Director Guillermo del Toro's latest film Nightmare Alley is a departure from the director's usual genre. Despite its carnival setting, this movie is not a fantasy, but a psychological thriller. Bradley Cooper stars as Stanton Carlisle, a down-on-his-luck carny who uses his charm to con the wealthy elite of New York's society. With the help of his partner Molly (Rooney Mara), Stan plans on targeting a dangerous tycoon Ezra Grindle (Richard Jenkins), but he may have met his match in the mysterious psychiatrist Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett).

Related: Nightmare Alley Is A Genre First For Guillermo Del Toro

Screen Rant spoke to del Toro about how Nightmare Alley differs from his other movies, what he learned while making the project, and how the film evolved over time.

Screen Rant: What would you say sets Nightmare Alley apart from anything that you've done before?

Guillermo del Toro: Well, it is a continuation of a theme that I have repeated over and over again, which is the most monstrous creature is man. That much is a continuation, but it is done without the safety net of fantasy. Without the safety net of whimsy and invention is much more brutal, is a gut-punch of a movie in a way, and much more psychology than spectacle.

But at the same time, it tries to make a period look cinematic, some choice in a way that movies used to do. We wanted to make one of those movies they don't make anymore, you know, an adult drama that feels sumptuous, and expansive, and detailed, and real. And at the same time, incredibly beautiful. And moving, hopefully.

You mentioned the film is about who people really are. What did you learn about yourself as a result of making Nightmare Alley?

Guillermo del Toro: Oh, many, many things. I feel that, in a strange way, [it's] very hard to phrase it. But the tools that I've needed, all of my life have been at the twilight of adolescence and adulthood, sort of a negotiation between joy and enchantment, and brutality and reality. And now I went fully into a very, very seriously affecting, look at truth, reality, [and] lies. 

And, and as a craftsman, simply, I started at this late age to listen to the movie, and to watch rather than just dictate. So I learned to have a dialogue, rather than a monologue in the movie. It was very beautiful.

Stan puts his arm around Molly in Nightmare Alley

You had to sit with this movie for a little longer than you anticipated because you had to stop down production. Did the film evolve or change in any way as a result of that?

Guillermo del Toro: Yes, we stopped for six months and it definitely allowed us, how could it not, allowed us to re-examine what we were missing, what we had.  What we had in the bag was edited for six months. So we knew exactly what we were lacking. We made a new shopping list.

This is what we need to do and this is what we need to achieve because the movie follows Bradley's character 99.9% of the screen time. And we wanted very much to know where he was [at] the beginning, and where he was going to go. And fortunately for us, we had shot the very first scene, which is him dragging the corpse. So we had that and we had most of the ending. And we were very much able to map what we had and what we were lacking.

Next: Nightmare Alley Trailer Shows GDT Will Be An Oscar Contender

Key Release Dates

  • 01_POSTER_1334x2000
    Nightmare Alley
    Release Date:
    2021-12-17