[Interview] Keith Thomas for CABINET OF CURIOSITIES

In Guillermo del Toro’s CABINET OF CURIOSITIES, del Toro has curated a collection of unprecedented and genre-defining stories meant to challenge our traditional notions of horror. From macabre to magical, gothic to grotesque or classically creepy, these eight equally sophisticated and sinister tales (including two original stories by del Toro) are brought to life by a team of writers and directors personally chosen by del Toro.

Recently, Nightmarish Conjurings’ Shannon McGrew chatted with Director Keith Thomas (The Vigil) for his segment, “Pickman’s Model”, based on the short story of the same name by H.P. Lovecraft. In his segment, Thurber (Ben Barnes), a pensive art student, has his world turned upside down when he meets a quirky, introverted new student, Richard Pickman (Crispin Glover) – a painter of the macabre.

During their chat, they discussed everything from translating Lovecraft’s work onto the big screen, the design of the monstrous creatures, and more.

Thank you so much for speaking with me today, Keith. With your segment being based on H.P. Lovecraft’s short story of the same name, how familiar were you with his work and/or this story?

Keith Thomas: Very familiar. They were some of the very first books that I ever read when I was between 8-10 years old. I’d go to the library and get those horror anthologies and I’d read a lot of Lovecraft. “Pickman’s Model” was probably one of the very first that I’d read. Through the years, I developed quite a fascination with Cthulhu mythos and the whole universe.

Translating the work of Lovecraft is notoriously difficult due to the fact that a lot of his stories center around cosmic horror. When it came to PICKMAN’S MODEL which is a more grounded story, how did you approach it?

Keith Thomas: This project had a couple of things off the top that were somewhat challenging. A lot of people just associate Lovecraft with tentacles or something, right? You throw tentacles in and it’s a Lovecraft thing, or you make it super nihilistic and cosmic, and then it’s Lovecraft. So, I knew I didn’t want to do any of that.

The other thing was that this short story, “Pickman’s Model”, is short. It’s like 6 pages and it’s just a conversation. I was excited when I got the script to see that it was expanded in a way that I felt was true to the story. It did a nice job of taking that and expanding that into a bigger story about art and about light and darkness and those sorts of things. Guillermo was very open to letting us directors have free reign and do what we want. I worked really closely with the screenwriter, Lee Patterson, to kind of pull in some ideas that I was inspired by in “Pickman’s Model”, the original story, to encapsulate into this.

I really was interested in this idea of making art contagious and viral and infectious, so we worked that in. The other idea that I think is at the core of the story and the short story is the way in which we see the world. If you’re like the Thurber character and you want to see beauty in everything and you want to ignore the darkness, then you’re in for a very rude awakening. At the same time, if you embrace the darkness fully and you only see the death, depravity, and stuff, then you’ll lose your sanity and probably your soul. Those were the two pieces that I thought were inherent in the material that we could explore even further in a longer story.

Ben Barnes, Crispin Glover in PICKMAN’S MODEL | Image courtesy of IMDB

Art is the focal point of this story and your segment features a never-ending stream of artwork in almost every scene. What was the process of creating those? Was it just one artist or did you have multiple artists working on them?

Keith Thomas: There was actually a group of artists. This one guy named Vincent Proce who did a lot of the art, kind of the central pieces like the dining table with the witch was by him. The production designer, Tamara Deverell, worked really, really closely with all of us and they made a lot of paintings. There’s no time to actually focus on all of them, but all of them were made by this team of artists mostly led, I think, by Vincent. Guillermo is also very well-versed in art and art history. And so for him it was, you know, I need this to look like this, and Keith, what feel do you want [for] this painting? And I’d say, I want this to feel like this. And so, Guillermo would really come in there and be like, Okay, here’s the references, and here’s what we are doing.

When it comes to the lead actors, Ben Barnes (Thurber) and Crispin Glover (Pickman), were they already a part of this project before you came on? If not, what was the process of bringing them on?

Keith Thomas: There was no one cast when I came in. We worked together as a team with Guillermo and J. Miles Dale, his producing partner, on casting this. I loved Ben in terms of how he was able to capture this youthfulness and this world-weariness at the same time. He’s just so expressive and just able to really get these emotions across without saying much. It’s all in his face and language and movement.

Guillermo had brought up Crispin pretty early and, of course, you hear insane artist who makes disturbing work, and who else is there? [Laughs]. Originally, it was scripted that [Pickman] is young. He’s the same age as Thurber at the beginning. But Crispin’s in his late fifties. I had a call with him and it was one of those funny things where we got on a Zoom call, he was in his chateau in Prague where he lives wearing this beautiful purple suit. And all around him are the peacocks he lives with. Cause he lives with like 20-something peacocks.

So, in that moment I was like, of course, it’s him. There’s no other, it has to be him. We kind of configured things in both talking with Crispin but then also working on the side in terms of making him this ageless kind of strange character, which, you know, is not hard with Crispin. He’s a real joy to work with.

Lovecraft has a way of creating unforgettable monstrosities. How involved were you in the creation of the Ghoul and Witch that are featured in this story? Aside from Lovecraft, where did you pull references from?

Keith Thomas: In the original story, the ghouls are described by Lovecraft as very canine, kind of like werewolf-looking things. When I first was reading the script, I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to do something a little different. Guillermo, he loves monsters and he loves building monsters and he’s very technically proficient. He knows all about the wiring and the servos and the various things that control all the practical puppets. So one of the first things he said, he was like, Keith, I’m gonna let you do whatever you want on this episode. You can choose the lens you want to shoot on. You can cast and create the look and the feel and the atmosphere. But please, please, please let me design the monsters. And I mean what are you gonna say? No? [Laughs].

He sent me a bunch of sketches for the Ghoul and the Witch and they were beautiful and amazing. A lot of the people involved in this production are his team. So it’s the people who worked on Shape of Water and Nightmare Alley and Pan’s Labyrinth etc. Guillermo really wanted to take this sort of, particularly with the Ghoul, this sort of vision of both a human form that’s been severely decayed and pushed to extremes underground with something very animal. And so in particular the Ghoul, we worked together on those designs.

I made some notes but they were beautiful to begin with. We were very fortunate in that Guillermo’s super into practical effects and in-camera things so the Ghoul was a puppet. Seeing it on set was amazing with the hair and all the facial movement and things. It was a great thing to have the puppet there to be able to have interaction with the lighting and the actors and things. Then in post-production and VFX being involved very early that they could enhance various things here and there – give it breath or give it tears or whatever’s happening to it. It was amazing.

Guillermo del Toro’s CABINET OF CURIOSITIES premieres globally on Netflix on October 25, 2022, with two episodes debuting daily through Friday, October 28, when the entire collection of eight stories will be available. PICKMAN’S MODEL will premiere as part of the Lovecraft Segment on October 27, 2022.

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Shannon McGrew

Founder/Co-Owner at Nightmarish Conjurings

Shannon is the Founder of Nightmarish Conjurings and a lover of all things horror and haunt related. When she's not obsessively collecting all things "Trick 'R Treat" related, or trying to convince everyone that "Hereditary" is one of the greatest horror films ever made, you can find her designing interiors for commercial restaurants. An avid haunt fan, Shannon spends the entire year visiting haunts and immersive experiences throughout the Southern California area and hopes to one day design her own haunted attraction.

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