Trivia for
El laberinto del fauno (2006) More at IMDbPro »

• Received 22 minutes of applause at the Cannes Film Festival.
  
  
• Mexico's entry to the Academy Awards, in the category of Best Film in a Foreign Language (2006).
  
  
• In 2007, this film became one of the few fantasy films ever nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Oscars.
  
  
• After the first week, because so many parents brought small children to the film, movie theaters in Mexico placed signs on the posters warning about graphic violence.
  
  
• Guillermo del Toro is famous for compiling books full of notes and drawings about his ideas before turning them into films, something he regards as essential to the process. He left years worth of notes for this film in the back of a cab, and when he discovered them missing, he thought it was the end of the project. However, the cab driver found them and, realizing their importance, tracked him down and returned them at great personal difficulty and expense. Del Toro was convinced that this was a blessing and it made him ever more determined to complete the film.
  
  
• It took five hours for Doug Jones to get into The Pale Man costume. Once he was in it, he had to look out the nose holes to see where he was going.
  
  
• Doug Jones was the only American on the set, and the only one who didn't speak Spanish.
  
  
• Doug Jones had to memorize not only his own lines in Spanish (a language he does not speak) but also Ivana Baquero's (Ofelia) lines so he knew when to speak his next line. The servos in the head piece that made the facial expressions and ears move were so loud, he couldn't hear her speak her lines.
  
  
• The faun's legs were not computer-generated. Guillermo del Toro created a special system in which the actor's legs puppeteer the faun's fake ones. The actor's legs were later digitally removed.
  
  
• Ivana Baquero was too old to play the lead part originally written for an eight- or nine-year-old, but Guillermo del Toro was so impressed that he revised it to accommodate the 11-year-old actress.
  
  
• The English subtitles were translated and written by Guillermo del Toro himself. He no longer trusts translators after having encountered problems with his previous subtitled movies.
  
  
• Guillermo del Toro said that he felt the character of Pan was too dark and sexual to play in a film opposite an eight-year-old girl. The film is only called "Pan's Labyrinth" in America, other English-speaking countries, German-speaking countries, The Netherlands, and Scandinavia; everywhere else it's called "The Labyrinth of the Faun."
  
  
• Björk was so affected by this film that after seeing it, she went home and wrote the song "Pneumonia".
  
  
• The ruined town seen during the opening sequence of the film is the old town of Belchite, which was also used by Terry Gilliam for The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), The town was destroyed during the Spanish Civil War and never rebuilt.
  
  
• It has been said that, for the fairy eating scene, Doug Jones had to bite condoms filled with fake blood.
  
  
• According to disc 2 of the DVD, it only took 25-30 minutes for Doug Jones to get into the Pan suit.
  
  
• Doug Jones stated on disc 2 of the DVD that the Pan suit was the most comfortable, and well made suit he had ever been cast to wear. Thanks in large part to the suit being divided into many sections, having the legs anchor to his hips and not his shoulders distributed the weight better, and having the stomach section separate from the shoulder section gave him better range of motion.
  
  
• According to the director, the scene involving the giant frog was going to be shot in an extravagant dome "tree" set. Three days prior to shooting, he realized that the frog wouldn't seem so giant in the massive set. The tree tunnel set was constructed in 2 days.
  
  
• On disc 2 of the Platinum Series DVD, Guillermo del Toro points out that he intentionally placed "Faun" references throughout the movie, the most obvious examples being seen at the entrance to the labyrinth and in the shape of the tree of the Giant Toad.
  
  
• Is the last New Line movie to be available in both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats. All subsequent films are released exclusively on Blu-ray. (Jan. 2008)
  
  
• Also on the supplementary disc of the Platinum Series DVD, Guillermo del Toro indicates that the film is quilted with a pattern of three's. He mentions that this was intentionally done so as to evoke a greater sense of fairy tales and mythological traditions, both of which typically feature a hero or heroine existing amongst three's; for instance, "the three tasks".
  
  
• According to the director's commentary, actor Manolo Solo was nearly killed when one of the horses fell on top of him.
  
  
• 'Guillermo Del Toro' gave up his entire salary, including back-end points, to see this film become realized.
  
  
• It's reported that 'Guillermo Del Toro' turned down the directing duties of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) to direct this movie.
  
  
• 'Guillermo Del Toro' repeatedly said "no" to Hollywood producers, in spite of being offered double the budget provided the film was made in English. He didn't want any compromise in the storyline to suit the "market needs".
  
  
• The captain's room is made to look like the inside of his father's watch, which Guillermo del Toro says represents his troubled mind.
  
  
• Stephen King attended a screening of the film and sat next to 'Guillermo Del Toro'. According to Del Toro, the author squirmed when the pale man chased Ofelia. Del Toro compared the experience of seeing the author's reaction to winning an Oscar.
  
  

• SPOILER: And although audiences have interpreted the film's bittersweet ending as everything from a religious metaphor to a psychological allegory, del Toro offers a simpler, but more poetic, explanation, "I always think of that beautiful quote by Kierkegaard that says the tyrant's reign ends with his death, but the martyr's reign starts with his death. I think that is the essence of the movie; it's about living forever by choosing how you die."
  
  

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