Celebrated Mexican film director, screenwriter, producer, and novelist Guillermo Del Toro co-writes, directs and produces the gothic romance Crimson Peak , starring Mia Wasikowska, Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain, Charlie Hunnam, and Jim Beaver. Excerpts from an interview:
You initially wrote the film in 2006, but had you mentally conceptualised it before that?
I am an avid reader of gothic romance in the most traditional sense of the term — darker, brooding, unsettling stories about star-crossed lovers, against a backdrop that is very baroque and often tinged with supernatural stuff. So I’ve always wanted to create one of those, but at the same time do sort of an anti-romantic romance. I wanted something that was spooky, at times very gloomy — not just in the horror portion of it, but also in the fact that it’s a very harsh, but personal meditation about what love is as opposed to romantic love. I also wanted to make a movie that felt like a throwback to a classic design with sumptuous wardrobes, sumptuous sets, gliding camera moves, that feel classic but are modern at the same time.
It's beautifully designed as all of your movies are. Were there any architectural inspirations that influenced the set you built?
We were targeting what was called Gothic Revival, or Victorian Gothic, which was a fad of sorts where well-to-do people were embracing cathedral-like motifs and structures for their houses, libraries, foyers, and so forth. The house in the film, however, is layered in a way that you can see its history — some of the foundations are medieval, some portions are 1700s or 1800s, all the way through to late 1880s, so it's a mixture of styles that tell the house’s story very discreetly.
Is there any significance to all the references of butterflies and moths in the design?
For me, yes. I wanted to make a movie about two different types of love. One is a love that is very carnivorous and cannibalistic —represented by the moths. The moth is a cannibalistic creature; they eat butterflies and the flesh of other little creatures. I identified the moths with one of the characters, Lucille, played by Jessica Chastain. On the other hand, the butterfly is supposedly fragile and beautiful. However, over the course of the movie, I identified them with Edith (Mia Wasikowska), and they both get stronger and stronger, so that was the idea behind that.
You built a real house on the stage. What drove you to do that?
I’ve always wanted to make it and that is why the movie took nine years to finish. I wanted to have enough time and care, and a tight budget that was ample enough to build the house. I didn't just want to go to a creepy looking building; I wanted to make the house look like a carcass, to make it feel as though you are inside of a rotting head. I wanted to give it eyes and a mouth, and it is visible if you look at it the right way; the house inside has a face. I wanted the house to bleed, to be corroded from these wounds that ooze bright red clay if you step on the wrong floorboard. All of that ruled out the idea of building it on location; we needed to make it a set.
Is it true that the house becomes more rotten and distressed as you go higher, as though it's rotting from the top down?
It is. It is a house that has been left out on its own. It is very much like the children that become Lucille and Thomas — they were left on their own just like the house.
Did you choose to cast Tom and Jessica because they are attractive and charming, but also have incredibly dark natures?
That comes directly from gothic romance, whether it is Mr. de Winter in Rebecca or Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights — Mr Craven in The Secret Garden , Nicholas Van Ryn in Dragonwyk , or Jane Eyre , or Uncle Silas in Sheridan LeFanu’s novel — there is always a very attractive male character that is also brooding and dark. However, ultimately in most of the fiction, he turns out to be innocent. I’m afraid that in Crimson Peak , he is not as innocent! But the idea was, can someone be guilty and still feel real love? That is one of the other ideas in the movie. I think Tom embodies the attractive male character, but is also vulnerable and intelligent.
What made you want to use real performers to play the ghostly characters in the film?
I think it is the same reason why I like to build sets. The actors can react to a presence on the set, floating in the middle of a corridor or a room, or coming out of the muck. By using real performers, I think there is some strange verisimilitude and power similar to having a real set. I love having a proper set to play in. It may not be good for everyone, but it sure is good for me!
