Guillermo del Toro Looks Back on Awards Season: “Its Almost Like Heart of Darkness”

Writers and critics and fans may spend years celebrating and learning about the Academy Awards, but its possible that no one can understand what theyre really like until they have their own little gold man in their hands. Which is why the conversation on this weeks episode of Little Gold Men is so special. In partnership with the Talkhouse Podcast, were sharing the first part of an expansive and very frank conversation between William Friedkin, the Academy Award-winning director of The French Connection and The Exorcist, and Guillermo del Toro, who won his own best-director Oscar for The Shape of Water just weeks before the conversation took place.

And the Oscars were on both of their minds when the two acclaimed directors sat down in Los Angeles. “I wonder how, or if, you feel your life has changed since you won?” Friedkin asks at the beginning of the conversation. Del Toro describes the months-long awards-season process as “like Heart of Darkness”: “You start with one mission—you start saying look, whatever happens happens. Then you get the nominations, and little by little you are in.” What changed del Toro, though, was not all of the hubbub around his best-picture-winning film, but specifically the recognition from the directors branch of the Academy and the Directors Guild of America. “[The D.G.A. Award] is, in my opinion, one of the awards that for directors counts so much, because its your peers and what we do. The alchemy which is directing—a lot of people think its chemistry, and its not chemistry, its alchemy, its transmutation. Only those that are practitioners in the art know what it entails.”

Both Friedkin and del Toro recall what its like to get awards attention and be flooded with work offers as a result, only to lose track of what they actually want to make. Having gone through it when his 2006 film, Pans Labyrinth, was nominated for six Oscars, del Toro said, “I learned a lesson. Thats why I very purposefully said Im not going to direct anything until 2019. I want to land as a person, whatever happens.”

And del Toro learned another lesson from Pans Labyrinth, which he happily didnt have to repeat with The Shape of Water: about the value of losing. “I remember when Pans Labyrinth didnt win best foreign film I felt a huge relief. First of all, I can take off my shoes, which are super tight. Second, I had a great feeling. Not winning did not change the movie. It was exactly the same movie that it was when I went into the ceremony.”

Listen to the first 10 minutes of the conversation in the episode above. To hear the full conversation, subscribe to the Talkhouse Podcast; del Toro and Friedkins entire conversation will be shared in two episodes launching next week.

Also on this weeks Little Gold Men podcast, BuzzFeeds critic and culture writer Alison Willmore joins Richard Lawson, Katey Rich, and Joanna Robinson to discuss her piece “Orientalism Is Alive and Well in American Cinema.” Willmores piece, and the ensuing conversation, take on Wes Andersons new film, Isle of Dogs, and particularly the Internet response to it, as well as Hollywoods efforts to court a global Asian audience without having a real conversation about the way it represents, or fails to represent, Asian people on screen.

You can also subscribe to Little Gold Men on Apple Podcasts, where you can leave a rating and a review.

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