Happy Sad Confused - Guillermo del Toro, Vol. IV

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

We throw around words like visionary but Guillermo del Toro is a real one. He joins Josh to talk about his ultimate passion project, FRANKENSTEIN, and everything from his lost JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK film, to the time Tom Cruise almost starred in PACIFIC RIM. UPCOMING EVENTS Walker Scobell 12/19 in NYC -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tickets here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Happy Sad Confused patreon here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! We've got discount codes to live events, merch, early access, exclusive episodes, video versions of the podcast, and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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watch katherine heigle's free video now at hsc pet dot com that's hsc pet dot com your dog's health will thank you prepare your ears humans Happy, sad, confused begins now. Hey guys, it's Josh. Welcome to another edition of Happy Say I Confused. Today on the show, Guillermo del Toro, for the fourth time, a returning champion talking all things, Frankenstein, and much, much more. Thanks, guys, as always, for checking out the podcast, whether you're watching on YouTube

or Spotify or listening, whatever podcast platform you're using. I appreciate you guys. Hit that subscribe button if you haven't already. and maybe check out our Patreon. Now is a really good time. Patreon.com slash happy, say I'm confused. You get the early access and discount codes to live events, early access to every single podcast we do here,

bonus materials, merch, autographed posters, and some other really special treats just for the holiday season that we've cooked up for you guys. So it's honestly probably as good a time or better than ever to check out the Patreon. Patreon.com slash happy, say I'm confused. Okay. We're going to get to Guillermo. Not much preamble is needed because we all know and love what Guillermo that Toro has contributed to film in his remarkable career.

This conversation, as always with him, it's kind of a masterclass in filmmaking and film history. We certainly dive deep into Frankenstein and why this has been such a passion project for him and how it came to be and why it is so personal on a familial level to him. But we also touch on some really cool fun stuff like Justice League Dark, which we've talked about before, but never in this much detail. I don't think I've ever heard him talk about these key sequences that he was going to do in the film. Sounds really cool. We talk Blade. We talk a possible musical version of Pans the Labyrinth. We talk about Superman.

Some other really interesting comic book stuff came up in this one. Yeah, if you love Guillermo, if you love genre of filmmaking. making this episode is for you. And if you listen to this podcast or watch it, yeah, Guillermo Datoro is why we're all here. Right, guys? Okay, without any further ado, check out Frankenstein. I'm sure you have already, but check it out if you haven't already on Netflix. It's right there for you. And enjoy my conversation with one of the best. It's Guillermo Dautoro. The one and only, Guillermo Dutoro, back on the podcast. This is your fourth time on Happy Say I Confused, my friend. One more. You get to

a free hat. Five-time where club gets hacks. I hope you have one on my size. One size fits all. Congratulations, man. I've really thoroughly enjoyed this one. I've seen it three times. I've had me on the show, Jacob

on the show, so we obviously had to have you on. Talk to me a little bit about this project. Look, every Yermodotoro film is a passion project. You don't do jobs just to do them. But this one goes back to childhood. Give me a sense of, like, put me in your shoes

because you've dreamed of this project for 50 plus years, and now it is concretized. You can never change it, Guillermo. It's done. You have made your Frankenstein. And that's a complicated thing, isn't it? It is complicated. I mean, the fact is partially is a great joy.

Most of it is a great joy, but there is a, you know, there's a line in the movie that says, having reached end of the earth, there was no more horizon left and the achievement felt unnatural. You know, that's exactly how I feel somehow. Everything has shifted in my life, really, you know. This movie is sort of reaching, you know, you're saving images, ideas, people, thoughts, recourses,

or, you say, from when I make Frankenstein. I'm going to use this person, I'm going to do this, I'm going to try this, and then you do it, and you're at the top of the mountain that you wanted to scale, you know, and climb, and then you look and you do feel a postpartum depression of sorts in hours. So it's a mixture of the great joy of seeing how it connects with people, especially young people that are seeing it three, four, five times more. It's great to see that it's connecting in the way that the original movie connected with me,

you know? And this, I was going to say, this will be their Frankenstein for a generation. I mean, you're cognizant of that, I'm sure. Like, just like, you know, when I was growing up, Coppola's Dracula was kind of like that was my, my Dracula and it's embedded in my memory. And that's a privilege to,

to be able to imprint that on the generation. It is, I think, that Pinocchio and this one, for some people, it'll be the one they grew up with. Yeah. That is really great. And the journey really takes 50 years. I mean, it's not just a way of talking about it. I saw the original movie at 7 and read the book at 11.

