Del Toro Quotes & Sayings

I love the idea of creating a sort of nuanced portrait of kids that they're not all perfect. They're kind of misfits but not in a picturesque, hip way, they're really, really kids that are not entirely great. — Guillermo Del Toro

Eph too had been turned. Not from human to vampire, but from healer to slayer. — Guillermo Del Toro

I'm not Jack Nicholson. I'm not Brando. But I do mumble. — Benicio Del Toro

You give yourself to the world for people to either praise or destroy. — Guillermo Del Toro

Normally my clients were my mother, my grandmother, and my dad, and I would sell them the issues with a great color cover. There was a story I remember called 'The Invader,' and it had an invisible dome covering a city, with a giant tentacled monster eating everybody in sight, and people trying to drill a hole in the dome. And I did these epic Prismacolor pencil illustrations and sold out the three issues to my captive audience. — Guillermo Del Toro

His (Lloyd Kaufman) string of low-budget, lowbrow horror comedies stretching back to the '80s has been cited as influence by Peter Jackson, the Farrelly Brothers, Quentin Tarantino, Takashi Miike, and Guillermo Del Toro, just to cite a few prominent examples. — Lou Lumenick

It's as hard to explain as a sexual proclivity. Some guys like high-heeled shoes. I like horror. — Guillermo Del Toro

Can you zoom in?" The foreman rolled his eyes. "This here ain't CSI - it's Radio-fucking-Shack. — Guillermo Del Toro

The iPod has changed all that because sometimes I listen to an album from beginning to end, but now I put the stuff on shuffle and have the iPod tell me what I'm listening to, especially if I'm working out. — Benicio Del Toro

My favorite novel in the world is Frankenstein. I'm going to misquote it horribly, but the monster says, "I have such love in me, more than you can imagine. But, if I cannot provoke it, I will provoke fear." — Guillermo Del Toro

I believe that the physical effect, the physical set, whenever you can, is ten times better than the digital effect. — Guillermo Del Toro

The only thing you can do as an artist is to come to the world, see what no one is doing, and leave behind one or two things that wouldn't have happened without you. — Guillermo Del Toro

Imagine, there is almost no possibility for a foreign language film to be distributed in America right now. That doesn't just make the industry poorer, it makes the landscape of cinema poorer, in America. The impossibility to get a good release on a really good European, Latin American, Asian movie is a tragedy. — Guillermo Del Toro

I really wanted the house to be a character. And I knew, I said, I'll produce that one, but if I direct it, I need to build a house. — Guillermo Del Toro

Is it ... can we ... is it safe?"
Tub checked the lot but he seemed unconcerned.
"Coach Lawrence nabbed him for practice. We live to fight another day, soldier."
"No ... I mean, the thing ... is it ... ?"
Tub frowned.
"The thing. Hmmm. Can you be more specific?
I clutched at the bumper and raised myself to unsteady feet. I patted the truck bed, taking solace in the cake of dust. It was real; I was not caught in a nightmare. I smeared the dust with my fingers and smelled it.
"If you lick that, we're no longer friends," Tub said. — Guillermo Del Toro

It's a terrible thing, isn't it? To be dragged under? — Guillermo Del Toro

Fincher, Kubrick, Lucas, Spielberg, Del Toro, Tarantino. And, of course, Kevin Smith. I spent three months studying every John Hughes teen movie and memorizing all the key lines of dialogue. Only the meek get pinched. The bold survive. You could say I covered all the bases. I studied Monty Python. And not just Holy Grail, either. Every single one of their films, albums, and books, and every episode of the original BBC — Ernest Cline

The Coen Brothers, Peter Jackson, and Guillermo del Toro have really made something of themselves and impacted people. I'd love to work with them sometime, too. — Molly Quinn

As a first-time director, you cannot have final cut. But as a producer, you can have final cut. — Guillermo Del Toro

I think Hollywood has a habit of developing 100 times more than they actually shoot. — Guillermo Del Toro

The term "solar eclipse" is in fact a misnomer. An eclipse occurs when one object passes into a shadow cast by another. In a solar eclipse, the moon does not pass into the sun's shadow, but instead passes between the sun and the earth, obscuring the sun - — Guillermo Del Toro

