Editor's note: The following interview contains mild spoilers.

If you’re a fan of Guillermo del Toro and enjoy hearing him talk about movies, I’m about to make you very happy. Shortly before Nightmare Alley was released, I landed an extended and wide-ranging interview with the brilliant filmmaker. During the almost fifty-minute conversation, del Toro broke down the making of Nightmare Alley and shared numerous stories I hadn’t heard anywhere else. This included what was in his 3-hour 19-minute version of the film (the final version is an hour shorter), how he personally bought some of the props and set dressing on eBay and what they did to make sure everything was period-specific, what exactly changed as a result of the long COVID shutdown, why he wants people to see the black and white version, the happy ending in the middle of the film and the way they shot it to emphasize the moment, why they tried to light Bradley Cooper with the other characters in the movie, his personal film noir inspirations, and so much more I can’t list it all here.

If you’re not familiar with Nightmare Alley, the film was adapted by del Toro and Kim Morgan from William Lindsay Gresham’s 1946 novel of the same name. The novel was previously made into a film in 1947 with Tyrone Power, but wasn’t as faithful to the source material. Del Toro’s version stars Cooper as Stanton “Stan” Carlisle, an ambitious con man who learned his craft working at a seedy traveling carnival. As he gets more successful, he teams up with Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett), who may be more dangerous than he is. The rest of the all-star cast includes Rooney Mara, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Ron Perlman, David Strathairn, Clifton Collins Jr., Tim Blake Nelson, and Mary Steenburgen.

Since many of you enjoy reading interviews, while others want to watch video, you can either watch del Toro in the player above or read the full transcript below. Nightmare Alley is now playing in theaters and I strongly recommend checking it out while it’s playing on a movie screen.

Read the article and full transcript here: https://collider.com/guillermo-del-to...

FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL
  / collider  
  / collider  
  / collider