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Xfm Meets Guillermo Del Toro

added 02 September 2004 at 15.33

The Mexican director who gave us the brilliant Chronos and The Devil's Backbone talks about his latest film, the devilishly fun comic adaptation, Hellboy. Find out why the pressure was on to deliver something for the fans, how a new creature was born and why he turned down Harry Potter.

Xfm: Hellboy is the latest film in a long line of comic adaptations - was there any apprehension on your part to take on a project like this. Did you worry at any time that there is so much pressure on you to deliver something that will be embraced by fans of the comic, that ultimately you have to make a film for the fans?

Guillermo Del Toro: "Yeah there is all of that pressure when you're making the movie but at the same time you have to abide by very simple rules which are - No. 1, you are a fan therefore you are going to be a good person to judge it. No. 2, you have Mike Mignola, the creator of the comic involved so that should help. So yeah, there is apprehension. This movie was ready to shoot, ready to roll in 1998, and through the years I saw other comic book movies being made and felt very frustrated. You saw the budget bar raised to the point where it's a $60 million movie whereas Spider-Man 2 is $200 million. So you're competing with people who are basically in the same market. It was sort of tense for a moment to think that you have to achieve a level of spectacle on that budget and so forth. It's all worth it."

What is it about Hellboy that appeals to you - why is he so endearing?

GDT: "I think he's such a flawed character, I cannot imagine a better character for me to do in movies because he's not a perfect guy. He's really petulant, he's very cocky, he's very short-tempered, he loves beer, he loves a cigar - he's the antithesis of a clean-cut superhero. I think Hellboy reflects on many things that I believe being a guy is - you know, we are simple minded creatures to a point and he would much rather watch TV with his girlfriend and have a beer than save the world, but he has to. So I love his blue collar attitude and I love his flaws. I love the fact that, at the end of the day, he has a very dark nature and a great sense of humour but he can deal with it."

I read how you came up with Sammael, the villain of the piece - what was your inspiration for the creature?

GDT: "I wanted very much the creature to have a Lovecraftian streak. The Mignola characters and creatures all have H. P Lovecraft influences so I wanted Sammael to be different, to be like an undead horse, an undead hound - to be very animalistic. But I also knew that we had to do 85 to 90% of it with a real guy in a suit with radio controlled features. Most of Sammael is physical, it's real actors. People think he's CGIed but he's mostly done with actors. So all these characteristics made me design it in a certain way."

How involved did Mike Mignola get in the process. Did he veto any of your designs?

GDT: "He was very involved but with Sammael I had an agenda really, to make him different to the creatures that appear in the comic in a way. Every time we would design a new Sammael I would come in and say, 'Well let me draw it and we'll see if it fits in my universe.' We would draw creatures and say, 'No this doesn't work' and it was back to the drawing table, literally, and recreate it all the way until we reached this concept. I drew it and we said 'This is it - this is great, this works with Hellboy."

I also read how you chose to do Hellboy over Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban - there must have been some difficult decision making involved there.

GDT: "I really find that life is full of painful choices and I really wanted to do it and do, for example, Tormentors, and creatures like that, but I am very confident that the best director for that movie was Alfonso Cuarón. I see the movie and I go, 'It's a better movie than I could have done.' No doubt about it - no regrets. He was the right guy and I knew that. I felt very much that I wanted to do my own movie - instead of being a guest in someone else's house right then, I felt like being the host and to do Hellboy more than anything. The way I reached the decision was I thought, 'You want to do both movies - you can't.' Therefore let's think about it and say, 'If you don't do Harry Potter, someone else will. If you don't do Hellboy, no one else will. So it was an easy decision (laughs)."

Now I've seen Hellboy, I can't wait for Hellboy 2…

GDT: "…Me neither (laughs)."

What have you got planned for it?

GDT: "I think that the first movie deals with Hellboy and his immediate family and his immediate environment. The second movie will deal with Hellboy in the world. It will be more of Hellboy facing the real world and more of his real role on this earth. You know, does he belong with the humans. The first one was Tarzan, the second one is Tarzan In The City (laughs)."

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Read our Hellboy review

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Interview by Mario Vella

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