I think video games are going to completely take over storytelling in our society. Video games are not a fad ... — Guillermo Del Toro

Well, when I came to Hollywood, there were three names really of Latin actors, three or four names, maybe five. There was Raul Julia, Edward James Olmos, Andy Garcia, Antonio Banderas, Jimmy Smits. Now there's a lot. — Benicio Del Toro

Tonight I'll be interviewing Ken Watanabe, Keisha Castle Hughes, Benecio Del Toro and Djimon Honsou - and yes, those are actors, not caterers. — Joan Rivers

Ghosts are a metaphor that can be interpreted so many different ways. There's no ending to what you can do. You can make it a fun ghost story. You can make it a deeply disturbing, psychological ghost story. — Guillermo Del Toro

THE THING WAS AN EXPERT IN HORROR, BUT THIS HUMAN HORROR INDEED EXCEEDED ANY OTHER POSSIBLE FATE. NOT ONLY BECAUSE IT WAS WITHOUT MERCY, BUT BECAUSE IT WAS ACTED UPON RATIONALLY AND WITHOUT COMPULSION. IT WAS A CHOICE. THE KILLING WAS UNRELATED TO THE LARGE WAR, AND IT SERVED NO OTHER PURPOSE THEN EVIL. MEN CHOSE TO DO THIS TO OTHER MEN AND INVENTED REASONS AND PLACES AND MYTHS IN ORDER TO SATISFY THEIR DESIRE IN A LOGICAL AND METHODICAL WAY. — Guillermo Del Toro

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

And this, I believe, is where my third grade teacher had it wrong: Answers can only aspire to be important. Questions remain forever relevant, forever eloquent. Answers are science, questions are poetry. — Guillermo Del Toro

I think that in the past, in the '50s and '60s, after the existentialists and beatniks and hippie movements, the big deal was, Don't sell out. We live in a society that by virtue of the speed we communicate and sell, everything sells. The danger is buying in; that your concern becomes success, rather than fulfillment. They're two different beasts, and my feeling is that you should seek fulfillment. You should not measure your worth in how much you have or how popular you are, but how happy you are with what you do. — Guillermo Del Toro

As far back as I can remember, these are the first movies, the Universal horror movies where I knew the title of the film and I also knew the names of the actors in those films. — Benicio Del Toro

Screenplay is the toughest form of writing for me, because you need to be in present tense. You need to be describing things as they occur. — Guillermo Del Toro

People who have lived their whole lives feeling half-complete. Who never truly fit anywhere in the world. Who never understood why they were here, or what they were meant for. Who never answered the call, because they never heard it. Because nothing ever spoke to them. — Guillermo Del Toro

I've had people ask me: 'How can you make a movie about a murderer? A terrorist?' What they don't understand is that I'm in support of everyone who appears on screen. I have to be. I take the position of everyone who's on screen. I'm not judging them one way or another. — Benicio Del Toro

Power revealed is power sacrificed. The truly powerful exert their influence in ways unseen, unfelt. Some would say that a thing visible is a thing vulnerable. — Guillermo Del Toro

I won and I get to scream and jump a little. But I got to go back to work tomorrow. — Benicio Del Toro

Watching a movie for the first time is a flirt. Rewatching it, is a date. — Guillermo Del Toro

The other thing that I started doing for myself was, I went through my diary of ideas that I keep and made sure that the translation of the comic to the movie was good. — Guillermo Del Toro

Neeva looked at the puddle of Christ's tears on the floor. When the power of Jesus fails you, then you know you truly are shit out of luck — Guillermo Del Toro

I've done a lot of movies, and you really never know. You do a movie and you think that it's great, and then you see it and it doesn't work. — Benicio Del Toro

So I have 8 to 10 screenplays written and unproduced. And frankly, some of them are my favorite stories. I have a Western version of The Count Of Monte Cristo where the count has a clockwork hand. I have a screenplay called Mephisto's Bridge about a Faustian deal with the devil. I love them all. — Guillermo Del Toro

