Transcript, E192: Guillermo del Toro on crafting art and life

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Network ID: LinkedIn News.

Jessi Hempel:

From the news team at LinkedIn. I'm Jessi Hempel, and this is, Hello Monday. And today we have something really special for you. Our guest today is Oscar winning director, Guillermo del Toro. Guillermo's been in the industry for more than three decades. His work includes Academy Award-winning films that you've likely heard of, maybe even seen like Pan's Labyrinth and The Shape of Water. Now it's a big season for Guillermo. Earlier this fall, Netflix released Cabinet of Curiosities, which is an eight episode series of modern horror stories, and Netflix has just released Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, a film that offers a new powerful take on the legend.

Now, I'm familiar with Guillermo's work, but my expertise is nothing compared to our producer, Sarah Storm. Film is her industry. When Sarah's not producing this show, she's a professional actor, and when she learned Guillermo was coming into our studios, well, she had a million questions. So I invited Sarah to host one of the most important directors of our time. What follows is a masterclass, not just in film, but in nurturing talent, in building people up, in making art, and in what it means to lead a well lived life. Here's Sarah Storm in conversation with Guillermo del Toro.

Sarah Storm:

Here at LinkedIn, we talk a lot about making a seat at the table, making space for yourself within an industry, having other people open a door for you into the industry. So you've developed a unique vision and cinematic vocabulary, and now you're inviting more and more people to sit at your table.

Guillermo del Toro:

Yeah.

Sarah Storm:

And I would love to know what it's like for you to find that community and to nurture it.

Guillermo del Toro:

You know, I've been, I've been a really, really, uh, engaged guy since the beginning. It's been 30 years. Because look, before I directed, I was a, uh, PA, I was a sound boom guy, I was a, an assistant director, I was a makeup effects guy, I was a physical effects guy. I did everything. So I grew up with the crew. And, uh, my camaraderie with directors is second nature to me. And as soon as I could produce, as soon as I gained any clout early on, I said, I'm gonna use it to protect first time directors. And that's what I've been doing. I mean, I think about, a- about 12 movies, uh, I've done in Latin America. Seven has been, have been first time directors.

Sarah Storm:

That's incredible.

Guillermo del Toro:

Yeah. So it is an affinity. I actually am braver at protecting other people (laughs) than protecting myself. I dunno why. It's a real, it's a real circumstance of mine. So I do that there on films, I do it on Cabinet of Curiosities.

Sarah Storm:

I was wondering about that.

Guillermo del Toro:

Yeah.

Sarah Storm:

Can you say a little bit more about Cabinet of Curiosities?

Guillermo del Toro:

Yeah. Cabinet, Cabinet was, uh, quite literally an experiment to either amplify voices in the genre that I think were not that well known and deserved to be well known, or quite literally invite colleagues that had had really rough experiences and produced them in an ideal scenario. I said, "You get final cut. I'm gonna pamper you. I'm gonna give you everything you need, and you're gonna heal," basically. And that's what we did with, uh, Cabinet. It was, it was really an ideal experiment, which made it very difficult. When people say, "Oh, we hope there's a second season." I go, "I don't know if I do," (laughs) because we have to produce eight films in one year.

Sarah Storm:

Wow.

Guillermo del Toro:

That's crazy. That's like a, a major company's input.

Sarah Storm:

Mm-hmm. Say a little bit more about the challenge of, of that.

Guillermo del Toro:

Well, the challenge of that is, the challenge of producing eight directors in one year means that eight times you're gonna have to deal with a set of problems as is unique to their storytelling. Some directors communicate one way, others communicate another, some directors, uh, find a movie as they shoot it. Some of others are really rigid in preparation. But what we tried to do is build them all the sets they needed. We would have cranes, dollies, mini gyms, all the toys were there. I would design the monsters for most of the episodes, myself with Guy Davis. We would, I would check the sculpts, I would discuss the techniques. I was having fun doing the monsters.

Sarah Storm:

Mm-hmm.

Guillermo del Toro:

But the elaborate thing is then you have to go into editing and mixing and color correcting and digital effects. And I am unofficially a digital effects supervisor in all those shows, because I'm gonna be demanding really good digital effects. What we did with the TV budget was crazy, phenomenal. And each of them had a different problem, so.

