Guillermo del Toro: For any actor to have Oliver Stone call him or her...

In a world where we are so pragmatic and materialistic, fear is the only emotion that allows even a sophisticated person to believe in something beyond.

Guillermo del Toro

emotion believe world

I love monsters. If I go to a church, I'm more interested in the gargoyles than the saints. I really don't care much about the idea of normal - that's very abstract to me. I think that perfection is practically unattainable but imperfection is right at hand. So that's why I love monsters: because they represent a side of us we should actually embrace and celebrate.

Guillermo del Toro

church perfection thinking

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.

Guillermo del Toro

bullshit levels artist

The butterfly does not look back upon its caterpillar self, either fondly or wistfully; it simply flies on.

Guillermo del Toro

butterfly self doe

You only find yourself when you disobey. Disobedience is the beginning of responsibility, I think.

Guillermo del Toro

finding-yourself responsibility thinking

When I was a teenager there was no video in my country. Betamax came to Mexico very slowly.

Guillermo del Toro

teenager video country

You have to believe the magic to see it.

Guillermo del Toro

magic believe

Any legend, any creature, any symbol we ever stumble on, already exists in a vast cosmic reservoir where archetypes wait. Shapes looming outside our Platonic cave. We naturally believe ourselves clever and wise, so advanced, and those who came before us so naïve and simple...when all we truly do is echo the order of the universe, as it guides us.

Guillermo del Toro

wise clever believe

You live and die two or three times making a movie. First, you write it, and the first pivotal moment comes when you can get it made. The second is in the process of making it, when the movie reveals itself to you, its flaws and its virtues. Then the most unnerving moment is when that movie is then launched into the world. It’s like bringing your kid to the first day at school and somebody points out that it has bowlegs, it is cross-eyed, or it’s gorgeous. You feel very exposed.

Guillermo del Toro

writing kids school

Well, the first thing is that I love monsters, I identify with monsters.

Guillermo del Toro

wells monsters firsts

I have a sort of a fetish for insects, clockwork, monsters, dark places, and unborn things

Guillermo del Toro

insects dark monsters

There's nothing that defines who you are more than boundaries, whether you cross them or not, in every aspect of your life, and horror is a really great boundary.

Guillermo del Toro

horror boundaries crosses

"What makes a man a man?" a friend of mine once wondered. Is it his origins? The way he comes to life? I don't think so. It's the choices he makes. Not how he starts things, but how he decides to end them.

Guillermo del Toro

choices men thinking

When you see something or experience something extraordinary, you can't go back to normal... I think that that's the way I see the supernatural-as happening in mundane circumstances or to people who are unprepared.

Guillermo del Toro

people way thinking

There is beautiful in the grotesque.

Guillermo del Toro

grotesque beautiful

In real life, what scares me is politicians, corporations and people that think they know what the world should be.

Guillermo del Toro

real people thinking

You can't explain success in retrospect. The moment you leap into the void, that moment is impossible to negate, after success.

Guillermo del Toro

void retrospect impossible

I try to find inspiration in books, paintings, illustrations and the one thing I try to avoid is just being inspired by other movies, because then you just are talking about movies in movies. I try to talk about movies that are culturally and spiritually a little more diverse.

Guillermo del Toro

illustration inspiration book

People tend to think that big things only happen to big people ... I think that is not true. The small decisions we make every day define who we are and define the world around us. ... But I bet to you there is a decision every day in your life where you affect somebody else.

Guillermo del Toro

decisions-we-make people thinking

I feel that we have, as Mexicans, two things: one, a natural distrust of institutions. I hate organised religion, I hate organised politics, I hate the idea of the military and the police. Because we grew up distrusting all these sacred institutions, the only thing you have left is a vague, national sense of impending doom. Why do we drink and how are we so merry? Because we know that pretty soon, our time's up. There is a sense of fatality that makes us pretty chirpy people. You try to live. The only reason that dying is important is that it gives life sense.

Guillermo del Toro

hate military people

For any actor to have Oliver Stone call him or her up Its a compliment. He expects you to be on your toes. If youre not, he pokes at you until you react. Hes very provocative, creatively. It started like a lot of hard work, but it ended up a lot of fun.

For any actor to have Oliver Stone call him or her up Its a compliment. He expects you to be on your toes. If youre not, he pokes at you until you react. Hes very provocative, creatively. It started like a lot of hard work, but it ended up a lot of fun.