Director Guillermo del Toro has always rooted for the monsters. Now he hopes the rest of us are ready to fall in love with one.
GUILLERMO DEL TORO finally got to live with his monsters nine years ago, when he was 44 and moved into what he calls Bleak House, in Thousand Oaks, a planned community with a golf course about an hour outside of Los Angeles. It serves as his office—he lives in a similarly anonymous home nearby—but also as a personal retreat, a private museum, and a “man cave,” as he puts it, filled with a reference library of books about his various interests (vampires, fictional; vampires, real; gothic romance; anatomy). Every surface is systematically covered with models and drawings and pictures and relics and props from the darkly enchanted horror-world of his films. It’s “a place that the neighbors don’t know what I do,” he says, greeting me in the foyer under a large painting of Saint George slaying a dragon, a statue of a fanged hellhound frozen mid-stalk behind him.
The only window in his office is a fake one modeled after the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland; when turned on, it gives the impression of a gloomy, perpetual rain. “It’s really soothing,” he assures me, as we sit down on his beige sofa. This is where he says he does his writing, with a life-size statue of a seated Boris Karloff in perpetual tea-sip over his shoulder. Usually there are more creatures and things on the walls, but, he notes, “most of the stuff in this room is traveling in the museum show”— an exhibition called “Guillermo del Toro: At Home With Monsters,” currently at the Art Gallery of Ontario. “I miss Schlitzie from Freaks coming down the stairs,” he says, shaking his head. “I do miss him.”
This story is from the November 27–December 10, 2017 edition of New York magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the November 27–December 10, 2017 edition of New York magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Trapped in Time
A woman relives the same day in a stunning Danish novel.
Polyphonic City
A SOFT, SHIMMERING beauty permeates the images of Mumbai that open Payal Kapadia's All We Imagine As Light. For all the nighttime bustle on display-the heave of people, the constant activity and chaos-Kapadia shoots with a flair for the illusory.
Lear at the Fountain of Youth
Kenneth Branagh's production is nipped, tucked, and facile.
A Belfast Lad Goes Home
After playing some iconic Americans, Anthony Boyle is a beloved IRA commander in a riveting new series about the Troubles.
The Pluck of the Irish
Artists from the Indiana-size island continue to dominate popular culture. Online, they've gained a rep as the \"good Europeans.\"
Houston's on Houston
The Corner Store is like an upscale chain for downtown scene-chasers.
A Brownstone That's Pink Inside
Artist Vivian Reiss's Murray Hill house of whimsy.
These Jeans Made Me Gay
The Citizens of Humanity Horseshoe pants complete my queer style.
Manic, STONED, Throttle, No Brakes
Less than six months after her Gagosian sölu show, the artist JAMIAN JULIANO-VILLAND lost her gallery and all her money and was preparing for an exhibition with two the biggest living American artists.
WHO EVER THOUGHT THAT BRIGHT PINK MEAT THAT LASTS FOR WEEKS WAS A GOOD IDEA?
Deli Meat Is Rotten