Sarah Storm:

I wanna transition from this one time sort of, uh, working with people in this way to hearing a little bit about some of your long time collaborators. So people that I've seen that you work with again and again, like Ron Pearlman and Doug Jones stick out to me. But I've noticed as I was reviewing a lot of your films for this conversation-

Guillermo del Toro:

Mm-hmm.

Sarah Storm:

... many directors whose names appear in, in the special thanks or-

Guillermo del Toro:

Yeah.

Sarah Storm:

... elsewhere. How do you know when you found a colleague or a collaborator where your working relationship is gonna transcend a specific project?

Guillermo del Toro:

You know, I, I value those that are reciprocal. Meaning I, I really value when people are interested also in your films and they say, "Hey, if you need an, a pair of eyes to look at a cut." Is very, very, uh, good when a director helps another director. It really, really is because we know how the engineering of a scene is done. Like, I'll give you an example. Nightmare Alley, I had a very, very long cut, and I showed it to a bunch of directors. And Michael Mann, who has been a, a mentor for decades to me, and all of the Mexican directors, actually, we call him Uncle Michael. Right? Uh, he... I said, "It's pretty long." And Michael said, "No, it's not long. It's too grand in the middle."

He said, "You keep starting and ending the scenes in the middle with beautiful cranes." And he said, "And that damages the rhythm." He said, "In the second act, you start in the middle or you cut before it ends." And I started doing that, a- and sure enough, it moved differently. And then if I go to an editing room, I am equally wise, because you're not involved, the view from outside is really good. So, Alejandro I?árritu, Alfonso Cuarón, Jim Cameron, Michael and JJ Abrams, these are colleagues that are always, we are looking at each others' cuts all the time.

Sarah Storm:

We have this concept here, we talk about, like, assembling your personal board of directors, people who will-

Guillermo del Toro:

Yeah.

Sarah Storm:

... advise you a little bit dispassionately, like from a deep caring place about what they're seeing. And it sounds like that's sort of a similar thing in the filmmaking world.

Guillermo del Toro:

Yeah. When I, when I arrive, for example to the editing room, I say, "What do you need? Uh, love or brutality?"

Sarah Storm:

I love that.

Guillermo del Toro:

And then they say, "No, be brutal." And then you're brutal. But I like doing it e- even with people I don't know. Like four weeks ago, I was in a, in a first time director's editing room, just, I didn't know him, but I saw the movie, I liked it, and we were shoulder to shoulder trying to solve it. I like it because that's the way I grew up. And there were certain directors from the generation before me in Mexico that were very generous with me. They nurtured me. And I think you are only as s- strong as your community. There's no such thing as standing alone.

Sarah Storm:

What's your advice for someone who's looking for a way to pay it forward in their career?

Guillermo del Toro:

To do it, to do it immediately. I mean, I tell all my first time directors, I tell them, "Now, you gotta produce a first time director." And I'm sad to report most of them don't (laughs).

Sarah Storm:

Mm-hmm.

Guillermo del Toro:

But I think it's a, it is a vocation. I think if you have a vocation to promote and to protect, you're there that way, you find joy in that. And if you don't have the vocation, then that's fine. N- not everybody needs to produce. I like producing.

Sarah Storm:

Same. It's nice-

Guillermo del Toro:

Yeah.

Sarah Storm:

... it's nice to build things, even if-

Guillermo del Toro:

Yeah.

Sarah Storm:

... they're not my things.

Guillermo del Toro:

Yeah.

Sarah Storm:

Yeah. You've experienced so much success in the last 30 years, at this point what does your appetite for risk and for failure feel like?

Guillermo del Toro:

Look, to be honest, that's the way it looks from the outside. A career inside your life, uh, is biography. And my career is the equivalent of a, a car crash in slow motion that takes 30 years to see if you come alive or not. Uh, I have b- between Cronos and Mimic, there are five years of unemployment. Between Mimic and the next one, there are four years of unemployment. And so on and so forth. Uh, total I've been unemployed out of 30 years, or developing, if you want to call it the way it is called in Hollywood for a long time. And just to g- gauge the success, I have written or co-written 34 feature films, and I've only shot 12.

