Guillermo del Toro

I realized I understood my faith better through Frankenstein than through Sunday Mass.

And I decided at age seven that the creature of Frankenstein was going to be my personal avatar and my personal messiah.

Well, it was curiously enough on a Sunday after Catholic Mass, we came back home and then we would watch horror movies on Channel 6 all day.

And it was the first time I saw Frankenstein.

And the moment Boris Karloff crossed the threshold...

I had an epiphany.

I had a St.

Paul on the road to Damascus kind of experience.

I realized I understood my faith or my dogmas better through Frankenstein than through Sunday Mass.

I saw the resurrection of the flesh, the Immaculate Conception, ecstasy, stigmata.

Everything made sense, and I decided at age seven that the creature of Frankenstein was going to be my personal avatar and my personal messiah.

It was a really profound transformation, and it made an impression that lasted my whole life.

Well, I saw it as a son when I saw it first, and now I see it as a father.

And more poignantly, I have become my father.

whilst trying to run away from the same mistakes of absence or, you know, mysterious emotions that I couldn't figure out as a kid.

And I had a really profound moment to be able to reconcile this knowledge with a beautiful talk with my own kids and stop this lineage of...

And, you know, fathers are a big shadow, particularly in Latin American families, I imagine.

It is—my father was always a mystery, and he was really funny and warm, but by turns he was also aloof and distant and had a lot of problem—

Even when he came back from the kidnapping, he was taken 72 days.

And I said, I'm going to get to know him real well.