And when I read the book at 11, I was already doing Super 8 films. I started at age 8. And I really thought candidly, I thought, I'm going to make this movie. I'm going to make the movie of the book, which, frankly, over 50 years, I've read the book innumerable times, I've written prologues and introductions through several editions in Britain, in America, the annotated Frankenstein, the penguin Frankenstein, so on and so forth. And you become fused.

My biography with Mary Shelley's biography, my concern. with what I know about the Romantics, it's become a religion. I mean, it really is a spiritual journey that starts at seven. I discovered my Messiah in the creature on Boris Karloff, and then I see Jacob coming to my set,

pulling made up, and I grabbed his hand and I did this on my head. You know, is the gesture, what the gesture came from in the screenplay, you know? know, so something goes away, something goes away, and it's almost bereavement, and at the same time my birth, sorry, it's very strange. Yeah, it's closing a chapter, it's beginning a new one. It clearly feels like that. And look, this, like many of your projects we've talked about, probably Frankenstein many times,

and it came close several times. I mean, if this, if this happens 15 years ago, Universal, obviously it's a different cast, but beyond just casting, is there, is structurally, Is it much different? I mean, what's the biggest difference between that version of Frankenstein and the one that we see today? You know, and you tend to think of yourself when you're younger. You tend to think of yourself as Victor thinks of himself, somebody that something happened to, somebody that wants to talk about the creature in an almost saintly way. and Victor doesn't have a past.

I like the generational pain aspect of the movie. The fact that you talk not only as a child of someone, but as a father of someone, which came in the last 15 years for me. So I would have had a different perspective. I wanted to talk about fathers and sons. I always wanted to talk about Victor's tale and the creature's tale.

God was always there, but in a way you find out, after 50, 55, you take a more active role in being the antagonist of your own movie. Yeah. You know, like you're more aware that things rarely happen to you, that you can actively start them and you can actively stop them if you're sort of examining your own life. And I think it's a more reflective movie. From the parents behind law and order comes a mystery the whole family can enjoy. Patrick Pickle Bottom, Everyday Mysteries.

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The war is over and both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered like bones in the dust. Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight, but in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins. This is old school adventuring at its most cruel. Your torch ticks down in real time, and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job.

This is a brutal rules-light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make. This is what it felt like to play our RPGs in the 80s, and man, it is so good to be back. Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the Shadow Dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on YouTube.com slash the Glass Cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day. See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark. I mean, the themes of parents and children, fathers and sons is not something you're a stranger to.

You've obviously explored this throughout your career. You know, we've talked about your parents, especially your father. I believe both your parents have passed in a relatively recent years. So, I mean, is this the first film you've made since both of your parents have passed? And is it significant? I mean, obviously, this film is so rooted in being especially a father or son story to not have your dad around to have this out in the world. Just give me a sense of your emotions around that. Well, you know, I fortunately, my dad and I were really, really good for most of my life.

You know, I went to the turmoil of adolescence, which is the only time where you are willing, unable to tell the truth as you feel it. People say, oh, they're going through a difficult phase. No, it's actually very clear. It's the truthful phase. It's like when you're unvarnished, you can't conundished. you can't control your emotions. Yeah, you say, why not? Yeah.

So we went through that and, you know, we loved each other very much. And we had great moments together. So I'm at peace. I'm at peace. I think he understood what I did. I understood where he came from. It's a very difficult generation. The generation before us had it very tough.

So, you know, that was, I think we closed that chapter. My mother was revealed to me to be a big mystery. You know, I always thought I knew her better, and then the more I thought about it, and the more I would have loved, at any rate, to have her back for many years to talk about things I've only now understand after making the movie.

You know, I say this repeatedly, for everyone else, and I said it yesterday, for everyone else, you make a filmography for yourself. You make a biography. Yes, yes. I mean, it's your life. Well, I think it's also very telling, I think, upon my rewatches, like one of the first words the creature speaks is Victor in anger,

and certainly the last word, if not the last words, he says, is Victor in love and forgiveness. And that is truly, it seems like, the journey of the film, the path from anger to acceptance and forgiveness. Yeah, and also there's something beautiful structural in the screenplay where Victor says, say, like you said it in our past, when it meant the world to you. And the creature accepts the world at the end, you know. It really is, to me, the best movies I have made in terms of fulfilling a desire to tell a parable, you know. know, have this succinct, direct way of addressing an emotion or an experience.

