Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro says ‘I’d rather die’ than use generative AI

Oscar-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro was a child in Mexico the first time he watched the 1931 movie Frankenstein. He describes the iconic scene where the monster first lurches into the doorway as nothing short of “an epiphany.”

“I saw the resurrection of the flesh, the immaculate conception, ecstasy, stigmata. Everything made sense,” del Toro says. “I understood my faith or my dogmas better through Frankenstein than through Sunday mass.”

It was then, at age 7, that del Toro decided the creature of Frankenstein would be “my personal avatar and my personal messiah,” he says.

Del Toro’s film credits include Pan’s Labyrinth, Nightmare Alley and The Shape of Water, which won four Oscars, including best picture and best director. Now, with Frankenstein, he reimagines Mary Shelley’s 1818 classic, telling the final part of the story from the creature’s point of view.

Some of the film’s themes echo ideas del Toro’s explored throughout his career, including misunderstood creatures, men who behave like monsters and science experiments gone awry. A self-described “groupie for death,” del Toro’s also interested in the allure — and the torment — of everlasting life.

“I’m a huge fan of death. … I think it’s the metronome of our existence,” he says. “Without rhythm, there is no melody, you know? It is the metronome of death that makes us value the compass of the beautiful music.”

Interview highlights

On designing a creature that looked nothing like the original Frankenstein

It has a very Byronian, very doomed, very Wuthering Heights sort of look of a doomed hero. And when he’s first born, and is bald and almost naked, I wanted it to feel like an anatomical chart, like something newly minted. … The head is patterned after phrenology manuals from the 1800s. So they have very elegant, almost aerodynamic lines. I wanted this alabaster or marble, statue feel, so it feels like a newly minted human being. And we also tried to make it the way I remember the Jesus images, life size, in the churches of my childhood.

On getting over his fear of death when he was younger

As a young man, my grandmother and I had a very precarious sense of death and life. My grandmother would say good night to me every day and say, “Let us pray that I’m here tomorrow.” And that is pretty intense for a 4 or 5 year old to hear. Sometimes I would sleep at the foot of her bed and I would be listening in the dark for her breathing. And if the breathing ceased, even for two seconds, I would be jolted and take a look to see if she was OK. And that stayed with me for many decades.

I don’t fear that anymore. I feel losing people, yes, but me, I’m not afraid of dying. … Right when the lights flutter and you are no longer a director or a general or a pope — right when you become just you and and the lights are flickering out that’s when you realize what you did or didn’t do in your life and that’s the most momentous thing anyone can experience and you can go with great agitation or great peace.

On how his life changed after his father won the lottery in 1969 when he was 5

We moved into a house and lived a very sort of strange life. I mean, we had all sorts of pets. We had eagles, a pet lion, 30 dogs, deer. … We had a zoo. Like Danny in The Shining, I could go on my tricycle for hours in the long corridors sometimes, like a magic realism novel. I would go for weeks without seeing a single adult. I would find food on the fridge, I would find clean clothes on my drawers, and I didn’t interact with many adults. I was existing in a mysterious life in an enchanted castle. …

One of the things [my father] did is he bought a library and filled it with books that he never read, but I read them all. And that’s where I read the encyclopedia of anatomy and health, and that’s where I read all the classics, Moby Dick, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Edgar Allan [Poe], Oscar Wilde.

On generative AI

The other day, somebody wrote me an email, said, “What is your stance on AI?” And my answer was very short. I said, “I’d rather die.”

Guillermo del Toro

My concern is not artificial intelligence, but natural stupidity. I think that’s what drives most of the world’s worst features. But I did want it to have the arrogance of Victor [Frankenstein] be similar in some ways to the tech bros. He’s kind of blind, creating something without considering the consequences and I think we have to take a pause and consider where we’re going. …

AI, particularly generative AI — I am not interested, nor will I ever be interested. I’m 61, and I hope to be able to remain uninterested in using it at all until I croak. … The other day, somebody wrote me an email, said, “What is your stance on AI?” And my answer was very short. I said, “I’d rather die.”

On the current ICE crackdowns in LA

I have a wallet the size of a leather portfolio and I always carry my papers. I have been stopped in the past and asked to show my papers in the past, and asked pointed questions in the past, pulled aside in immigration in the past. So I have all my papers with me at all times and it is a very difficult time when there is no voice for the other. And I think that understanding that the other is you is crucial.

Lauren Krenzel and Anna Bauman produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.