Guillermo del Toro’s Inspiration for “Nightmare Alley”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: And listen, congratulations. I think you’re an Oscar machine because you’ve got four nominations, including best picture for this one. You had two for “The Shape of Water.” how do you feel about the reception of “Nightmare Alley”?

GUILLERMO DEL TORO, DIRECTOR, “NIGHTMARE ALLEY”: Look, I am very grateful that we were able to, A, finish the movie. And two, that were able to launch it even in the middle of a new COVID variant, which was throwing everything upside down. Very happy that people are connecting with it. I think we tried to make a movie about today and about the blurry line we’re living between truth and lies and fiction and populous discourse and all that. So, little by little, the movie has revealed itself to our audience in a very beautiful way.

AMANPOUR: Well, I’m going to dig down on that because it really is a movie for today in terms of how you just laid it out. And also, the idea of the con artist, which is central to this film. And we do live in the era of Trump and Putin, and we can see how distorting truth and conning populations can dramatically affect everyone’s lives. So, it’s really relevant.

DEL TORO: It is, it is. Even in more intimate spaces, you know, I think what is dangerous about where we are is that, at a very basic level, we have this articulated truth and lies and parameters of reality, and we — you know, at even personal, spiritual levels, we are breaking the dialogue with reality, we are creating systems that confirm our bias. You know, we basically are in an echo chamber as human beings. And it’s a very dangerous thing to be in. And to try to engulf that in a story that is engrossing and entertaining and that acts as a parable is beautiful because then through a story that is not a political story, but has a spiritual dimension and a political dimension, people tend to digest these ideas more.