So that's really how it feels from inside. You know, now, from the outside lately, uh, what happens is if you stay thematically cohesive with yourself, if you stay faithful to your preoccupations, eventually through the decades, if you survive, people start seeing the correlation of your work with each other. One movie speaks to the other and so forth. And that, that is really gratifying. Uh, and, and it culminates in a way with Shape of Water where, um, you know, the second time I was at the Oscars, but both times I had been with a movie that was completely genuinely me, uh, Pan's Labyrinth and, uh, Shape then. And then later I- in Nightmare Alley, same.

Sarah Storm:

I was noticing this weekend while I was watching Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth and the way that they're in conversation with each other.

Guillermo del Toro:

Yeah. I'm, yeah.

Sarah Storm:

And then seeing elements of that in Pinocchio, which I thought was so-

Guillermo del Toro:

Oh, yeah.

Sarah Storm:

... great.

Guillermo del Toro:

Big time.

Sarah Storm:

Yeah.

Guillermo del Toro:

I mean, I, I made Pinocchio to be the third sibling of these two movies. Yeah.

Sarah Storm:

I wanna get into that some more.

Guillermo del Toro:

Mm-hmm.

Sarah Storm:

So this film has taken you a long time to bring to life. What drew you to that story, to the story of Pinocchio?

Guillermo del Toro:

I've been in love with Pinocchio since I was a kid, since I was, uh... the second or third movie I saw with my mom. So, you know, that it has all that emotional attachment. And I liked it because it was almost like a horror movie, you know? I felt, oh, this guy really understands how scary it is to be a kid. And I, I still think, Walt Disney understood the horrors of childhood. You know, he had a side that was obviously very, uh, in love with beauty and in love with emotions, but he also had a huge streak of darkness in his narrative. And, and, you know, Quentin Tarantino in San Francisco the other day, he said, the scariest movie I've ever seen is Bambi, and it's still the most violent.

Sarah Storm:

(laughs).

Guillermo del Toro:

So I, I agree. And, uh, Pinocchio made that impression. And I've been wanting to do it for a long, long time. I wanted to do it in stop motion. And then in 2003, Gris Grimley, an illustrator from California, he came up with a book on Pinocchio. And I bought an original or two from the drawings in the book, and we met and he said, "Oh, you know, maybe we can turn this into a film." And, uh, we started talking about that. I was gonna co-write and produce, and he was gonna direct. And, you know, I said, "Can we use your drawing?" And he said, "Yeah, well, let's use the drawing." And I asked him, "Why does Pinocchio look like that?" It was one of my first questions. And he said, uh, "Geppetto was drunk."

Sarah Storm:

And I just wanna illustrate, so for our listeners who may not have tuned into Netflix at the time that this airs-

Guillermo del Toro:

Mm-hmm.

Sarah Storm:

... although they will, as soon as they hear this, Pinocchio is a little bit, um-

Guillermo del Toro:

Like an elemental creature.

Sarah Storm:

Yeah, he's a creature.

Guillermo del Toro:

Yeah. He, well, he's carved by a drunken wood carver. And, uh, this came from the drawings of Gris. And then I thought, he is, why is he drunk? He's drunk, because of grief. And then I thought, he's trying to carve a new son. He lost one. And it started there. And then, you know, we tried to mount that version, it didn't work. We kept the same ideas and, and tried the new direction with me directing, and it didn't work again for about 10 or 11 years. Uh, people said no. And then after doing Troll Hunters, Tale of Arcadia, which was very successful for Netflix, uh, I went to them and they said, yes.

Sarah Storm:

Wonderful. What makes this adaptation feel so unique?

Guillermo del Toro:

Well, it, it belongs in the universe of my movies. Therefore, uh, it has a lot to do with, uh, I think that I'm, I've been doing since Cronos, and it's in Hellboy, and it's in Devil's Backbone, which is, uh, stories of fathers and sons or orphans or the, the role of, uh, of father figure absent or not, is in most of my movies. And, uh, the idea of death, um, and what happens with, with death, uh, negotiations with death, whether it can be on Hellboy Two, or they can be here, or the testing of the soul of a, a young character like Pan's Labyrinth, all those things are mixed in Pinocchio. Is, is a almost like a, like a best of, uh, CD of the top of the pops of the things that I'm interested in.

And what makes it unique is the thing that Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth then they share is innocence and war. What happens with innocence when war is the system? And in this case is a Pinocchio that uniquely goes against the grain of the normal Pinocchio tale by being disobedient and showing that disobedience is a virtue and not changing into a real boy, because he already is real. My idea is like, if anyone wants to change you and they say they love you, you should run away because love does not demand change.

