The director, who won Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Feature for The Shape of Water (2017) and Best Animated Feature for Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022), has curated a private museum of film ephemera that he calls Bleak House. Over time, the collection has become a legendary assemblage regarded by fans of his films and cinephiles at large.
When Dallas filmmaker Josh David Jordan flew to Los Angeles in January, his plan was to interview Del Toro about consigning a portion of the Bleak House collection to Heritage Auctions. Instead, he spent the trip helping Del Toro rescue his belongings from the Los Angeles wildfires.
Jordan recalls that when he landed in L.A., he mentioned to his Uber driver how wicked the clouds looked over the hills. He was told there was a small fire, but that it was nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, that proved incorrect. Jordan soon realized that he and Del Toro would likely not be having their planned interview, but he was still told to come to Bleak House to meet the director.
When he arrived, he was greeted by Del Toro alongside an editor and a producer Del Toro was working with on his upcoming adaptation of Frankenstein. By the time Jordan got there, they were already in the process of moving the Bleak House collection somewhere more secure to protect it from the fire. Jordan rolled up his sleeves and joined in.
They spent around nine hours moving various objects from Bleak House. Jordan recalls holding the gun from Hellboy (2004) and asking Del Toro what to do with it. Del Toro told him to just put it in the sink – next to his Oscars.
“I’m carrying the head of Pinocchio from the film — there’s David Lynch’s Elephant Man. I mean, all of his prints from Hellboy. The original claymations from The Shape of Water,” Jordan recalls.
He also remembers noting how much more concerned Del Toro was with the items that had some creative connection to film than he was with any awards he had received. The wooden head of Pinocchio had to be saved; the Oscars could wait in the sink.
When they finished moving memorabilia out of the house, Del Toro took everyone to eat at a Cuban restaurant in Beverly Hills. Jordan says they chased Cuban food with beer and rum, and then Del Toro recommended flan for dessert. Jordan demurred, and Del Toro looked at him and asked, “When’s the next time Guillermo Del Toro is going to offer you flan?”
“I was like, ‘I’ll have the flan,’” Jordan says with a laugh.
While they ate, the conversation naturally came around to film. Del Toro asked if Jordan wanted to see footage from Frankenstein that he had been working on. He did, of course, and asked if Del Toro was interested in seeing the trailer for Jordan’s upcoming film, El Tonto Por Cristo. He was.
Jordan on the set of his upcoming film, El Tonto Por Cristo, with Tim Delaughter (right) of the Polyphonic Spree.
Mindy Byrd
El Tonto Por Cristo seems like a film Del Toro would be naturally drawn to. There is an earnestness in its storytelling and a humor in its conceit that makes the tale of an Orthodox monk in a monastery on the Texas coast who “embraces the life of a Holy Fool” feel profoundly human and relatable. Jordan, an Orthodox Christian himself, wanted to make something emotionally and spiritually honest about his faith, while keeping it accessible and entertaining. Del Toro takes the same approach when making audiences fall in love with the “monsters” in his movies as he explores deeper emotional truths.
When the meal was over, the two planned on meeting up again the next morning. However, the fires had gotten so bad by then that Del Toro had to leave town. Jordan himself was trapped; while fires raged in California, Dallas was in the midst of a deep freeze, so there were no flights home. Trapped between ice and fire, he had no choice but to wait out the elements.
Eventually, he made it back to Texas. Months passed, with Jordan continuing to prepare for the release of El Tonto Por Cristo. The world premiere (set to be held at the Texas Theatre) needed to be planned, as did screenings in Greece and Romania. He assumed that Heritage Auctions would just have a conversation with Del Toro over Zoom to go with the auction, and his interview would never happen.
Then, Jordan received a call asking him to return and sit down with Del Toro. When he arrived, the director greeted him at the door with a hug.
During their conversation, Del Toro told Jordan that he wanted the items he was putting up for auction to go to people who will love them as much as he has.
“He kept referring to all of his stuff, and that he was the patron saint of lost causes,” Jordan says. “And [saying] sometimes you don’t need a bigger cathedral, you just need more personal iconography.”
As Del Toro downsizes by selling off some of the items he has less of an emotional attachment to, he remains interested in bringing in things with real meaning. For instance, Jordan brought along a print of the poster for El Tonto Por Cristo that he hoped to have Del Toro sign. But when Del Toro saw it, he said it was beautiful and asked if it was a gift for him. He said that if Jordan signed it, he would like to hang it in his office. Who could turn down an offer like that?
It was an appropriately meaningful and surreal capstone to Jordan's journey with Del Toro — a derailed interview ended with a newfound friend and supporter of his art.
El Tonto Por Cristo will have its world premiere at the Texas Theatre on Oct. 6. Tickets are available now.