You know, as a storyteller, you cannot pretend to have wisdom, because I don't think anybody quite has that, you know, only religious texts and philosophical texts, but art can aspire to share an experience. Yeah. And I think that's what the movie is very strong about, is. I think movies need, people talk about all sorts of things movies need. They need to be in this place or they need to be of this scale. And they need, you know, they need emotion.

Right. And I think the movie transmits that emotion very clearly to the people that are open and willing to accept it. Do you think it's safe to say you've always had a fascination with the cruelty men can do to each other, especially those closest to us? It seems like that's something that does recur in your work of how we can be monsters to each other, how we can tear each other apart. I think that is, in a mammalian society, it's almost inevitable, you know, but it's not that it happens is not bad, that it happens and it's never examined, that it happens in a way that exonerates us of any responsibility. That is really tremendous. I mean, I think that you're going to, you're territorial, you are a hunter, you're a gatherer, you're, there's things in nature, ingrained in the DNA that are going to lead to conflict.

But if you're at least aware of it and you're present for it and accountable for it, I think that's interesting. Does making a film about mortality in a way make you any less afraid? or preoccupied with mortality and death, not to get morbid, but... No, I think it's not morbid at all. I think, you know, I'm a big fan of death. I'm a big fan of it existing. I actually, somebody asked me,

if you had a superpower, what would it be? And I said, to have a button where I can turn myself off, you know, without any guilt or a preoccupation, I think that if you have a house made of diamonds, then they're not precious. If you have a life that is eternal, then it's not precious. The fact that life is finite and it ends, it makes it really valuable, you know?

Okay, can we talk a little bit about specifically casting on this one? So I alluded to the fact that this has gone through different permutations. You know, back in the day, perhaps it would have been, Doug Jones, more recently, it very much was, Andrew Garfield, up until two months prior, essentially. You must have been very far down the road of creature design, et cetera, like fixing it to Andrew. Did you ever get into like kind of performance? Do you have a sense of what his take on the creature would have been that would have been distinct from Jacobs? No, well, I think that it would have been completely different.

I mean, the tools we were discussing child developmental states, and Buto and this and that, but they were the tools what we used. But I think that there is a purity to, that is that Jacob has accessing the innocence and the fury of the creature, that is remarkable. I mean, I think people talk about the vulnerability of the creature a lot, and I agree, It's incredibly heartbreaking, but what impressed me is the pure rage that he can access on the... There's a close-up where it kills the wolves and is panting that is absolutely pure rage.

And there's a couple like that in the film where he just reaches that point. And when he throws Victor around and, you know, he truly... transits from air to fire to water elementally. Really beautiful. And I think the other thing is I think that Jacob came in and became the creature. You know, he said to me in the first

phone call, this creature is more me than me. He's a man that is used to be judged in a superficial way. Right. And people think they know who he is. but he is not only an incredibly deep and serious actor, but, you know, he feels like the way the world sees him. He's misjudged and misunderstood, yeah, just as the creature is in his way. He's articulating that in his life, and that is infinitely helpful. What is it like, though, as a filmmaker to kind of, like, go down a path

where, like, in your mind's eye, you have created a vision, with a different cast. I mean, I remember when we were talking Crimson Peak, you had a very, like, that was, that was Benedict, and it was Emma Stone, and then it switched. And this looked as often happens. This is not unusual. Oh, yeah, no, not at all.

But is, is that, is that something that is discombobulating, or is that just part of the process at this point that you figured out how to kind of know with the... I remember for a long time, the only resputein I saw in Hellboy was Jean Reno. I wanted Jean Reno. and I really, really thought it would have been a phenomenal disputing. But Hellboy, I knew there was no movie without Ron Perlman.

Right. No movie. That was not negotiable. And I think that, you know, as you go through the permutations, you learn to recognize the accident from the opportunity. Right. They're similar, but, you know, the more you hone your in, instincts as a filmmaker, you go, no, this is actually better.

