Most child actors get
to subject grown-ups to pain or act cute and cuddly. Not when you're working
with Guillermo Del Toro. Pan's
Labyrinth as 12-year-old Ivana Baquero running from monsters,
witnessing military brutality and trying to figure out which is scarier.
Interview: Ivana Baquero on Pan's Labyrinth
"Guillermo has this amazing mind and I don’t think mine reaches
to his," she said. "I guess, like any kid, I sometimes have my
imaginary monsters. I’ve never really created one but sometimes I
do have nightmares and goosebumps about weird Pans and big toads, that kind
of stuff."
The film's big toad, one of Ofelia (Baquero)'s fantasy missions, was one
of her most difficult sequences to film. "I remember it as my toughest
sequence, especially the part where I come out of the fake tree after the
toad. I was literally freezing because I was full of mud. I was in Madrid’s
mountains, La Sierra and it was raining so I was really freezing."
Ofelia's real monster is Capitan Vidal, who marries her mother but really
only wants a son for himself. Played by Sergi Lopez, Baquero said, "He
was totally hilarious. He has nothing to do with the real Vidal. Every time
we did a sequence, we’d have to get into our characters and be serious,
like I’d be crying and he’d be like preparing to slap me, fake
slap me, and five minutes later, we’d break out laughing and start
joking all around again. He’s a really nice person and, as well as
Guillermo, he taught me a lot during the whole filming and he was also one
of the people who cheered me up and gave me advice during filming."
Pan's Labyrinth
Pan's Labyrinth
The adults in the film only see the real world.
Only Ofelia gets to experience both the fantasy and harsh reality, and Baquero
had no preference. "I like both of them. It’s really different.
When I had to act in the real world, I was with Maribel [Verdu] and all
the great actors who were cheering me up all the time and who give me advice.
And, when I was in the fantasy world filming, I had Doug Jones and all these
amazing creatures to film with so I guess I liked both a lot."
Though the film is very R-rated with bloody violence, Mr. and Mrs. Baquero
had no problem with their daughter acting in it. "When you see the
movie, you get into the movie, the movie is put together. You watch it and
hear the music and you really get into it. You don’t realize that,
when you are actually filming it, it’s not like that. It’s all
hilarious. You do a scene and then Guillermo says ‘cut’ and
then we’re doing jokes. You don’t feel it that much. And, when
we see the movie, we didn’t any sort of problems because we already
knew what was going on when we were filming. In a really brutal scene, we
would remember that we were joking around so it wasn’t a problem at
all."
Pan's Labyrinth will have a limited release on December
29th.
For more movie info, movie stills, posters, clips, early reviews and trailers,
go to the Pan's Labyrinth
Movie Page.
Stay tuned for updates.
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