meet and collide?

They don’t meet. They’re one in the same, from the start. It’s not like you’ve got to make them coincide. If you’re not doing it, you’re not doing film. You’re doing something else. You’re doing film drama of some kind, but you’re not doing pure cinema.