Yeah. Well, I think in Crimson Peak, the invariable casting was Jessica sustained. I knew that it had to be Jessica. Yeah. No, and I, and I recognized that I could not change, that was my north. Uh, with the creature, I, I really, uh, I really thought, well, interesting because my victory is so solid my Elizabeth is so solid and my

William is so solid that I'm curious to see who I can find and on the same day my daughter Kim and Thessarandos same day they said you have to see Saltburn and I can't have knew the first second I saw that movie and Priscilla that I was on a path to find the guy.

Is there a point still on every movie where you are convinced it's falling apart? Was there a day on Frankenstein where you're like, this just might sink? No. Not in this one. No. No. Not in this one. You know, very rarely you find them, but now and then you find movies that take care of themselves.

that, you know, they're fighting a fight that is above what you can fight. I mean, you feel the movie is alive and is wheeling itself into being. Other movies, you have to wheel every day into being. But I can tell you, for example, Pan's Labyrinth, you have to wheel it. Nothing was going forth. Every day was a struggle. It's always a struggle. And it's not that it's a better movie or a worse movie for that.

It's just the nature of the project. Right. It necessitated every ounce of will, shape of water. Kind of willed itself into being, you know? Well, you've talked about how kind of like realizing to give yourself over to the process, that, you know, you can have a vision and exert control, but at some point the movie's going to tell you what it wants to be. Was that something you discovered pretty early in your career on a specific film?

No, no, it starts with, I think, Panz-Labran, I became. became aware of it a little bit, but I think it's much later. Much later, I think that Pinocchio was key. Shape of Water was key. You know, when Shape of Water was rejected by a lot of people, they were not interested. And my producer said, it's a $40 million movie. And I said, well, I don't think I can get more than 20. And he said, you're never going to be able to make it.

And I said, you know what? I disagree. Alejandro Iniarity said to me, a budget is a state of mind. And I said, you know, because we made a movie called Beautiful. It was over $20 million, but it looked like a $4 million indie. And then Alejandro those Burtmen, for that, amount and it looks like

it's 50. Right. And I said, how did you do it? And he said, about it the state of line. And in shape of what it was, the first time I said, we're making it, we're making it the way I think about it. And it's going to happen. And it happened. What does Inorichu's new one look like? You've gone to sneak peek at the Tom Cruise one, I'll bet.

You know, I went busy on the set. He's going to show it to Alfonso and I earlier than anybody else. I suspect that I haven't seen anything. I mean, when I was on the set, I absolutely was blown away by what they were doing. Amazing. I can't wait. I can't wait to see Tom in his hands. It's going to be special, I'm sure. So speaking of Tom Cruise, I have two goals in my life, professional goals. They're not really

professional, they're personal goals. Get on Tom Cruise's cake list, which I'm sure you're on. You get the cat. Yeah. Of course you are. Have you gotten it yet this year? Do you know? No, you get it a little later. Okay, so maybe I made the cut this year. I openly begged him at the most recently, recent mission impossible. So we'll see if my, my begging help. I mean, it used to be a coconut cake. Right.

Last year was a lemon cake. What? Wait, wait, wait. This is breaking news. It's now a lemon cake? Yeah, it was a lemon cake. And it was, uh, mine was vegan. Oh, he, he, he custom orders it for.

I know, but it used to be traditionally, it was just a, an incredible coconut cake. He's mixing it up. He's iterating. I love that. Um, the, the, the other, um, of course, is one of these days. I'm just going to break into the bleak house and see it because I need to see it at some point.

Do you have, is there one? Is it L.A.? Is it Toronto? Do you have multiple now? Like, where are you? There's two next to each other in Santa Monica. Yeah. One is called Carmilla and the other is called Mirkala.

You know, and they are on the same street. And then there's an apartment in North Hollywood that has part of the collection. And then the rest is, you know, here and there. But yeah, no, come over. And one of the things that I have is I finally, I was going through my warehouse, and I have all the maquettes, the models of Madness of Madness, on display in the horror room.

So, yeah, it's worth it. And all the maquettes I did for The Hobbit. Amazing. So speaking of Mountains of Madness, it feels like more than ever, I mean, thanks to this Netflix collaboration, and where you're at in your career, you could get that made,

couldn't you really get that Mounds of Madness made now? And do you want to? Maybe. I mean, I would need to reread the screenplay at this age and three who still does what it did for me back. Because you, not every movie you want to do your whole life.

