#mark sallisbury

[corneliushickey]

The basic elements of a proper Gothic romance require a heroine of pure heart that must travel, often across the world, guided by her love for a dark, brooding gentleman of aristocratic origins. They will often take residence in a haunted building in which a deep secret is stored (often involving wealth, treasure, or ancestral secrets) only to be revealed by our heroine's journey. Often the characters represent sides of a single self. Almost as if the edifice was the mind, the self and its deepest catacombs, the id — with the festering horrors of the past. Historically, the Romantic movement was a rebellious tide crashing against the dry, uncaring shores of reason. A movement that was sparked by the poetry of ruins and decay and the inexorable attraction of human emotion at its basest. Thus, a Gothic romance lives and dies on two things: the fortitude of its heroine and the power of its villain. And so, casting our film became quite a complex process. The list of actors that I really wanted was quite short — I hoped for a heroine that was sophisticated intellectually but emotionally vulnerable to the myth of perfect love (even if she denied it publicly). I needed a character with a very strong backbone but a certain innocence to the ways of the world. She had a fierce mind, but her knowledge of the world all came from books and imaginary characters. When Mia Wasikowska became a candidate I was elated: In her past work, she always struck me as someone that seemed to be very assured of herself but timid and private. And then, Jessica Chastain and Tom Hiddleston emerged as the perfect Gothic villains — able to deliver the tough moments but capable of illuminating their actions to reveal the vulnerability, the humanity, beneath. There needed to be a reason and a true humanity behind their actions, no matter how grotesque.

Guillermo del Toro discussing the casting of Crimson Peak in the Foreword to Crimson Peak: The Art of Darkness by Mark Salisbury