Sarah Storm:

That's one of the things that I noticed about this film, is it really does seem to look at Geppetto a little more harshly than Pinocchio-

Guillermo del Toro:

Mm-hmm.

Sarah Storm:

... which is what I'm used to from the story... that it feels like instead of Pinocchio somehow failing, Geppetto is like failing to see who his son really is.

Guillermo del Toro:

Yes, of course.

Sarah Storm:

Yeah.

Guillermo del Toro:

I think, uh, the, the character that learns in this Pinocchio is Geppetto. It's not Pinocchio learning the moral lessons to turn into a real boy, it's Geppetto learning the spiritual lessons to learn to be a father. And I think there, if we have to look at the world with real sincerity, parents fail, not kids.

Sarah Storm:

Mm-hmm.

Guillermo del Toro:

And a, a, a kid is a kid and fulfilling the role of a kid a 100%. Parents are incredibly deficient. We are. I mean, I am a parent and I was, and you know, and then you get the reviews when they, when everybody enters the teens.

Sarah Storm:

Mm-hmm.

Guillermo del Toro:

And, and even then parents try to dismiss that saying, "Well, it's a difficult age." No, it's not a difficult age, they're telling you the truth. Would you listen, please.

Sarah Storm:

It's that Maya Angelou quote of somebody saying who they are the first time believe them-

Guillermo del Toro:

Yes.

Sarah Storm:

... from a very early age.

Guillermo del Toro:

Yes.

Sarah Storm:

I wanna ask, I was watching the CBS interview that you did.

Guillermo del Toro:

Mm-hmm.

Sarah Storm:

Um, so context for this question. I'm a recovering perfectionist. I've been trying to adopt the mantra, perfect is the enemy of done. So you were talking about making art on this massive scale that Pinocchio had, correct me if I'm wrong, 60 sound stages working simultaneously?

Guillermo del Toro:

60 units, yeah.

Sarah Storm:

60 units.

Guillermo del Toro:

In a single sound stage.

Sarah Storm:

And you were shooting footage on all of those simultaneously. No.

Guillermo del Toro:

Not at the same time.

Sarah Storm:

Okay.

Guillermo del Toro:

W- what you had is 20 units would be ramping up-

Sarah Storm:

Mm-hmm.

Guillermo del Toro:

... 20 units would be going down, 20 units would be shooting, or 30 or 40. Yes. Many more than you would want to.

Sarah Storm:

It's an incredible scale. And that brings me to this question. How can you know when something is finished and what's it like to let a piece of that work go so you can move on to the next thing?

Guillermo del Toro:

Well, look, the essence of art is the negotiation between perfection and spontaneity, you know, or reality, which is imperfection. And, and that negotiation occupies art in all its arenas. Technically, you have to prepare a perfect shoot because otherwise e- everything fails. So technically you are fully prepared, and then you seek the accident. Now, an animation, you have to provoke it. In animation, there's not such a thing as the actor stumbled, you have to animate the actors stumbling on a bottle on the floor, and you tried to breathe life through those details. Now you have to keep 100% delivery 100% of the time. Now, here comes a part where imperfection is great. You tell the animators, if you find something other than what we instructed you, Mark Gustafson and I will co-direct it, follow it. And you tell them if you're wrong, it's okay if you're wrong. Just follow your instinct because we get you as a performer only once. So give us your instinct.

Sarah Storm:

Is this where you get to "animate mistakes"?

Guillermo del Toro:

Yeah, yeah. We dictated a lot of the mistakes, but the animators then found other things. Like, there's one of my favorite shows, it's impossible if you haven't seen the movie. But it's, uh, Geppetto sits down on the bench and l- lands about a foot away from where he needed to land. He scooches a little, he goes for the box, he changes his mind. I mean, there are many failed acts.

Sarah Storm:

Mm-hmm.

Guillermo del Toro:

And that was an animated shot that was the animator trying something different.

Jessi Hempel:

We're gonna take a quick break here. When we come back, more from Guillermo del Toro.

And we're back. Just before the break, Guillermo told us about the brilliant things his animators were able to bring to Pinocchio by animating a character, making a mistake. "Animate mistakes" is one of the guiding principles of the film. Before they shot a single frame, Guillermo and his collaborators created Eight Commandments of their Animation Bible. This North Star, it's just like the guiding principles a startup might create. It helps unify the many hands making the film. Sarah asked Guillermo where these principles originate.