Sure. You know, I read screenplays that I wrote when I was 35, 36, and I don't want to make them. Yeah. I'm not sure entirely if, I believe the human drama attracts me more and more beyond the parable. I'm very interesting seeing where I go next

because I want to go somewhere different, not necessarily opposite. I mean, the next project is the stop motion of the very gen, Ishiguro, And it has ogres and basilisks and dragons and all that. But the center story is an elderly couple, you know, transversing the landscape looking for their son. Right.

It's sort of a stop-motion, Terry Malik, fantasy, meditation. I mean, if you know it's Chiguro. Yeah. It's all about memory and regret. Amazing. This is what he does. And the other one, I spoke to us for a little bit last night. Hopefully you guys are going to get together again.

And that sounds, I mean, anytime you invoke my dinner with Andre and murder, I'm there. That's the log line. That's the pitch. Yeah. Well, it's curious because it's really, you're going to journey with two characters. And you're going to understand how they were meant to exist in the same space, but they hate each other. and how they learn that they are basically on the same journey in opposite directions. I mean, that was in Frankenstein.

One of the key things I knew is the day Victor completes his process and gives birth to the creature, is the day he loses interest in it. Yes. And the creature is the day the creature is born, is the day the creature discovers the world. So it's like having an 85-year-old father that is tired of the world and becoming, and he's a baby blooming for the first time, you know. Goodbye, Kyle. Did the sound of those words call to you like Pavlov's dog?

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New episodes every Wednesday and Friday. From the darkest corners of our imagination comes a game show that's more ridiculous than terrifying. Welcome to Tickled to Death. I'm your host, Hernandez, and I'll be guiding guests through the creepy questions and chaotic games, all to win the ultimate title of horror movie champion. Listen to Tickle to Death, wherever you get your podcasts, and hit follow, unless you want

the show to follow you. Okay, a bunch of random things for you. We mentioned Tom. Since Mountains of Madness, have you... I mean, he could have done Nightmare Alley. I could see him in Pack Rim. Did you make, have you tried to entice him into any of those in the ensuing wars? Yeah, no, he was going.

We were very close to him during Pac-Rim. Really? Oh, in Stackers? In that Idris role? Stacker Pentecost. Yeah, it was, the idea for me was to see sort of Maverick leading, you know, it was very, we even had a karaoke scene. Yeah, no, it was, it was, and we were this close, but they couldn't make his deal. Something to do with home video, can you believe that?

Seriously? Yeah, seriously. And I, and I, and, but then we developed the, the champions, which was based on the TV series. We developed it together. We've been in contact through the Mission Impossibles and, you know, I went to the editing room on the last one. We have a really good friendship. I would love to work with him. Alejandro said to me, he said,

hands down, he's the most precise, most dedicated, most disciplined, and great actor. He said, it's like having, you go through any terrain with that guy. And Alejandro came out completely in love with the superhuman dedication, precision. I mean, you look at Magnolia, you know? Timer.

It's, yeah. Or you look at Tropic Thunder. That's the range of the guy. Yeah, no, he is stealthily underrated as one of the great, like he can do comedy, he can do everything, yeah. Anything, I mean, it's range. Okay, a couple of other random ones. I don't know, sometimes, you know,

I feel badly bringing up kind of the ones that got away, but like Justice League Dark, I'm always curious about, What was the casting? Because I've read different things. Was Colin Farrell, your Constantine was, who was, yeah. No, I was not casting yet. I knew I wanted Dor Jones to be a dead man. Right.

Only because it was physically, I could do the suit. And I know his mannerisms and all that. And no, I love that screenplay. Yeah. I really, I was in love with that screenplay. I thought it brought everybody in effortless. you know, and who is the lead

of that story? Like was it obviously it's an ensemble, but who is your protagonist in a war? It was Constantine. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and the plove made absolute perfect sense. Like, I really loved how they got tangled into

into, you know, we had the Floronic man was one of the villains, you know, and it was really really great because a swamp thing was very fleshed out, everybody. And there was a moment where badman came in briefly, you know. It was, they said, we need a plane.

