Terry Gross

What did you tell your collaborators about what you wanted your Frankenstein to look like?

Because he looks nothing like Boris Koloff.

I don't just mean his face, but he doesn't have a bolt in his neck.

He doesn't look all stitched together.

The original Frankenstein movie is so dreamlike, nightmare-like.

And I think several of your films have very nightmarish imagery in it.

I read you were a lucid dreamer.

As a kid.

So explain why.

What you mean when you say a lucid dreamer?

So you would dream that you woke up and escaped the nightmare only to find that the nightmare is still going on.

So it makes the nightmare seem even more like reality.

Well, we have to take a short break here.

If you're just joining us, my guest is Guillermo del Toro.

He wrote and directed the new film Frankenstein, a new interpretation of the story.

We'll be right back.

This is Fresh Air.

Do you think that your lucid dreams when you were a child relate to how you fell in love with movies when you were a child?

Because movies are so dreamlike, but they might haunt your dreams.

You might be afraid of them, but you're not literally going to think that you live in that world.