Guillermo del Toro:

I wish all of them came from, from me and my experience. The real wellspring, uh, for this was Hayao Miyazaki. Miyazaki has a moment in Totoro where the father goes to put his shoe on and h- he misses, once, twice and on the third try, he puts the shoe on. And I thought it was extraordinary. And then I read a quote by him where he says, "If you animate the ordinary, it will be extraordinary." And I thought, that's it, that's the north star. And then I, I started trying things on Troll Hunters, like, let's animate the full mistake. Let's, uh, do micro gestures, let's refuse pantomime. Normally pantomime is this sort of exaggerated sitcomy way of acting.

Sarah Storm:

Mm-hmm.

Guillermo del Toro:

You know, all those poses that you're familiar with in, in animation that unify almost all movies into the same emoji, emoticon, uh-

Sarah Storm:

Mm-hmm.

Guillermo del Toro:

... language of gestures that simulate emotion. We said, "Let's make this actors, actors, and let's make them think." And we would say, "We don't want the puppet moving. We want the puppet thinking and feeling. And we don't want motion, we want emotion." And we would say that to the animators, and I tell you of the totality of the shoot, they delivered that every single time.

Sarah Storm:

So just establishing those principles before you shoot. And-

Guillermo del Toro:

Yes.

Sarah Storm:

... it, it makes sure that you get more of what you're hoping for.

Guillermo del Toro:

N- not only that, you inspire, like w- when people say, "What does a director do?" I say, "A director does self-portraiture. But a director that is good makes everyone in the entire crew and cast believe that all of them need to do self-portraiture." So an animator is doing the best of their essence into the puppet. An actor is giving you the best of their essence into the boy's work. That's a good director. And he's not a, the guy that thinks of everything. He's the person that provokes everything.

Sarah Storm:

It sounds like by providing the structure of that animation bible, you freed people up to be creative within-

Guillermo del Toro:

Yes.

Sarah Storm:

... a box sort of, or to-

Guillermo del Toro:

Yes.

Sarah Storm:

... to kick the tires, so to speak.

Guillermo del Toro:

Imagine that the director is a conductor of a symphony orchestra. Of course, you want the flute players to play as good as they can, and the violin players to play as good as they can, of course you want that. You're not playing a single instrument, you're playing the orchestra, that's directing, that's conducting. And of course you need to know where a, a bar was off or the tempo is off, but that's your job.

Sarah Storm:

So it sounds like you're really inviting quite a lot of collaboration. You're inspiring people to bring their best efforts. How do you know when it's time for you to maybe impose a decision on a group versus where, where it's time to take their collaboration?

Guillermo del Toro:

Fortunately, fortunately, when I'm directing alone, I've been doing this for 30 years, you just know you. It is like a cook.

Sarah Storm:

Mm-hmm.

Guillermo del Toro:

You, you know, when the soup is at the perfect point.

Sarah Storm:

Mm-hmm.

Guillermo del Toro:

You take a sip and you go, "That's it. Serve it." In the case of Pinocchio, I was blessed with the best collaborator, uh, Mark Gustafson, who not only knows animation, he has great instincts as director. So Mark and I would both take a spoon of soup. And if both of us said yes, it was good.

Sarah Storm:

Amazing.

Guillermo del Toro:

Yeah.

Sarah Storm:

So it's helpful to have, to have somebody who's got your back when you're directing.

Guillermo del Toro:

In animation, certainly. Live action, I doubt that it would be a good idea because the rhythms are different. In animation, you have a thousand years to shoot Pinocchio. In live action, you would have, what, 80 days, which means the speed of decision making is about a thousand percent faster.

Sarah Storm:

So you have to sort of suit [inaudible 00:22:59] your process to the, to what you're doing.

Guillermo del Toro:

I, I... listen, I can decorate a house completely in five days. That's the speed of my life. And I can make a decision on a, on a suit or a prop set acting decision within less than three seconds. And I can instruct it. The, the director needs to be clear on the instruction. If you take more than a minute to explain what needs to be done, you're not directing correctly.

Sarah Storm:

It sounds like that translates really well to leadership outside of a film too. Like-

Guillermo del Toro:

Oh yeah.