And I know a friend of mine has a plane. And then you were in Bruce Wayne's office. You know, I would have loved to have done that. But now I wouldn't, you know. Has James Gunn made a phone call? Has he, I mean. No, I don't know. Just for anything?

Just not even Justice League Dark. just like, no. We talk on the, now and then I write him about something else he's doing right. I think he's really remarkably smart. I love the Superman, you know? Yeah. And I really enjoyed the way he's viewing the universe.

Yeah. But no, I mean, the screenplays there is not like, it's not chit-chat. It was a couple of years of development for that screenplay. We never go to the art, but it had great set pieces, yeah. My favorite one was a chase, Devman chasing, and a long chase jumping from one body to the next. It would be an 80-year-old lady in Central Park running after the antagonist

and then jumping into a traffic cop and a mounted cop. But it was a really thrilling thing, yeah. Some of these are famous, and you've talked about them. We've talked about them, things like Thor, even I think Wolverine came up. But here's one that I've never heard you talk about. Were you offered or talked? Did you talk about Man of Steel when that came up, the Superman film? Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Well, I'm a little. Thanks. Well, abstractly, is Superman? as a character or something that you click with? Like, I mean, he said you like James Gunsmill. I admire what people do with him.

Yeah. My vibe is dark. Right. Like, I would do God on my gaslight. Right. That's a great one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's an easy vibe or just to think dark.

But I don't know that, I don't know that you can talk about superheroes in a world that is so relative right now. And that's why I admire. When I see James Gunn's Superman, you feel the healing power of goodness from someone that believes in it, in it like that. I don't believe in the purity of goodness. I believe that is all, the gray area is very interesting to me. And that was why I loved Victor as much as I love the creature, because I think the journey of Victor is in reverse. he reaches innocence and grace at the end.

Yeah. And the creature becomes complex. You know, they're going in different directions. But I don't believe in absolutes. Right. And that's why I like a band of misfits like Justice League Dogg. Yeah. You know.

What do you, why do you think as someone that helmed arguably, not even arguably, but the best Blade film, why can't Marvel crack Blade? If Kevin Flagey said to you, I need some help on cracking a blade movie, what would you say to him? I don't know. You know, the key to me, and I said this when I went in, was Wesley for me. Yeah. You know, when you have a guy that lands on a Neil Adams pose every time he's up, it's a Neil Adams keyframe, you know? Yeah. Yeah. When you have a guy that is dry, dry as.

sandpaper in his humor, but perfect, perfect, pitch perfect. He would do it like, I'd get. And you knew exactly what he meant, and lines like you do not know who you're fucking with. I mean, and, you know, I think that's a key for me. And when I took the job, because I did say, look, I can take care of the villain because basically is the creature of Frankenstein. remain. And it was a father and a son's story already. And I said, but you take care of the

hip. I said, because I'm the most on hip human being in the history of mankind. I said, I dance horrible. I don't know any, I don't know techno from anything, you know. I said, you help me with the music and the attitude. And I'll deliver great action and horror. Well, the culture caught up with you. Now what Gierma Datoro is his hip. Thankfully, the Geeks won, as you well know. But I don't know. Yeah. Did you ever, on the trip? I have a hip

displacement. Close enough. You and me both. The George Miller, Michael, man, whatever happened? Was that a doc? Was it a book? Did you ever sit down with them? I remember years ago you were talking about really dissecting what they do. Yeah, we got COVID and two strikes. Yeah. And what happened

is all the, I thought I had a year between two projects and that evaporated with COVID, and then I was on a calendar that was much faster, you know? But I think that, I think, look, I think directors talking to directors is one of the most interesting things for me. Yeah. I do, I do many, many Q&As with directors on the DGA in LA. I know. I know. You're stealing all my gigs, Guillermo. I love them, but you're still in my work. No, what I like is you can talk Sean. Yeah. And you can actually make, make

an audience aware of what goes on in crafting a moment. Everybody uses this word vision. Well, vision is this much. The rest is hard work. Yeah. And you're working with hardware. A piece of track, a camera, a piece of glass that is a lens. And they're vectors. You're creating

a collision. of vectors, and it's really interesting to talk about it. The last one I did was with Jim Cameron at the DJA about Avatar, this avatar. And I love talking shop with directors. I wanted to talk to Michael about so many of the most rousing genre aspects of his film making because he's a guy that is incredibly grounded on research. It's not like a guy that has to do field work before he arrives, but then he takes that and transmutes it into genre.

