Guillermo gets all Hobbity
From Empireonline - the whole interview, the dude has too many choices!
But one thing everyone’s talking about, and mentioning you in connection to, is The Hobbit. What’s your affinity with that?
When I was 11 years old, I invested my hard-won money into four books - I bought the Lord of the Rings trilogy and I bought The Hobbit on the advice of a friend. At age 11 I couldn’t get through Lord of the Rings but curiously enough I found the Hobbit very propulsive and lighter, in a strange way. I don’t mean lightweight but I found it really brisk and I found it really magical and the scale of it attracted me a lot. It was truly like a personal journey. It was not, in that sense, as big a canvas as [Lord of the Rings]. I read it really fast, I loved it and it stayed with me.
Smaug is such a great character and there are a couple of set-pieces that utilise multi-legged foes that are very attractive to me. I’m normally not a guy that is attracted to fantasy. People say, ‘You’re a guy that loves sci-fi’. I don’t love sci-fi, I don’t love fantasy - I love horror. When the fantasy is shaded enough, when it has enough elements of medieval flavour or Dark Ages flavour or really great creatures… I love The Hobbit, I love Clark Ashton Smith, I love Lord Dunsany, I like some of Robert E. Howard and I like Michael Moorcock, but other than that I’m not into hardcore elfin sword and sorcery.
And, of course, you nearly worked with Peter Jackson on Halo?
It’s the same reason why I was interested in Halo. If you are aware of the things that form the Halo universe beyond the games, you realise there’s an epic and frankly somewhat Lovecraftian, somewhat darker cosmology behind the Halo stuff. When I met with Peter, we connected at that level.
I’ve been thinking about the films you’ve turned down in the past…
Big ones, yeah. My business manager reminds me of them all the time.
You’ve ploughed your own furrow, but to do The Hobbit would send you into the stratosphere, wouldn’t it?
Well, thinking in those terms can only get you in trouble. It’s about whether you think you have an affinity with the material. As I said when I saw Peter’s movies of the Lord of the Rings, I was blown away because I always think that half the tale in movies is told in pure images and sound. And the way he rooted that in a pallet far darker and far more grim and mossy and ancient than any other fantasy movie I’ve seen, that was instantly something I could latch onto and love. But whatever happens happens, you know?
Not really been following Indy 4 which has many people salivating over on Empire. But since reading John Hurt's in it - I'm suddenly interested. :)
But one thing everyone’s talking about, and mentioning you in connection to, is The Hobbit. What’s your affinity with that?
When I was 11 years old, I invested my hard-won money into four books - I bought the Lord of the Rings trilogy and I bought The Hobbit on the advice of a friend. At age 11 I couldn’t get through Lord of the Rings but curiously enough I found the Hobbit very propulsive and lighter, in a strange way. I don’t mean lightweight but I found it really brisk and I found it really magical and the scale of it attracted me a lot. It was truly like a personal journey. It was not, in that sense, as big a canvas as [Lord of the Rings]. I read it really fast, I loved it and it stayed with me.
Smaug is such a great character and there are a couple of set-pieces that utilise multi-legged foes that are very attractive to me. I’m normally not a guy that is attracted to fantasy. People say, ‘You’re a guy that loves sci-fi’. I don’t love sci-fi, I don’t love fantasy - I love horror. When the fantasy is shaded enough, when it has enough elements of medieval flavour or Dark Ages flavour or really great creatures… I love The Hobbit, I love Clark Ashton Smith, I love Lord Dunsany, I like some of Robert E. Howard and I like Michael Moorcock, but other than that I’m not into hardcore elfin sword and sorcery.
And, of course, you nearly worked with Peter Jackson on Halo?
It’s the same reason why I was interested in Halo. If you are aware of the things that form the Halo universe beyond the games, you realise there’s an epic and frankly somewhat Lovecraftian, somewhat darker cosmology behind the Halo stuff. When I met with Peter, we connected at that level.
I’ve been thinking about the films you’ve turned down in the past…
Big ones, yeah. My business manager reminds me of them all the time.
You’ve ploughed your own furrow, but to do The Hobbit would send you into the stratosphere, wouldn’t it?
Well, thinking in those terms can only get you in trouble. It’s about whether you think you have an affinity with the material. As I said when I saw Peter’s movies of the Lord of the Rings, I was blown away because I always think that half the tale in movies is told in pure images and sound. And the way he rooted that in a pallet far darker and far more grim and mossy and ancient than any other fantasy movie I’ve seen, that was instantly something I could latch onto and love. But whatever happens happens, you know?
Not really been following Indy 4 which has many people salivating over on Empire. But since reading John Hurt's in it - I'm suddenly interested. :)