Sarah Storm:

... say more about how that clarity helps your teamwork.

Guillermo del Toro:

The l- look, an actor is delivering a line, and you can say, for example, very simple, "Don't look into her eyes until this word, take away your eyes." Or you can say, "Deliver the entire line looking at her eyes, even the difficult part." You know, or you can say, "Don't project."

Sarah Storm:

Mm-hmm.

Guillermo del Toro:

You can say, faster. Those are really quick instructions. And the other thing that you do in, in directing actors, is you say, you give them something to do, a specific task that takes their mind away from the lines. You say, you know, uh, "Put salt to your to, on the steak. Mix your coffee really slowly." And then they are distracted of the importance, quote, unquote, of the lines. The same is true in an office or in an endeavor. You give everyone a task to give their full attention, aside from the collective task.

Sarah Storm:

I love that. And everybody get, is freer to do what they do best.

Guillermo del Toro:

Yeah. And when we started this movie, I, I stood in the middle of the set in Portland in Oregon, and I said to all the animators, "You are actors. You will be credited like actors on the front of the movie, not on the back. You're not technicians. No one will give us notes that we need to change the movie. No one. I will protect everyone's creativity." I said, "We're gonna cater only to our instincts in this endeavor." And I made that promise. And when your team knows you are strong enough to deliver that promise, they trust you and themselves to give you their 100% 'cause it will not be thrown away. That is huge.

Sarah Storm:

Yeah.

Guillermo del Toro:

That is huge because then you are a, a benign force that is there for everybody to have the best experience. And I, I find honestly, in life in general, if you wanna receive, give, is the easiest. You wanna be happy, give, don't think about what you have, think about what you can do. And, uh, when I talk to my kids and I tell them, this, uh, recipe sounds really silly, but the only way you can feel like a rich person is not by how much you have is by how little you need. And the crew feels that. The crew says, "Oh, look at this. All the protection is being given to us. It's not l- live in fear of the director 'cause only those ideas are good." No, it's, you say, "Bring it in."

Sarah Storm:

I love that. Pinocchio is a deeply cinematic, animated film.

Guillermo del Toro:

Mm-hmm.

Sarah Storm:

What drew you to stop motion as the storytelling medium here? And what do you love about practical effects, especially in this age where we can digitize so much?

Guillermo del Toro:

There is no, no, uh, more intimate form of animation than stop motion. It's literally a kid with toys in a play set. And is the equivalent of you playing with, uh, toys when you're a kid, but in an incredibly sophisticated way. And the intimacy of that gives it great humanity. And I think that in an era where everything is possible but not real, where it is not tangible because it's digital-

Sarah Storm:

Mm-hmm.

Guillermo del Toro:

... you know, I think people can tell when a movie has been carved and painted and moved by hand. And there is a beauty to it that is staggering to me. That is on one side. And the other side is I've been doing stop motion myself, I've animated enough. And, um, the final thing is I'm in, in crazy love with miniatures. And when I was a kid and I would look at the viewmaster reels, I would look at the miniatures with the coyote and the road runner, uh, dioramas. And I would say, I want every, all those toys.

Sarah Storm:

And now you have.

Guillermo del Toro:

I have them.

Sarah Storm:

Amazing.

Guillermo del Toro:

Yeah. I, I get more toys.

Sarah Storm:

If you could go back in time and tell your earlier self anything, what would it be?

Guillermo del Toro:

You know, I would say it gets better and it never gets better. Because that's the thing, um, you have to understand. Making films, no matter how high you go, it never gets completely void of heartbreak.

Sarah Storm:

Mm-hmm.

Guillermo del Toro:

There is a huge heartbreak waiting. When we finished Pinocchio, I was finishing, uh, mixing and color correcting, and I turned to Mark Gustafson and I said, "The movie is perfect. Now it can all go wrong."

Sarah Storm:

That's wonderful.

Guillermo del Toro:

You know, because it, because it is true. And, and, uh, you know, but it's part of, uh, d- disappointment is a lesson, you know, uh, that tells you, you shouldn't have expected anything. You know, you s- should j- just do the work, make the reward the work. And the more you make that, the easier it gets.

Sarah Storm:

What advice would you have for somebody who's looking to follow in your footsteps as a filmmaker or an animator?

