Guillermo del Toro

Guillermo del Toro
Del Toro in 2023
Born
Guillermo del Toro Gómez[1]

(1964-10-09) 9 October 1964 (age 59)
Alma materUniversity of Guadalajara
Occupations
  • Film director
  • film producer
  • screenwriter
  • author
Years active1985–present
WorksFilmography
Spouse
Lorenza Newton
(m. 1986; div. 2017)
[2]
Kim Morgan
(m. 2021)
[3]
Children2
AwardsFull list
Signature

Guillermo del Toro Gómez (Spanish: [ɡiˈʝeɾmo ðel ˈtoɾo]; born 9 October 1964) is a Mexican filmmaker. A recipient of three Academy Awards and three BAFTA Awards, his work has been characterized by a strong connection to fairy tales and horror, with an effort to infuse visual or poetic beauty in the grotesque.[4] He has had a lifelong fascination with monsters, which he considers symbols of great power.[5] He is also known for his use of insectile and religious imagery, his themes of Catholicism, anti-fascism, and celebrating imperfection, underworld motifs, practical special effects, and dominant amber lighting.[6][7]

Throughout his career, del Toro has shifted between Spanish-language films—such as Cronos (1993), The Devil's Backbone (2001), and Pan's Labyrinth (2006)—and English-language films, including Mimic (1997), Blade II (2002), Hellboy (2004) and its sequel Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), Pacific Rim (2013), Crimson Peak (2015), The Shape of Water (2017), Nightmare Alley (2021), and Pinocchio (2022).

As a producer or writer, he worked on the films The Orphanage (2007), Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010), The Hobbit film series (2012–2014), Mama (2013), The Book of Life (2014), Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019), and The Witches (2020). In 2022, he created the Netflix anthology horror series Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities, featuring a collection of classical horror stories.

With Chuck Hogan, he co-authored The Strain trilogy of novels (2009–2011), later adapted into a comic-book series (2011–15) and a live-action television series (2014–17). With DreamWorks Animation and Netflix, he created the animated franchise Tales of Arcadia, which includes the series Trollhunters (2016–18), 3Below (2018–19), and Wizards (2020), and the sequel film Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans (2021).

Del Toro is close friends with fellow Mexican filmmakers Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro G. Iñárritu, and they are collectively known as "The Three Amigos of Cinema".[8] He was included in Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2018,[9] and he received a motion picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2019.[10]

  1. ^ "Guillermo del Toro cumple 48 años en espera de El Hobbit". Informador. 8 October 2012. Archived from the original on 2 December 2013. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
  2. ^ Macnab, Geoffrey (7 February 2018). "Guillermo del Toro interview: 'I think adversity is good – that is very Catholic of me'". The Independent. Archived from the original on 15 February 2018. Retrieved 14 February 2018.
  3. ^ Malkin, Marc (10 November 2021). "'Squid Game' Creator Hwang Dong-hyuk Addresses On-Set Firearm Safety in Korea: 'I Have Never Seen a Real Bullet' (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Archived from the original on 16 November 2021. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
  4. ^ Gorber, Jason (15 January 2013). "Gorber's Epic Guillermo del Toro Interview, Part 2: On Producing and Building a Canon of Work". twitchfilm.com. Archived from the original on 18 January 2013. Retrieved 17 January 2013.
  5. ^ Guillermo del Toro (22 September 2010). "Monsters Are Living, Breathing Metaphors". bigthink.com. Big Think. Archived from the original on 1 September 2012. Retrieved 17 January 2013.
  6. ^ "Dissection of Darkness" (PDF). lexpiccione.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 January 2015. Retrieved 17 January 2013.
  7. ^ Whitty, Stephen (7 July 2013). "Guillermo del Toro on Pacific Rim, monsters, Hollywood and other horrors". nj.com. Archived from the original on 22 October 2013. Retrieved 7 July 2013.
  8. ^ Thompson, Anne (24 September 2006). "Three amigos change face of Mexican film". Hollywoodreporter.com. Archived from the original on 17 May 2016. Retrieved 13 July 2016.
  9. ^ "Guillermo del Toro: The World's 100 Most Influential People". Time. Archived from the original on 18 September 2020. Retrieved 22 September 2020.
  10. ^ "Oscar-winning Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro champions immigrants in Hollywood Walk of Fame speech". CNN. 7 August 2019. Archived from the original on 23 October 2020. Retrieved 21 October 2020.