If it had been up to filmmaker Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water), the Oscar winner never would’ve left his home country 24 years ago.
“I would have stayed in Mexico my whole life,” del Toro revealed in a sit-down interview at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. “But the kidnapping of my father…changed my life.”
While in production for his 1997 movie Mimic, del Toro learned that his father, Federico del Toro, was kidnapped from his hometown of Guadalajara. Unable to pay the $1 million ransom that the criminals demanded for the safe return of his father, del Toro’s friend and colleague, filmmaker James Cameron (Terminator), stepped in to pay the ransom in full.
The experience impacted del Toro and his family so much that they moved to the United States soon after. Apparently, the only one who decided not to make the trip to America was Federico.
“I started doing American movies first because I owed a lot of money from my first Mexican movie, Cronos,” del Toro said. “I owed a quarter of $1 million personally, and I had to pay it. I started working in the American industry.”
After his “horrible” experience making Mimic, del Toro returned to Mexico to make the incredible ghost story The Devil’s Backbone. “I thought, ‘I’m going to stay doing Spanish movies.’ And then Blade 2 was successful. So, it was never planned. It just happened.”
Something else that “just happened” during this year’s Cannes Film Festival was Guillermo del Toro performing a duet with Gael García Bernal at the event’s 75th-anniversary celebration at the Grand Theater Lumière.