(energetic electric guitar music)
(audience applause)
- [Thomas] Hello, Comic Con.
(audience cheers)
This is literally our favorite thing to do
every year at Legendary.
We mark this moment where we get to come
and show you our wares,
and hopefully you're as excited about it
after we show it to you as we are.
We've got some exciting things
including we're going to hand out some cards
and take a poll and see how many times
you think Guillermo del Toro will use the F-word.
(audience cheers)
I also wanted to thank everybody down here at Comic Con.
We had the privilege of making a little dinosaur movie
this year called Jurassic World with Universal.
(audience cheers)
And it was everybody from Jeff Shell, Donna Langley,
everybody at Universal was an absolute privilege to do,
and in all seriousness got to fulfill a lifelong dream
of making a movie with Steven Spielberg.
(audience applause)
So, in any case, thank you for coming
and I'm going to hand the mic over to your host,
Chris Hardwick.
(audience cheers)
- [Voiceover] Chris is the best!
- [Chris] It's me again. Hey, guys.
(audience cheers)
Stop it.
(audience cheers)
What? Is there something behind me?
(audience cheers)
What? Oh, I'm supposed to turn this around.
"Hi, Chris Hardwick, I love you, love Aisha Tyler. #Hugs"
Aw, so sweet. I didn't know what know what you screaming at.
I was like, "Is there something behind me?"
because no one's this excited about me.
I love you, I will love you later.
(audience laughs)
Let's just get into this, you guys, because there's a lot.
We have an hour, we're going to get
to show you some amazing stuff,
taking on some great three different movies
that people haven't seen anything before.
And I am so honored and delighted
that this man knows my name,
and he's going to be one of the guests
on our podcast tonight.
Please welcome Guillermo del Toro!
(audience cheers)
Now...
I would like to...
As Guillermo's taking a seat I want you to know
people are passing out tickets, this is part of a giveaway,
we're doing a Google VR giveaway
so that you can check out,
you're gonna get 50 000 of these are being distributed,
and then there's very specific experiences from Warcraft,
Crimson Peak, and Pac Rim when you go over to
the Legendary booth so you can redeem those.
- [Guillermo] Can I ask a favor?
When Tom Hiddleston comes out, ignore him.
- [Chris] Yeah, that's...
- [Guillermo] Don't make, don't applaud, nothing.
- [Chris] It's impossible.
- [Guillermo] Nothing, do nothing.
- [Chris] He's hypnotic.
So, let's just really quickly talk
before we show some footage,
a little bit about Crimson Peak
and why you wanted to make it,
and why you thought it was important to tell?
- Well, I wanted to create a really classical,
lush, lavish Gothic romance.
You know, it hasn't been done in a while
and it's they're always female-centric movies
that have very strong protagonists.
And I have two daughters that are incredibly strong,
and my wife is my high school sweetheart
who is incredibly strong.
And I really think that many times
in some of these movies
the girl ends up being a damsel in distress.
And I wanted to create a tale that was
a classical Gothic romance,
don't expect a reinvention when at the end
there's out of the house was a spaceship
and it was an experiment about nothing.
Or it's all a studio
and they're shooting a TV show, nothing.
It's a straight Gothic romance,
but where certain twists are
a little more gender-liberated, shall we say.
(audience cheers)
They are a little more about
being yourself and stuff like that,
but that we stopped,
I'm incredibly conscious about this with two daughters,
we live in a world that is, there is a secret gender war,
and we have to, as a story-teller,
it is our duty to take these great genres and great forms
and retell them a little.
And I'm conscious of that.
(audience cheers)
- [Chris] Excellent.
- With that said, I want it to be scary. (laughs)
And notice I don't use that word that Thomas said.
(audience laughs)
- [Guillermo] See?
- [Chris] What word are you talking about?
- [Guillermo] I have huge control.
And I want it to be scary, and I wanted it to be gorgeous.
And I think it's one of my three favorite movies I've done
and is, in my opinion, you don't have to agree,
is the most beautiful movie I have made.
- [Chris] (laughs)
- [Guillermo] (speaks in Spanish)
(audience cheers)
- [Chris] So why don't we show a clip from this
and then we'll have a little announcement
about something from the trailer after you guys see it.
- Let's do that, and let me warn you,
for those that don't like spoilers,
but there spoilers, but damn.
(audience laughs)
- I'm not gonna say it.
- [Chris] Let's meet the cast of Crimson Peak,
I think you're gonna be very excited to see Mia Wasikowska,
Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain!
(audience cheers)
The long walk all the way across...
There it is.
(audience cheers)
Welcome.
(audience cheers)
- [Voiceover] Tom, we love you!
(audience cheers)
- [Tom] Thank you very much.
- [Chris] That is his life. "We love you!" Oh my God.
- [Guillermo] I always say that if they found him
grinding puppies in an alley, they would go, "Oh, Puppies."
- [Chris] (laughs)
- [Guillermo] He's so nice.
- [Chris] You guys, this is the first peek
that you've seen at the trailer,
do you want to make an announcement about
the Allerdale Hall?
