If Guillermo del Toro was already a recognized director before winning the Best Picture Oscar for The Shape of Water in 2018, it is undeniable that the golden statuette allowed him to develop projects that he could not have carried out with as much freedom as before. And out of freedom, we are obviously talking about the budget, which allowed the filmmaker to afford a dream cast for Nightmare Alley, his new film currently in theaters.
“After you win an Oscar, you can work with other limits… I couldn’t come and ask to do a version of Nightmare Alley $200 million, but I was able to do it for $60 million. I don’t think this would have happened before The Shape of Water. In most cases, the roles were written for the cast we got, and they probably wouldn’t have been interested otherwise,” he told the
NME.
A boon
Speaking of casting, Guillermo del Toro returned to his providential meeting with Bradley Cooper who plays one of the leading roles in Nightmare Alley.
“There were so many times when I felt more like I saw the movie than I did it, and that’s thanks to Bradley. He has a knack for making everything completely emotionally real, and it can be tough with scenes full of despair or relief,” he added. Quite a godsend when you know that the role was originally supposed to go to Leonardo Dicaprio !
Finally, Guillermo del Toro revealed the three films he dreams of making and they are three adaptations of classic novels. “I don’t know if I will ever make them, but I like The Count of Monte-Christo, The Hallucinated Mountains and Frankenstein. I have more than 20 scenarios in the drawers, but these are the three that count. If I could do them, I think I would have had a perfect life,” he said.