Yes. You know? And I was talking to Jim about how when CG was birthed briefly after John Charlotte Holmes, a little bit there's on Willow and all that. But T2 and the Abyss, basically those are the big footst steps to follow. And I said, one of my most remarkable moments is when, you know, Robert Patrick goes through the bars of the cell. Yes. And a lot hits it. They're gone. The gone doesn't. Yeah. And that's intelligence in staging, because you can provoke an emotion

on an audience, but you have to know how you're going to do it. Yes. You know, to me, to give you example on Frankenstein. To me, the line I always knew would do something was, there's two. My creator has told his story now, I will tell you mine, and the title, the creature's tale. That was one beat. The other one was, when he lights the dynamite and he says, now, run. You know, it's like the creature is finally in charge of Victor. Yes. And, and But you know, you need to know what the image is going to be. Right. If you're going to be low angle, high angle, what are you going to do?

When you look at the playing field of all these great young filmmakers coming of age now, who are we going to be talking about the next 10 years? I mean, the Robert Eggers, the Couglers, the Zach Craigers. Who's impressing you? Who's exciting? I know. Most of them, I love David Lowry. Yeah.

With a passion, you know, Eggers, you know, all the young. I mean, they're not teenagers and the saddies. I mean, they're 30s. I don't even know the age. Yeah. Everybody seems young. Yeah, well, their films feel like they're like 22-year-olds. Like, they're so the energy behind them.

And, you know, when you see Train Dreams or Jockey or thing, you know. Clint Bentley's, Greg, yeah, yeah. Both impress me a lot. And there's precision in their craft. Yeah. You know, I thought Train Dreams was beautifully crafted. And in a way that evokes Malik, but has almost like a, it's like an elegiac drum, you know, at a different pace. It's very funereal, but very deep.

Well, it is all that marriage of all our inspirations and then bringing our personal takes on it. And there's nothing new under the sun. But those core ideas you apply to yourself and your own innovation, and it's the remixes of these myths and tales that we're all ingrained. I mean, look, how many notes are there? How many letters in the alphabet? Right.

It's a finite number of them. But they have created all the literature and all the music of every genre in the history of mankind and they can be renewed. The printing blocks don't change. What we write with them does, and each voice is unique.

I mean, I mean, I think when I've said this in the past, when you say to someone, well, my way, the Sinatra song is based on a French song. Does it sound French to you? Yeah, if you listen, carefully, you hear the chanson, you know, but it's all Sinatra. Here's a random controversial one. Alien or aliens? Where do you come down? There are absolutely two different universes. one one is uh the haunted house versus the act the ultimate action movie right absolutely i mean one is a war movie yeah and the other one is basically yeah like it's very close the first one

and prometheus both together are very much at the mountains of madness right yeah uh ship lost finds a place where there's an abandoned civilization and a creature that shapeshifts that was created by blah, blah, blah, and then you realize they created mankind. That's Madden or Madness, yeah. Are there any of your works that you're actively or would like to see on the stage? I feel like there was talk of Pan's Labyrinth at one point. Are you involved in any of those or, I mean, I don't know. No, we've been working for a decade on the Pan's Labyrinth musical with Paul Williams

and Gustavo Santaglia. You know, we have the 10 thongs, including the lullaby, that would compose a musical. We have a libretto, and now it's a matter of finding, you know, stages, not something I do normally. I have a good partnership, which will be revealed hopefully soon. If it happens, that's great, because I think next year is the 20th anniversary of the movie. Time has no meaning. Okay, we're going to end with this, Guillermo. Our happy, second, fuse, profoundly random questions for you.

Are you a dog or cat person? Dog, 100%. Nice. This is the stupidest question, especially for you. I ask everybody, what do you collect? For Guillermo Dutoro, that's an hour long conference, five hours. You know, what is funny is lately with the fires, is the third time the fires encroached my collection.

and I'm going to let go of a third of it, not all of it. I'm going to keep the two-thirds of it, and I'm going to move it to a place where there's no fires, no natural disasters to preserve it and open it for people to visit. I was going to say that makes so much sense. I mean, the world would love to see a small snippet of what you've collected. I mean, that would be amazing. I mean, if you imagine Lackman, when we lived at home with monsters,

We got our, I think, 600,000 visitors, and we were exhibiting 500 objects. The collection is 7,000 objects. You could open a theme park. You could do every film movie here is going to be a different ride. We're just new business ventures, Guillermo. Talk to me. And I think it's important for younger people

to be able to visit and live a collection that hopefully, hopefully inspires a few people into their own stories so that you can continue this chain link of misfits. Totally. Okay, a couple more for you quickly. Best video game of all time. The best video game you've ever played.

