Guillermo del Toro

The problem with 'Don't Be Afraid of the Dark' was that it was designed to be a PG-13 movie. It was literally a horror movie for a younger generation. I was trying to do the film equivalent of teenage, young adult readers, and when they gave it an R rating, the movie couldn't sustain an R.

I'm fortunate enough that my personal life falls into whack with my professional life. My kids love visiting the sets; they love the monsters.

When you start with Super 8, you are everything. You're the DP, the sound man, the effects guy. And what I started understanding, by working for other people, is that the best type of director is someone who rose through the ranks.

I have said no to many, many Day of the Dead projects in the past, about 10 or 15, because every time I heard a take it was from someone who didn't know the celebration.

I have a schizophrenic career. I have 'Cronos' and 'The Devil's Backbone' on one hand, and then I have 'Blade 2' and 'Mimic' on the other.

I feel that your ambitions should always exceed the budget.

When I was a kid, monsters made me feel that I could fit somewhere, even if it was... an imaginary place where the grotesque and the abnormal were celebrated and accepted.

The movie has to have some essence where you connect with it. The reason I'm doing 'Blade 2' and not 'Alien 4' is because I connect with the universe of 'Blade.' I don't connect with the universe of 'Alien.' Besides, I already did 'Alien 4': It's called 'Mimic.'

I want to live in a space that I designed, that is for me.

Every movie, I complicate. I make the hard choices. I remember when I was pitching 'Pan's Labyrinth:' An anti-fascist fairy tale set in Civil War Spain, where the girl dies at the end. It's not easy.

It is unnatural to deny effort, adversity, and pain.

There's nothing more political than fantasy.