- [Guillermo] Well, we are creating an experience,
a Halloween Horror Night at Universal.
So all of you that live in California or partake,
I'll see you there.
It's gonna be terrifying and cool.
- [Chris] Excellent. Mia, let's start with you.
What can you tell us about your character
and what was the experience like being on set?
I mean, it's everything...
The environment was so immersive.
- Yeah, I've never been on a set like this before.
It was the most beautifully created mansion
and the detail was just so incredible.
Yeah, I've never been on a set like that before,
it was amazing.
- [Chris] Yeah. I know backstage
I was talking to Tom about
what we were going to talk about here,
and he goes, "I want to just throw it to the fans.
I would rather just have the fans ask questions."
Because everything he says makes your heart melt,
so we're gonna open up the floor to fan questions right now
and you guys can ask the panel
whatever it is that you wanna know.
- [Guillermo] He has a great accent.
- [Chris] He does, everything about him.
Yes, hi! Are you okay?
- [Voiceover] Yeah.
- [Chris] Okay. What is your name?
- [Voiceover] Angel.
- And what's your question?
- [Voiceover] My question is, I know the building size,
set, sorry.
So I wanna know which part of set do guys like most?
- [Tom] That's a good question.
- [Chris] Did you say which part of the set
do guys like most?
- [Voiceover] Yeah, sorry about that.
- That's okay, just lean closer to the microphone,
we can't really hear you.
- [Voiceover] That which part of set do you guys like?
- [Chris] Which part of the set do you guys like the most?
What's your favorite part,
is it the acting or is it the set? What do you guys love?
- Of the physical set, you mean?
- [Voiceover] Yeah, the castle, yeah.
- I, personally...
the great hall I found just jaw-dropping.
Because you have to understand,
this is, the house that the Sharpes live in
is in Cumberland in the north of England,
and the house was built on a sound stage in Toronto.
And when I walked in for the first time,
it was just breath-taking.
Because it was on three or four storeys
with a working elevator.
And if you actually trod on the floorboards
the clay which is underneath the house
would seep across the floor.
It was the most extraordinary place,
the most extraordinary set I have ever seen.
And I was actually very sad when they had to tear it down.
That's what they do.
- [Guillermo] It is very sad.
I like the bathroom.
(everyone laughs)
And it sounds horrible, but the bathroom was gorgeous.
- [Chris] Yeah, that's very important. Jessica...
- [Guillermo] Not for the reasons you think.
- [Chris] I kinda feel like some of the reasons we think.
- [Guillermo] Well, yes, that too.
- I like, I mean, maybe it's a bit possessive,
but I really liked Lucille's bedroom.
And every corner of that room
was filled with something that...
I can't really explain it because it's all spoilers
but it was so, so beautiful,
and it's photographed beautifully.
- [Chris] Mia, what was your favorite part about
making the Crimson Peak?
- Probably just being able to work with Guillermo
and the cast who were so fantastic.
I was new to the genre
and to the concept of horror,
and I found, Guillermo gave me a copy of Frankenstein
and there was an introduction to the book that he wrote.
And it was like, sort of an education
in why it's an important thing,
and how we learn about ourselves through our fears.
So it was kind of amazing to have Guillermo as a guide
in this new world, and it was really cool.
- [Chris] Excellent. What is your name?
- [Voiceover] My name is Katie.
- And what's your question?
- [Voiceover] My question is for Tom.
I wanted to know from your perspective,
how is Mr. del Toro different from
the other directors you've worked with?
What's unique about him?
- Well the first thing to say
is that we all got given
these extraordinary character biographies
when we received the script.
And it was a 10-page life story,
maybe even it was 15, I can't remember,
but it was the most incredible document
with my star sign, and my date of birth,
and the secrets that I don't want to tell anyone,
and what I like and what I don't like,
and a horrible time I had with my aunt
when I was 13 in Whitehaven.
And that kind of detail is what we should all do
with every character we play.
And I just had the best time with Guillermo.
Guillermo has an enormous imagination,
and getting to live inside that imagination
with all of his detail, and rigor, and precision,
was a huge pleasure.
And I've never been teased so much
on set by another director, but I liked it.
- [Guillermo] We're like twins.
- We're like twins.
-Like the Danny DeVito film, right?
- [Chris] You mean like the movie Twins?
- [Guillermo] Yeah. I'm Danny DeVito.
(everybody laughs)
- That'd make me Arnold, I guess.
- [Chris] Yes. Hi!
- [Voiceover] Hi.
- What's your name?
- [Voiceover] I'm Darcy.
- And what's your question, Darcy?
- [Voiceover] So this is for Guillermo, and is for Tom.
Ever since I saw this one interview I was really curious.
What was the difference between
the original version of Thomas Sharpe
and the one that was rewritten after
Benedict dropped from the cast?
- [Guillermo] Well, the first thing you do
when you write a screenplay
and you have a first, second, third draft,
whenever you go out with the screenplay,
then what I do is I then work with the actors.
I generate these biographies that are about 10 pages,
give it to them,
and then we sit down and do what is called table work.
