Guillermo del Toro

Like, for example, on Pinocchio, the creation of Pinocchio is shot like a horror film.

But the creation of the creature in this film is shown like a concert, like a joyful cornucopia of anatomical parts, blood, ligament, and muscles, which has never been shown in any other versions before.

But to me, it was mandatory because I wanted to see

Victor at his professional best and at his artistic best.

So I talked to my composer, Alexander Desplat, and I said, we're going to do it with a waltz.

And I'm going to shoot it like a fun-filled concert of anatomical parts.

Yes.

First of all, I've been obsessed by medicine and anatomy.

I was the world's youngest hypochondriac.

That's quite an achievement.

It is.

And there must be a Boy Scout patch for that.

But I went to my mother every day and I said, Mother, I think I have trichinosis of the brain.

Mother, I have cirrhosis.

I read an entire encyclopedia of health as a kid, and I've been very taken by anatomy.

Ever since, and we had a Victorian consultant, and I used an entire medical library that I purchased from 1835.

I bought it in London, and I used it to make sure the terms and the procedures were up to speed but not too advanced.

What I was trying to capture is the...

The beautiful style of the illustrations of an American artist called Bernie Wrightson, who illustrated, for me, the best illustrated version of the novel ever, and who collaborated with me earlier on.

And it has a very Byronian, very doomed, very Wuthering Heights sort of look of a doomed hero.