--- description: Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro on the politics of horror movies, living in self-imposed exile and owning a man cave title: 10 Questions for Guillermo del Toro image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) # 10 Questions for Guillermo del Toro by [Gilbert Cruz](/author/gilbert-cruz/) Sep 5, 2011 4:00 AM CUT by [Gilbert Cruz](/author/gilbert-cruz/) Sep 5, 2011 4:00 AM CUT **TIME: Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, the new film that you co-wrote and produced, is a remake of a 1973 TV movie. There are a lot of remakes and reboots and reimaginings lately. How does one do a “re-” anything well?** Guillermo del Toro: It needs to come from a place of genuine love. When remakes come from a genuine place, like \[John\] Carpenter’s _The Thing_ or \[David\] Cronenberg’s _The Fly_ , they can be really good. **There’s a lot of whispering in this film, which is the most inexpensive scare effect ever.** There is no more terrifying horror than the one that is intimate. Whispers are that. **You grew up in Mexico, where a scary drug war is going on. Why not make a movie about that?** I’m not a filmmaker who can speak directly about politics without addressing it through fable or parable. It’s just not in my makeup, and the horror film is a very political genre. But I cannot go back to Mexico as a director because of the kidnapping of my father. A film is a highly visible venture, and I can’t risk it. **You’re talking about your father’s being kidnapped by bandits and held for ransom for 72 days in 1998\. That must have been absurdly frightening.** It was. It is. Every day, every week, something happens that reminds me that I am in involuntary exile \[from my country\]. But to talk about life in a direct way is the work of other types of storytellers. As a man, the kidnapping defined my life. As a storyteller, I try to define myself. **You say horror is inherently political. How so?** Much like fairy tales, there are two facets of horror. One is pro-institution, which is the most reprehensible type of fairy tale: Don’t wander into the woods, and always obey your parents. The other type of fairy tale is completely anarchic and antiestablishment. **You have an interesting living situation, with a house, separate from your family, for just your books, your posters, your art and your work.** As a kid, I dreamed of having a house with secret passages and a room where it rained 24 hours a day. The point of being over 40 is to fulfill the desires you’ve been harboring since you were 7\. **What did your wife have to say about that?** She was happy. When you’re 7, your mother throws away your comic books. When you’re 40, you should be able to prevent that. **How do you deal with people who think of the fantastic as infantile?** I try to avoid long conversations with them. You cannot convince a Buddhist to become a Protestant any more than you can convince a person who embraces realism as the highest form of art that fantasy is an equally important manifestation. It’s impossible. **You speak as if your art is your religion.** It is. To me, art and storytelling serve primal, spiritual functions in my daily life. Whether I’m telling a bedtime story to my kids or trying to mount a movie or write a short story or a novel, I take it very seriously. **Why do you always wear black?** I have been told it’s very slimming. \[Laughs.\] But let me tell you, no matter how I look in black, you don’t want to imagine me in white. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6595964/10-questions-for-guillermo-del-toro/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6595964/10-questions-for-guillermo-del-toro/"},"headline":"10 Questions for Guillermo del Toro","datePublished":"2011-09-05T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-25T06:20:39.141Z","description":"Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro on the politics of horror movies, living in self-imposed exile and owning a man cave","url":"https://time.com/archive/6595964/10-questions-for-guillermo-del-toro/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Gilbert Cruz","url":"https://time.com/author/gilbert-cruz/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6595964/10-questions-for-guillermo-del-toro/","name":"10 Questions for Guillermo del Toro"}}]}] ```