The actor who changed Guillermo del Toro’s style forever: “I am fortunate”
It’s common in the film industry for actors to be shaped by the directors that they work with and even for them to eventually move behind the camera. However, it’s not often that you hear of a filmmaker changing his entire way of working due to the talent of their actors. But, of course, Guillermo del Toro isn’t like other directors.
And so, it’s not entirely surprising that the filmmaker changed his entire way of shooting after working with Bradley Cooper. Starring as the lead in del Toro’s 2021 adaption of the novel Nightmare Alley, Cooper developed an incredibly close friendship with the director, even though he was initially cast because del Toro had been told to find big stars for his new movie. A few notable names, including Leonardo DiCaprio, had turned it down.
Following an ambitious carnival man with a talent for conning people into believing he’s psychic, Nightmare Alley has a distinct ending upon which the rest of the film’s success rests. Initially, del Toro worried that a star as big as Cooper wouldn’t be a fan of the ending, which was critical in his eyes. But Cooper valued it just as much as the filmmaker: “Of course, he’s an actor, but he’s a director, and he’s a storyteller. He saw the power of that ending and embraced it. He said, ‘The whole movie is a product of the last two minutes.’”
The actor and director clicked so closely on their view of the film that it grew into a deeper collaboration, with Cooper eventually influencing how del Toro shot the project. “It was a partnership that was quite moving for me to discover,” del Toro told Screen Daily. Usually shooting in small bursts and editing along the way, the director found himself engrossed in the story that was unfolding between Cooper and co-star Cate Blanchett.
“All of a sudden, I was watching a movie, and I didn’t want to cut. I stopped seeing Bradley. I was just watching Stanton, and I thought, ‘Jesus, it’s so much better shooting this way.’” Del Toro’s prior methods have successfully won him both the ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’ at the 2017 Academy Awards for his film Shape of Water. However, no one is ever beyond learning and shifting their methodologies.
Although Nightmare Alley was as successful as the critically acclaimed Shape of Water, it did teach Guillermo something about himself as a director and began a close relationship between himself and Cooper. Speaking on the changes in his method, del Toro claimed that they “rendered a certain truth that I’m satisfied with now. Now, I will never shoot a movie in the way that I used to.”
After all, Cooper is a director in his own right, directing the incredibly successful 2018 adaptation of A Star is Born. Yet, it seems doubtful that he would expect to so drastically impact the approach of a stalwart director such as del Toro. With 22 years of experience already behind him, the director demonstrates that it is possible to teach an old dog new tricks.
