Guillermo del Toro on ghosts, UFOs—and buying a haunted UK home

Guillermo del Toro is in London to receive a BFI fellowship and to reveal a personal project that sounds straight out of his films: buying a haunted house in the United Kingdom. He describes himself as an expansive fellow who needs three cinema seats—one for the popcorn, one for his elbows, and one for his larger-than-life imagination. He loves the cinema as a collective experience, yet savors moments of semi-alone solitude when the theatre is almost empty.

Ghosts have been part of his life since childhood. He recalls sensing a spectral presence at his family home in Guadalajara when he was 11, a warning from his late uncle who had promised to tip him off if the other side moved. That memory would later influence Santi, the sighing ghost-boy in The Devil’s Backbone. More recently, while scouting locations in New Zealand for The Hobbit, his hotel room was filled with a loud, surround-sound reminder of a murder in progress. During a stay in Aberdeen while filming Frankenstein, he felt an oppressive vibe and even live-tweeted the experience to his millions of followers.

Today, Del Toro suggests England is the land of ghosts, a country where magical landscapes seem to welcome his stories. He’s in the UK not just for the fellowship, but for a possible new chapter: a haunted house purchase, reportedly to be pursued through Frightmove. Dressed in black trousers and a black Ralph Lauren jumper, and with a bedhead of silver-gray hair, he admits his day starts with a full English breakfast as he maps out the next steps in a career that already includes multiple Oscars.

As he reflects on cinema, monsters, and myths, Del Toro remains as curious and expansive as ever, balancing the thrill of communal movie-going with the intimate pull of the supernatural. England, he says, feels like a place where ghosts are a daily invitation to imagine the next big story.

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