Its a bit cloudy in London but people are already drinking out on the streets- God Bless the pubs. — Guillermo Del Toro

Trolls have existed on this planet for as long as humans. This is what I was told and what I translated to Tub. The first mention of them in recorded history is from ninth-century Norway, when the nefarious creatures began showing up in song, verse, and bedtime stories to keep misbehaving children in line. According to Norse folklore, trolls are one of the Dark Beings, the purest embodiments of evil, and they scurried from between the toes of Ymir, the mythic six-headed Frost Giant whose murdered body became the universe in which we live; his bones became the mountains, his teeth boulders, and so forth. — Guillermo Del Toro

I've always been a big fan of Guillermo del Toro, 'Pan's Labryinth' blew me away. The stories and the worlds that he's created, he is truly a visionary! — Robin Atkin Downes

The underground of the city is like what's underground in people. Beneath the surface, it's boiling with monsters. — Guillermo Del Toro

When I see a short schedule, my question to the director is, are you really comfortable with this, or are you doing it to be a good boy? At the end, you only win the medal if the film is good, you don't win a medal if the movie is on time. — Guillermo Del Toro

There's something about maternal love - it might just be the strongest human spiritual bond there is. — Guillermo Del Toro

What happens to me is that I am first and foremost a film geek. — Guillermo Del Toro

I trained as a theater actor and you had a bare stage and you had to pretend, one prop and you are in the middle of 8th Ave. and traffic is just going by. — Benicio Del Toro

One must always name a weapon. You cannot trust that which you cannot call by name. — Guillermo Del Toro

In jail you learn that there are two kinds of guys in this world - and I don't care if they're human or bloodsuckers - there's the ones that take it and the ones that hand it out. And this guy, man - this guy gives it out like fucking candy ... — Guillermo Del Toro

Hopefully, I can play both sides of the fence. That's probably what winning the Oscar gives me, the chance to do something with a studio and do other things that I really want to do. — Benicio Del Toro

I see horror as part of legitimate film. I don't see it as an independent genre that has nothing to do with the rest of cinema. — Guillermo Del Toro

Before I was ever in high school, I had dark circles under my eyes. — Benicio Del Toro

As a child that was disenfranchised from everything, and that was in a world that was the wrong size, run by the wrong people, the wrong morale and the wrong rules, I felt completely outside of that, and I wanted some measure of control, and the measure of control I found was through fear. — Guillermo Del Toro

The fairies in the ancient notion of fairies, they are not positive and cute and twinkly.They can be incredibly nasty or they can be incredibly benign. It's a really interesting mythology when you dig into it. — Guillermo Del Toro

Hello? Three words: Benicio Del Toro, which, incidentally, is Spanish for 'he wants me.' It is just ridiculous how hot he is. I feel the same way about Benicio as I did when I was a kid lusting after David Cassidy. — Caroline Rhea

I mean I like most of the films that I've seen that I've been in. — Benicio Del Toro

Studios look backward. Filmmakers look forward. — Guillermo Del Toro

Gus slowed in the darkened underground tunnel and started to unlock — Guillermo Del Toro

Rod Serling once observed, The greatest fear of all is fear of the unknown, which you can't share with others. — Guillermo Del Toro

I would love to work with Guillermo del Toro and J.J. Abrams. I think they are creative geniuses that are constantly producing great work, and they're two people that I would just love to work with. — Fiona Gubelmann

Villains used to always die in the end. Even the monsters. Frankenstein, Dracula - you'd kill them with a stake. Now the nightmare guy comes back. — Benicio Del Toro

There are two levels of vampirism: one is the regular vampire, which is just like it has always been; and then there's the super vampires, which are a new breed we've created. — Guillermo Del Toro

Movies that look safe are less interesting. — Guillermo Del Toro

Zombie Sky. No: Zombies of the Eclipse. Zombies of the Occultation. Occult Zombies from the Planet Moon! — Guillermo Del Toro

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

Science has made many advances in my lifetime, but the instrument has yet to be invented that can see clearly into the marriage of a man and a woman. — Guillermo Del Toro

