21 Fascinating Things You Might Not Know About Pan's Labyrinth.

Pan: And it is said that the Princess returned to her father's kingdom. That she reigned there with justice and a kind heart for many centuries. That she was loved by her people. And that she left behind small traces of her time on Earth, visible only to those who know where to look.

1/21. Stephen King attended a screening of the film and sat next to Guillermo del Toro. According to Del Toro, King squirmed when the Pale Man chased Ofelia. Del Toro compared the experience of seeing King's reaction to winning an Oscar.

2/21. So many parents brought their children to the movie thinking it was for kids that movie theaters in Mexico placed signs on the posters warning about graphic violence. It was also reported in the news in Spain.

3/21. 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".

4/21. 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.

5/21. 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.

6/21. 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 that he couldn't hear her say her lines.

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7/21. In 2007, Pan's Labyrinth became one of the few fantasy films ever nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Oscars.

8/21. Guillermo del Toro said that he felt the character of Pan, the Greek god of wild, hunting, and the companion of nymphs, 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, Scandinavia, and Croatia; everywhere else it's called "The Labyrinth of the Faun."

9/21. In order to make capitn Vidal more menacing, Guillermo del Toro made Sergi Lpez lower his voice an octave and speak as neutral as possible.

10/21. When it was screened at the Cannes Film Festival, Pan's Labyrinth received a standing ovation that lasted twenty-two minutes.

11/21. 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.

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12/21. Guillermo del Toro gave up his entire salary, including back-end points, to see this film become realized. To this day, he believes it was worth it.

13/21. The Faun addresses Ofelia with the pronoun "vos", which is archaic in Castilian Spanish but was once used to refer to someone for whom the speaker has great respect.

14/21. 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").

15/21. Though the film came out in 2006, Del Toro began writing down ideas for it 13 years prior, in 1993.

16/21. 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.

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17/21. 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 with her audition that he revised the script to accommodate the 11-year-old actress.

18/21. Doug Jones was the only American on the set, and the only one who didn't speak Spanish.

19/21. 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.

20/21. It has been said that, for the fairy eating scene, Doug Jones had to bite condoms filled with fake blood.

21/21. And although audiences have interpreted the film's bittersweet ending as everything from a religious metaphor to a psychological allegory, Guillermo del Toro offers a simpler, but more poetic, explanation: "I always think of that beautiful quote by Danish philosopher Sren 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."

Source: IMDB