-I'm so happy you're here. I'm such a big fan of yours.
But I don't know what to call you.
Do I call you Guillermo?
Or do I call you... Doctor Del Toro?
-[ Laughs ] -You got your doctorate.
-That is my -- -Look at that.
[ Cheers and applause ] Wow!
-Yes, indeed. -Now, where was this?
Who gave this to you? -This is a --
the best, the largest,
the most famous university in Latin America.
National University of Mexico.
-Wow. -And -- And --
[ Cheers and applause ]
-You can only write prescriptions
if you have the hat, you know? [ Laughter ]
-You have to wear the hat? -You have to wear the hat.
-You have to wear the hat. I'm so happy that you're here.
Did your parents want you to be a doctor growing up,
or were they happy that you went into movies?
-They were happy for us to have a pulse.
[ Laughter ]
They were like, "Oh, the kids are okay.
They're breathing."
-So they're alright. Yeah. -Yeah, they were.
-When did you know?
I read somewhere you were like 8 years old
and you grabbed your dad's camera.
-Yeah, my dad used to sell cars at a car dealership.
And they would pay him with stuff, like, down payments.
And they gave him a Super 8 camera,
a projector, and a screen.
And I started doing Super 8 movies with that.
-And what -- Do you remember any of your movies you used to make?
-[ Laughs ] Well, early on, I did stop-motion,
clay animation, about a serial-killer potato.
[ Laughter ] That -- It became sentient.
Murdered a whole family. Decided to conquer the world.
-Why did the potato kill the family?
-It was a really -- Hubris.
[ Laughter ]
The potato wanted to conquer the world
and stepped out into the street and got crushed by a car.
[ Laughter ]
-Mashed potato at the end?
-Mashed potato. -[ Laughs ] That's wild.
-It ended in violence. -It ended in violence. Yeah.
Can we talk about "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio"?
-Yes, please. -What a masterpiece.
-Thank you. -It's a triumph.
Man, oh, man. This movie. [ Cheers and applause ]
Wait till you see --
And I want to know when you got the idea
that you wanted to do your version of "Pinocchio"
and that you wanted to make it stop-motion animation.
-Well, stop motion, I've been doing it
since I was a kid, as I said.
And the thing is, I felt that for the puppet
to belong to the same world, everybody had to be a puppet.
And it's a story about --
It's set during the rise of Mussolini.
And it's the only character
that doesn't behave like a puppet is the puppet.
He's a very free thinker.
And we started the adventure with a shadow machine
and my co-director, Mark Gustafson,
and this is a titanic piece of animation.
-Yeah. -Gigantic.
-I love the story.
Did you fall in love with it from the Disney cartoon?
-Yeah, I saw it with my mom.
It was the second or third movie I saw with my mom.
And I felt that was the only movie, at that age,
that captured how horrible childhood felt.
[ Laughter ]
And I was enchanted by that.
I said, "That guy gets me."
[ Laughter ] -Wow!
-And then I said --
My mom and I were very, very good friends growing up.
She was the weird one in the family along with me.
She would have worn that sweater, by the way.
-She would have -- Yeah? That's -- Right?
-She would have loved it. Yeah. Every Christmas.
-Your mom had a lot to do with this movie getting made.
-Yeah, we talked about it.
She would get me a Pinocchio every couple of years.
A wooden Pinocchio.
She knew that I wanted to do it since I was very young.
And, unfortunately, she passed away right before the movie
premiered in the London Film Festival.
But I still feel her in there. You know? She's --
-I think she'd be very proud. -She would be happy.
[ Cheers and applause ] She would be.
-Uh, you, um...
You brought us the star of the movie.
-Yeah, two actors came with me.
-Two actors come with you. This is -- I don't want to --
-These are the real puppets.
You can animate them, you know.
This is Geppetto. And this is --
Mechanical. They're mechanical puppets.
So all the mechanisms are in the face.
They are made of silicone.
And inside, there's basically,
like, a Swiss watch of mechanics.
So you can animate them frame by frame.
You know, look, for example, if you want him to be sad...
And if he's worried...
He's worried about Pinocchio now. [ Laughs ]
If you want him to be angry, you know, he would get angry.
He's a pretty obedient guy.
There you go.
That's his -- telling Pinocchio, "What are you doing?"
[ Laughter ] -How long does this take?
Because when I'm watching it,
I forgot they were stop-motion puppets at one point.
-Yes. That's the idea.
The idea is for them to become actors.
Each of these is more expensive than a Hyundai.
[ Laughter ]
-So they are really mechanically fine.
-I'm not touching them. -No, you should grab Pinocchio.
And this guy -- basically what we decided to do
is act in a naturalistic way.
Not like a cartoon. Not hyper.
So you can make them make mistakes.
When you work with live actors,
you expect to create something that feels alive.
But with a stop-motion puppet, you have to animate mistakes.
So when we see a little footage that I want,
you will see them do "failed acts."
Stumbling, kicking a bottle that is laying around,
sort of stumbling around.
And all of that is pre-planned to be animated like that.
-That's, like, next-level stuff.
You're like -- Wow. You're making the puppets
make mistakes to be more human.
-Yes. Yeah. There is a thing --
-Hayao Miyazaki, the animator, in Japan said,
"If you animate the ordinary, it will be extraordinary."
And the whole movie does that.
We --
[ Cheers and applause ]
We believe -- Everybody that made this movie
believes that animation is not a genre just for kids.
Animation is art. Animation is film.
And we're trying to make you see these guys
and say, "They're actors."
Forget that they're puppets.
-Yeah, you know, I read one write-up of this
because I was so excited to have you on the show,
even before, just looking at a trailer,
and they said it's your "dark take" on "Pinocchio."
Do you believe that it's a dark take?
-I think the opposite.
I find it incredibly beautiful and moving.
When you see it, you will call your kids or your parents.
It's incredibly emotional, full of light.
But it does have the beauty.
When I saw the first "Pinocchio" with Disney,
Disney understood one thing --
that in order to appreciate the light, you need a darkness.
And so there is a contrasting thing in this movie
where you will be moved.
And I find myself after all these months of work
still tearing up watching the movie over and over.
-It made me cry, as well, but in cheer.
You just fall in love with it.
The whole idea of being a boy and living your life.
-Yes.
-There's a poem that you got quoted --
-Yeah, there is a poem. It's very Mexican.
But it's about the relationship of life and death.
Jaime Sabines said,
"All of my life a voice has whispered softly in my ear,
'Live, live, live.
It was death."
And the idea of "Pinocchio" is, can we love each other
while we're briefly in this world?
Can we belong to each other? Can we support each other?
No matter what you are or what you look like. And that's it.
The one that learns the lesson in this "Pinocchio" is this guy.
Geppetto learns to be a real father,
as opposed to Pinocchio learning to be a real boy.
[ Cheers and applause ] -I want to show everyone a clip.
Get ready for this.
"Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio."
Take a look.
[ Birds chirping ]
-[ Groans ]
[ Bottle toots ]
[ Glass shatters ]
[ Groans ]
[ Birds chirping ]
[ Grunts ]
[ Groans ]
-[ Scraping ] -[ Gasps ]
[ Thud ]
-[ Laughs ]
-I mean, wow.
You just see that. That was a puppet.
That's amazing. Good job. Good job, Geppetto.
Guillermo del Toro, everybody.
"Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio" is in select theaters now
and begins streaming on Netflix this Friday.
We'll be right back with a performance
from Ashley McBryde and John Osborne. Stick around.