Guillermo del Toro:

Know that what you feel right, uh, everybody feels. Like, there are four filmmakers in the entire planet, maybe four, that can dictate what movie they do next. The rest of us, it's above our pay grade. If it's of any help, and I, I will offer it with delight, in the last two weeks, they have canceled me in two projects. So it doesn't stop happening. I don't decide what I do next, I don't. I half decide what I do next. Filmmaking necessitates you having the fragility of a poet and the endurance of a boxer. You need to be able to withstand the most horrible blows publicly, privately and yet allow your skin to be permeated by poetry and beauty.

Sarah Storm:

That's beautifully put.

Guillermo del Toro:

Yeah.

Sarah Storm:

And I wonder what you would say to someone, whether they're creating an artistic project or starting a small business. How do we keep on going when we're hitting those tough spots?

Guillermo del Toro:

You know, I, I remember my father was kidnapped in 1998 and he was kept, kept, uh, hostage for 72 days. I left Mexico in a hurry. I was p- pretty much broke and I had to shoot Devil's Backbone, but it was taking a long, long time, years, we couldn't find the financing, this and that. And at one point I pulled over in the highway, I, I didn't know if I could put any gas into my car anymore or pay the credit card. And, you know, two years later I'm in Spain shooting Devil's Backbone. When you have to think that everything is transitory and the more you dwell on the present state of things without learning from it, the less you will be able to move. You have to say, "Why am I here and how can I get out of here?"

Sarah Storm:

What is this moment to me?

Guillermo del Toro:

What is it... But this moment has to be there for a reason. People say there is not such thing as karma. W- well, there is and there isn't. If you... Imagine this. If you zoom into a cup of coffee and somebody just put a little cream in the coffee and swirled that coffee inside that cup, molecules of, of coffee are horrified by the attack of molecules of cream, which feels random, savage, un- unwarranted, injustice itself. There is no pattern to this life. If you pull back enough, you see the swirl on the coffee and you go, there is order. There is a pattern and there is a reason. We just don't pull back far enough to see it, but it's there if you can do it.

Sarah Storm:

That's beautiful.

Guillermo del Toro:

It is true.

Sarah Storm:

I feel like I got a gift in watching so many of your films this weekend because I got to see the conversation happening.

Guillermo del Toro:

Yes.

Sarah Storm:

I'm gonna indulge myself in one artistic question.

Guillermo del Toro:

Yes.

Sarah Storm:

So in terms of when you're moving the camera, so you're evoking a particular response in people.

Guillermo del Toro:

Yes.

Sarah Storm:

Can we talk about the relationship between what you're doing on the camera side and what you're hoping the audience is getting on the other end?

Guillermo del Toro:

Yes. It's extremely simple. Imagine that you're writing a passage in, in a letter or a novel. A certain movement of camera or rhythm of editing is caps or underline or bold. You are typing emotions with the camera. You're typing a rhythm with the camera and the editing, you know. So if you want a, a moment to have a adjectives, like, uh, you have to use those sounds, colors, movements as adjectives. I, I remember when we were doing Devil's Backbone, my first line on Devil's Backbone was "A door. Dark. Ominous." And my assistant director says, "How are you gonna do ominous?" I said, "I'm gonna put the camera low and I'm gonna push in very slowly and jib up." It's a decision, t- that for me says, there's danger there. And I, and then on the audio, I'm gonna put a low frequency, 'cause low frequencies hit you in the solar plexus.

So the only tools you have to transmit the adjectives that are in your screenplay are visual or audio. So you stage on your film to, to qualify the moment. You can take a scene, take a scene by a great director, whoever it is that you admire. It can be a classic, it can be a modern movie, and dissect a scene. Take the time. If you wanna learn to write, learn to read. You know, so the more you read carefully, don't watch movies, read movies. It's a different quality of observation. The first time you see a movie, you can't read it. Neither does the second nor the third. Four, fifth onwards you are reading the movie. Is he using a wide angle? Is he using a, a, a longer lens? Is it on a crane? Is it on a jib? Is it on a dolly? Is it on a steady? You know, and, and, and why, why? So you question all these things and then you learn to write.

Sarah Storm:

Thank you. That's incredible.

Guillermo del Toro:

Yeah.

Sarah Storm:

What's inspiring you right now? What are you looking forward to?

