When Guillermo del Toro was a boy growing up in Guadalajara, Mexico, he was unlike other children. While his classmates played soccer or chased kites in the sun, Guillermo sat alone for hours sketching creatures with claws, teeth, and sorrowful eyes.
His notebooks were filled with them — hundreds of monsters, each with a name, a history, and a tragic soul. He didn’t see them as evil; to him, they were misunderstood beings searching for love in a cruel world.
But not everyone saw it that way.
His deeply religious grandmother grew worried. To her, the drawings looked demonic, the work of dark forces whispering into her grandson’s imagination. One night, she quietly took his sketchbook and prayed over it, hoping to cleanse whatever spirit lived inside. Eventually, she even arranged an exorcism.
Guillermo, confused and terrified, watched as holy water was sprinkled over his drawings — his friends, his dreams, his art. “They wanted to cast out the monsters,” he later said, “but those monsters were me.”
Instead of abandoning his strange passion, he embraced it. He studied film, sculpture, and makeup effects. He learned to turn his fears into flesh — literally — through cinema. And decades later, the same darkness that once frightened his family became the light of his career.
In 2006, Pan’s Labyrinth stunned the world — a haunting fairy tale of war, innocence, and monsters who were far kinder than the humans around them. It earned him three Academy Awards and cemented his place as one of cinema’s most imaginative storytellers.
Then, in 2017, came The Shape of Water — a love story between a mute woman and a sea creature, blending beauty, horror, and heartbreak. It won Best Picture and Best Director at the Oscars.
And as del Toro stood on stage, holding the golden statue, he smiled the smile of a boy who had finally made peace with his monsters.
“The things that make us different,” he said, “are the things that make us strong.”
To this day, Guillermo still carries notebooks — worn, ink-stained journals filled with sketches of strange beings and half-formed dreams. He calls them his “living nightmares.” But to him, they’re not scary — they’re sacred.
“They represent who I was,” he told an interviewer. “When people fear your imagination, it’s usually because they’ve lost touch with their own.”
His story is more than a tale of success. It’s a reminder that what others call “weird” or “wrong” can often become your greatest gift. The darkness his grandmother feared became his art, his voice, and his bridge to millions who see beauty in the bizarre.
Never silence your imagination for the comfort of others. Never bury your oddities to appear normal. Because sometimes, the monsters you draw as a child grow up to win you an Oscar.