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

I like actors that are good with pantomime and that can transmit a lot by their presence and attitude more than through their dialogue. — Guillermo Del Toro

I think that The Eye is a particularly Americanized take on horror. — Guillermo Del Toro

There is beautiful in the grotesque. — Guillermo Del Toro

But Felix was no longer Felix. He was a vampire motherfucker. — Guillermo Del Toro

You can only be a good father in relationship to your childhood. — Guillermo Del Toro

I don't want to move over to Beverly Hills. My goal is to make the movies I want to make and support the people I want to support. That's it. — Guillermo Del Toro

When you have the intuition that there is something which is there, but out of the reach of your physical world, art and religion are the only means to get to it. — Guillermo Del Toro

Well when I was a kid, I asked Santa Claus for some toys. Santa Claus wrote me a letter that he lost his bag. He said he'd get back to me next year. — Benicio Del Toro

Genius is the true mystery, and at its edge
the abyss. — Guillermo Del Toro

If you get bored with nothing to do, you are not a writer ... We are in the business of reproducing reality from nothing. We are the biggest liars in the world, seeking truth. — Guillermo Del Toro

Am I getting better at making choices? Well, I think I might be getting better at reading scripts. — Benicio Del Toro

The very first things that I did, even in theater, were bad guys. They are meaty roles for the most part. With the bad guy you have more freedom to experiment and go further out than with a good guy. — Benicio Del Toro

I believe in man. I believe in mankind, as the worst and the best that has happened to this world. — Guillermo Del Toro

In the end, perfection is just a concept - an impossibility we use to torture ourselves and that contradicts nature. — Guillermo Del Toro

History is written by the victor. — Guillermo Del Toro

In the face of such terror and dehumanization, human passion itself was an act of defiance. — Guillermo Del Toro

It really is a pleasure to work with someone who you admire. Whatever you do in front of the camera, and I don't know what it is, but actors have this thing that you recognize someone that makes you better. When you do that, it's a great feeling. — Benicio Del Toro

I think that the Oscar gives you some kind of guts or something, it gives you the illusion that you can do it. It's good for business. — Benicio Del Toro

You have to believe the magic to see it. — Guillermo Del Toro

For horror to work, you have to be afraid. You have to keep the monster in a black and white light. — Guillermo Del Toro

I was actually sitting on stage at a press conference one day, and I totally lost touch with reality. I just thought to myself: 'Vin Diesel is sitting next to me, and Benicio Del Toro's on the other side. This is weird, man.' — Dave Bautista

I'm a lapsed altar boy. — Guillermo Del Toro

When I was a little kid, I was the first kid in my neighborhood to have a pet alligator. — Benicio Del Toro

Frankfurt, discussing a stuntman: He missed being killed in that shot be literally half an inch. — Guillermo Del Toro

My goal as an actor has always been to reach a level where I can find a lot of interesting work, and I think I'm at that point now. The Oscar has given me a lot of recognition. — Benicio Del Toro

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

I believe, as a producer/director, your duty is to create a beautiful horror film that really resonates. — Guillermo Del Toro

Before I was even in high school, I had dark circles under my eyes. Rumor was that I was a junkie. I have dark circles under my eyes, deal with it. — Benicio Del Toro

Well, the first thing is that I love monsters, I identify with monsters. — Guillermo Del Toro

What you fought was a dead man, possessed by a disease.' - Setrakian
'What
like a pinche zombie?' - Gus
'Think more along the lines of a man with a black cape. Fangs. Funny accent. Now take away the cape and fangs. The funny accent. Take away anything funny about it.' - Setrakian — Guillermo Del Toro

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

The discovery of the horror tale at an early age was fortuitous for me. This sort of tale serves, in many ways, the very same purpose as fairy tales did in our childhood. It operates as a theater of the mind in which internal conflicts are played out. In these tales we can parade the most reprehensible aspects of our being: cannibalism, incest, parricide. It allows us to discuss our anxieties and even to contemplate the experience of death in absolute safety.
And again, like a fairy tale, horror can serve as a liberating or repressive social tool, and it is always an accurate reflection of the social climate of its time and the place where it gets birthed. — Guillermo Del Toro