Guillermo del Toro’s advice for young filmmakers: stay untamed, irrational and stubborn

The dark fantasy films of Guillermo del Toro, who recently received a BFI Fellowship for his contribution to cinema, have established him as one of the most respected filmmakers worldwide. In conversation with film programmer Wema Mumma, del Toro recently delivered a masterclass to an audience of aspiring below-the-line artists from the BFI Film Academy’s set decoration and props course, in which he discussed the integral nature of these craft roles in creating his immersive, signature worlds. 

This is the audience del Toro loves talking to the most: students and young people. “We fucked up the world, maybe you guys can help save it,” he tells them.

Del Toro’s heroines are paradoxical: they appear frail but are armed with unwavering conviction in the face of tyrannical powers. This is true of The Shape of Water (2017), which follows a mute cleaner, Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins), who falls in love with an amphibious man, endeavouring to liberate him from a high-security facility under the captivity of a malicious colonel.

Likewise, Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) follows a lost mythical princess, Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), as she embarks on a quest to prove her identity while attempting to avoid the wrath of her stepfather, a fascist captain. Del Toro believes that parables makes sense when you’re young, as you are articulate about who you are: “An unerring sense of justice comes with every child. A child is born into the world perfect and completely certain, and then the world erodes that little by little.” It’s a demolition job that requires the labour of a lifetime to reconstruct – a theme his gothic fairytales keep returning to.

Del Toro credited his ability to conjure up what Mumma described as “vivid and imaginative worlds” to being a conscientious reader, having spent his childhood routinely reading two books a day. “I found that the world of stories was a natural environment for me.” Hearing and telling stories makes more sense to a child than the confusing dishonesty of the world. “We exist in a structure of agreed lies”, he said, and these fabrications are forced upon us as if they were sincere.

The transition from reading to writing was seamless for the now seasoned screenwriter. Literature demands the complicity of the mind, and the exercise of reading is also one of building. “Reading is adaptation”, he told us, for the reader becomes the illustrator, co-authoring the piece with the creator. The most interesting aspect of adapting Kazuo Ishiguro, del Toro says, referencing his upcoming stop-motion adaptation of the author’s fantasy novel The Buried Giant, is that everyone in his writing has a secret. What is left unspoken is larger than what is said. It’s a very delicate balance, like the line between fairytales and horror. Del Toro is less interested in frightening his audience and more in viewers’ understanding of his monsters.

“The creation of the creature is an act of aesthetic beauty,” he said. Each one is singular, incomparable to any entity before it, including within his own filmography. A wealth of influences informed the character design of the infamous Pale Man in Pan’s Labyrinth. The eyes within its hands, a stigmata, were inspired by del Toro’s Catholic upbringing in Guadalajara. Asked by an audience member how his Mexican identity shaped his storytelling, del Toro recalled visiting the cemetery with his great-aunt (whom he addressed as grandmother) on the Day of the Dead, cleaning the tombstones, leaving offerings and talking to the graves all day. The idea that death was organic to life shaped his worldview. “Death brings a desirability to the market of life,” del Toro believes, convinced that the scarcity of life is what makes it bearable. 

When we die, our eyes are reduced to a piece of tissue. They are what tell you exactly who a person is. Del Toro writes for an actor’s eyes, reasoning that the majority of a film is looking or being looked at. In The Shape of Water, Hawkins had an open way of looking at things, gazing upon the creature with love every time. It’s this empathy for his creatures and nuanced characterisation of women in gothic cinema – never caricatures, always realised – that compels Julia, a BFI Film Academy alum, to del Toro’s filmography. “I’m very much the creature,” she tells us, “and I’m very much Sally.” 

Del Toro spoke extensively on the elements required for cultivating elaborate character development. From wardrobe and set design to the movement of the actor and the camera, these features “are not ornamental, they’re storytelling devices”, a declaration of self. And special effects makeup is integral to this process. Unable to find artists specialising in the craft in Mexico, del Toro studied under the mentorship of Academy Award-winning makeup artist Dick Smith, spending over a decade as a special-effects makeup designer. Mariana, an aspiring SFX artist from Bristol, was inspired by del Toro’s work with prosthetics designer Mike Hill, a long-time collaborator, on Frankenstein (2025), where the pair collaborated on a distinctive reimagining of the infamous monster. 

He has amassed dozens of credits for below-the-line work, assisting between the art and camera departments across live action and animation, believing the latter to be “one of the most sublime forms of cinema,” and advocating for practical effects whenever possible. “The more human hands touch something, the more an object of art it is,” he says.  

BFI Film Academy alum Tyler Tavernier passes a sample of what resembles a swatch of nori between attendees in his seating section. A fine artist, he has made his own bioplastic from okra, plantain and coffee beans for his stop-motion puppet film about Black culture. Tavernier tells us he’s mesmerised by how del Toro uses special effects to create films that serve as microcosms of society and its ills. For del Toro, art comes from pain and the need to be understood in a world that tells you you’re wrong. 

Delivering his final piece of advice to the young creatives entering the industry today, the director said, “Most of us, in some way or another, end up domesticated.” But if we can keep a portion of ourselves untamed – forever irrational, unreasonable and stubborn – then it is our duty to nurture that fragment. And if, like Ofelia, we carry a figment of truth, “treasure it, because it’s not yours, it’s everyone’s.” Make a sacred vow to “keep that little candle burning”, so that it can illuminate all of us, and help to restore the childlike courage and grit required to create cinema that is honest and true.