Guillermo del Toro:

I love reading about art. Uh, I love reading about painters I admire and I sort of organize my library to be constantly learning. And I decided for whatever reason to organize my thoughts on the Renaissance about six months ago. So I've been going in chronological order reading the biographies 'cause we, we made the, such progress, uh, on the Renaissance. And the contrast with the Middle Ages is so sharp. And I think that we are in a similar transition right now that I wanted to see w- what happened and how does this transition happen and I was curious. And I think the difference is that the Renaissance is the era of curiosity and the Middle ages is not particularly curious and is full of fear.

Sarah Storm:

And how do you see that playing out now?

Guillermo del Toro:

I think that we're heading towards, uh, a moment in which fear is threatening to become the dominant force in our life. I think that most people wake up with a little black cloud over their heads and you cannot, uh, jump into the void with the freedom that you need to, to create art, to create science. There are four, um, markers for Totalitarianism, uh, with fascism o- or you name it. One is to not believe in science. Check. You know, to call culture and art, elitist, check. To enthrone popular culture as the only worthy culture to pursue, check. And finally to worship folksiness, you know, know as, as a almost a state of sanctity. And check. So I, I think that the, we have to be very vigilant to these markers and be disobedient, uh, and be aware and be ready to do what your soul tells you is right.

Sarah Storm:

And it really seems like there's a lot of totalitarianism at play in Pinocchio.

Guillermo del Toro:

Yeah.

Sarah Storm:

What's, what's, what are you hoping an audience takes away from it?

Guillermo del Toro:

You know, it, it just, uh, there is a simplicity to love that... and there's a simplicity to understanding that we are not important, therefore we are really important. The paradox in this world is we are not permanently important. None of us. Uh, and the movie says what happens, happens and then you're gone. But while we are here, we are important 'cause we are the only thing that is here. Whatever is gonna come after us is not here yet, whatever was before us has gone. So it's urgent that we keep the swirl in the coffee going in the right direction (laughs).

Sarah Storm:

I love that. And as a last question. Since this is airing in the holiday season and we're looking ahead to a new year, given all of this, given that we're seeing these markers of totalitarianism and that we're trying to-

Guillermo del Toro:

Mm-hmm.

Sarah Storm:

... beat back against them, what gives you, uh, joy and hope?

Guillermo del Toro:

The fact that we can still do art, that art still is there, that we can still, um, have a bit of a, a pause with each other, uh, with the right people is not with everybody. That's good that we can still have our voice heard. You know, the structures are still things that we can topple or reinforce according to each, each individual's feeling. But, but we are free to pursue those things. I, I think it's good. I think, you know, you're still breathing. That's, that's a really good thing.

Sarah Storm:

Always.

Guillermo del Toro:

Yeah.

Sarah Storm:

Always.

Guillermo del Toro:

Yeah.

Sarah Storm:

Well, thank you so much for the gift of this time.

Guillermo del Toro:

My pleasure. Yeah.

Sarah Storm:

It was a pleasure to speak with you.

Guillermo del Toro:

Thank you.

Sarah Storm:

Thank you.

Jessi Hempel:

That was Director Guillermo del Toro in conversation with Sarah Storm. Pinocchio is out in theaters now. It's also available to view on Netflix. And Guillermo is now on LinkedIn. We'll share his profile in our show notes. Be sure to follow him there. This week for Hello Monday Office Hours, let's talk about making seats at our tables. What's something generous someone has done to make your work life better? How did you pay that forward? You can find us on the LinkedIn news page at 3:00 PM Eastern, or drop an email to hellomondaylinkedin.com and we'll send you the link.

We're so excited to share that Hello Monday has been nominated for a Signal Award and you can help us. Visit vote.signalaward.com to cast your ballot. You'll find us in the business category. Thanks.

Hello Monday is a production of LinkedIn News. Sarah Storm produces our show with mixing by Joe DiGiorgi. Courtney Coupe is head of original programming. Dave Pond is head of news production. The One LinkedIn community behind this episode includes Julie Kutchin, Victoria Taylor, Derek Carl, Michelle O'Brien, Nina Ibarra, Leah Smart, Scott Rinehart, Wallace Truesdale and Michaela Greer. Our theme music was composed just for us by the Mysterious Breakmaster cylinder. Dan Roth is the editor in chief of LinkedIn. I'm Jessi Hempel, you've just heard Sarah Storm, and we'll be back next Monday. Thanks for listening.