And what we do is we discuss the biography
with the pages, what they like, what they don't like,
and we go through a beautiful, fun discovery process.
We say, "Oh, I would do this because of that,
and I would not do this because of that."
And you kind of then
come out of those meetings supercharged.
You go back and input all that visually, or audio-visually,
into the set design,
into the way you're designing the sound,
or in pieces of dialogue and staging,
but ultimately all of it is fed into it.
The movie, as Jessica was saying,
Lucille's bedroom for example,
came out entirely of these discussions
and every single piece in there tells you
a little bit about her.
I say that I write the movies on paper,
but really they get written on film.
And if you pay attention in my movies,
if you are watching every detail,
every detail should add up to that.
So it changes a lot.
So Thomas Sharpe and every other part
was tailored to the actor doing it.
Now is Tom's turn.
- [Chris] Excellent.
And then just sort of branching over to Jessica,
what were some things that you took away,
or what were some things that you liked about your character
that you can share?
- I like a lot about my character.
I love her, she absolutely breaks my heart.
What I love about her is that she's fiercely loyal
and she acts out of love
to receive love
and her way to give and receive love.
Most of that came from working with Guillermo
and reading the biography he sent me,
and we'd be on set together
working on a scene,
and the biography, the secrets of who Lucille was,
would inform the decisions made in the scene.
And sometimes new scenes would pop up.
Lucille's bedroom would pop up.
We had a great rehearsal with Tom in London
and we read our biographies for each other
but I did ask, I said,
"Please don't read anything
that you wouldn't want your sister to know."
- [Tom] (laughs) Yeah.
- So I made sure that I kept my secrets
and we all kept theirs.
- [Guillermo] Yeah, we don't share the biographies.
The actors don't share them,
so they can keep secrets from each other.
You know, and that is actually a fun game.
- It's also, it's interesting,
the film is so much about secrets.
And I think, you know, all of us in our lives,
we all try and live in the present,
we live in the here and now.
But we are formed by the past
and the things we did, the things that were done to us,
and every character in this film
is so, is almost...
is either weighed down or liberated
by what's happened in the past.
And the house itself is the past,
and witness to what happened in that house.
It saw everything, it heard everything,
and I think
the exciting tension in the film
is that it's every character is struggling
to create their own destiny.
I think that's fun.
- [Chris] Excellent. Now we have time for one more question,
I think that's you.
- [Voiceover] Yes. I'm Donona.
First I wanted to thank Jessica and Mia
for portraying such strong, multi-faceted characters.
(audience cheers) And I wanted to thank
Tom and Guillermo for just supporting them
and giving them that spotlight.
But the question, yeah, I'm sorry.
Over the course of filming the movie,
what was the most
creatively or emotionally
challenging part of that for you?
- The last act of the film is
an emotional roller coaster.
It exists at a very intense pitch.
And we all had to kind of hold hands and battle through it,
because it can take it out of you some days.
But I loved living,
I mean I think most actors become actors
because they're fascinated by extremity.
They're fascinated by what happens when people are tested
by physical, psychological, or emotional challenges
they have to overcome.
And I personally find the last 45 minutes of this film
is headlong and thrilling,
and there's twist after twist,
and you don't know where it's gonna go.
It had, it was a very satisfying challenge to overcome.
- [Chris] Excellent. So before we let you guys go,
Guillermo, do you have one thing
that you want to say to people about this movie
that you want them to take away from Hall H
to go see it when it comes out in October of this year?
- I think this is the first time that I felt
really empowered by the support of Legendary and Universal.
With Mimic I decided in '97 I said,
I'm gonna do my more young movies in America,
you know, things that I loved as a kid and stuff like that,
but I'm gonna keep my more adult and hardcore stuff
for my European or Spanish-language films,
and this is the first time that I ventured into this.
Early on we decided it needed to be art,
it needed to be complex, and I secretly was hoping,
I hope the other shoe never drops.
I hope we never have to cross that bridge
where they say, "Well, yes,
we remember we said it could be R,
but this is too much, or this is blah blah blah."
And it never happened.
So I'm very, very happy to say that I felt,
for the first time, completely free to make
an adult movie in the English language,
and I hope you guys enjoy the hell out of it.
(everyone laughs)
And I will say, "Hell yeah!"
- [Chris] All right. - [Guillermo] Please.
- [Chris] October 16th 2015,
Guillermo del Toro, Mia Wasikowska,
Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain, Crimson Peak!
(audience cheers)
- [Chris] Excellent. There they go.
And people are rushing out, cards are being loaded.
- [Voiceover] Bye, Guillermo!
- [Guillermo] Bye, guys.
Like, if anyone should be allowed to say the F-word at all
it just should be Guillermo.
We should just change this to Hall F,
and then he could just...
- [Voiceover] We love you, Tom!
- [Tom] I love you all, too.
(audience cheers)
- [Chris] Just so you know, you're all pregnant now.
That's how that works.
Enjoy your babies, enjoy your Hiddle babies.
Finally...
"I've been waiting to get pregnant by that guy forever!"