Your favorite? The most immersive has to be Bioshock in many ways, and dead stranding. Yep. The best universe, Metal Gear Solid. The one that I'm

really good at and love is left for dead, you know, but I like the big sandbox games like Red Dead Redemption and, you know, and probably I will go back and some of the God of War once are just some of the best cinematic experiences I've ever had. You know, when he fights Odin and Odin keeps coming back and he looks like a picky blinders brawler, you know? And he did the crap out of creators, you know. What a great video game. And the way they use the budget of data on the console to create atmospheric dispersion and light, the way they light that, that is lit like a film. Yeah. And I'm going to keep going to go and goes, you're good. A shadow of the

Colossus, masterpiece. It's like both the best use of the atmospheric and the sandbox, but it's poetic and tragic, you know, I think, I mean, there's, it's too many. What's the wallpaper on your phone? Yeah. Well, it depends on the day. Okay. Still a Frankenstein now and then. Okay. Who's the last person you were mistaken for? Filmmaker, actor, anybody ever confuse you with anybody else? Yeah, yeah. Michael Moore.

Loved you and Roger and me. Yeah, yeah. I was at Cannes about 10 years ago. I was at Cannes. Somebody said, are you coming to the yacht? And I said, well, what? Yeah, the party. I said, what party?

At the yacht, I said, you think I'm Michael Moore? Yeah, I said, no, I'm not. Do I still get the invites of the yacht? Now my hope is that people confuse me with Russell Crowe and the Pope's Exorcist. Well, you need the moped. You need the little moped to run around. We got them to be almost the same weight. Who would have thunk it?

Thank you, Russell, for. Meeting you halfway. I like it. Put another shrimp on the Barbie. That's amazing. And finally, in the spirit of happy, say I confused. An actor who always makes you happy. You see them on screen. You're immediately in a better mood.

Yeah, Russell Crowe is one. You know, I would watch anything he does. What is the one where he's an angry driver, Verthirk? Oh, yeah, yeah. That was a COVID movie. I remember that, yeah, I forget, yeah. I, you know, I, I, I just love what he, I mean, the good guys, him and Gossel. Oh, the nice guys.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's nice guys. Oh, my God, what a, that's a, I mean, him, him, Ryan Gosling is another, Oscar Isaac. Yeah. You know, I mean, there's so many. Movie that makes you sad always? Well, there's a movie I can never finish. Make way for tomorrow.

And I know, I know I should. But my heart, I kind of take, I always 10, 15 minutes in, I go, today I'm going to go past. Because Orson Wells said, whoever doesn't cry in that movie is made of stone. And I know already it's like seeing a train on a collision course with you, and I just get out of the way. I know I cannot handle it. But Mexican movies, one called the Black Sheep. Okay. The Obeja Negra always gets me.

Okay. And, I mean, Mexico, the drama gets me profoundly, profoundly. And finally, a food that makes you confused. You don't get it. Why do people eat that? Marmite. That's come up. Yeah, that's an awful.

Marmite is top ten. I mean, that and rotting pheasant in the French cuisine. I don't understand those. Right. So you're some marmite on your rotting pheasant. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, and then, I mean, there's so many, I've gone to Japan and China,

and they give me the most exotic foods, and I eat them. But Marmite. More horrific than anything Gierma Datoro has ever created in his films, Marmite and Rodding Fesant. Somebody should explain it to us. Thank you, my friend. Look, I love your movies.

I love talking to you. I'm so happy my career, the last 20 years has coincided with the era of Germuda Toro because I value these conversations and this work you've contributed so, so much. You're always the best man. Congratulations on Frank. Always fun, my friend. Thank you. Have a good one. I'm sure I'll see you around. Thanks, buddy. Oh, you're well. Bye, man. And so ends another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Remember to review, rate, and subscribe to this show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a big podcast person. I'm Daisy Ridley

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