Trivia / Pan's Labyrinth

• Ability over Appearance: Ofelia was written to be a younger girl, aged seven to nine. However del Toro was so impressed with Ivana Baquero (who was twelve), he rewrote Ofelia's age to accommodate her.
• Acting for Two: Doug Jones plays both the Faun and the Pale Man.
• Based on a Dream: Del Toro got the idea of the faun from childhood experiences with "lucid dreaming". He stated on The Charlie Rose Show that every midnight, he would wake up, and a faun would gradually step out from behind the grandfather's clock.
• Completely Different Title:
  • Original: The Labyrinth of the Faun
  • English: Pan's Labyrinth
• Doing It for the Art: Guillermo del Toro gave up his director's salary to see this film realised.
• Fatal Method Acting: Narrowly averted. Actor Manolo Solo was nearly killed when horses fell on top of him.
• Flip-Flop of God: Del Toro has stated that he personally believes the magic was real and hinted at it in the film, but has also said that Ofelia was creating the fantasy world and that it's more spiritual than literal. He also said the film hints toward the magic being real but he ultimately feels it neither proves or disproves it.
• God Never Said That: While del Toro did say he personally believes the magic is real, he does not consider this to be canon and ultimately left it ambiguous:

  Del Toro: It’s a Rorschach test. Some people come to me incredibly delighted because they’re sure the fantasy is real, and others come to me very angry and say, “You are a nihilist; you say fantasy is not real,” and still others say, “I love the way you proved it is all in her mind.” And I go, “I proved neither.” I have my own theory that it’s real, but people react very differently.

• Irony as She Is Cast: Vidal's actor, Sergi López, is a well-known supporter of left-wing political parties and of Catalan independence, a far cry from his character.
  • Lampshaded in an interview about the show in 2024:
  Host: Here we have Sergio López, who is Captain Vidal in the film...
  Sergi: ... who ''was'' Captain Vidal! Was!
• Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor: Sergi López (Captain Vidal) dubs himself in the French dub.
• Playing Against Type: Much of the cast. Sergi López typically played slimy, arrogant creeps who were somewhat Laughably Evil. Alex Angulo (Doctor Ferreiro) had been considered a lightweight comedic actor. Maribel Verdu (Mercedes) had played mostly love interests, and her most famous role (at least in the English-speaking world) had been Luisa Cortés in Y tu mamá también.
• Self-Adaptation: Del Toro co-wrote the novelization and is writing the stage musical.
• Those Two Actors: Ariadna Gil and Maribel Verdú both appeared in Belle Époque, playing sisters.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Del Toro was debating between doing this movie or directing ''The Chronicles of Narnia''. Coincidentally, Narnia also has a faun as an important character and a portal to another world. After he nearly lost the book's notes by leaving them behind in a taxi cab, he saw it as a sign to pursue his passion project.
  • The first outline of the story was about an adult woman that found a hidden labyrinth behind an old house's bookcase. She would then be raped by a faun living inside the labyrinth, and as a result she would give birth to a magic-powered baby. Guillermo del Toro is that weird.
  • This plot idea incidentally bears some resemblance to Arthur Machen's The Great God Pan. The movie that happened ends up taking more influence from a different Machen story, The White People, which features a little girl associating with dangerous fairies.
  • The Pale Man wasn't originally in the movie. The scene was originally meant to be Ofelia being tasked to retrieve a diamond from a sleeping dragon's hoard. The dragon would wake up when she removed a goblet from the hoard. It would then chase her, whilst speaking with Vidal's voice.
  • Del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities (an art book that collects some of the director's sketches, complete with English translations) shows that one of the earlier incarnations of the Pale Man was a wooden doll in a tree.
  • The toad was originally going to be a more active adversary, leaping around in a large, womb-like cavern and attacking Ophelia. Unfortunately the animatronic model ended up not being up to the task even with the aid of CGI, so it was reduced to the lethargic beast in a narrow tunnel that we see in the film. Additionally del Toro realised that the toad wouldn't seem as scary in such a large set, so the tunnel was considered a better choice.
  • The Devil's Backbone, which is set in the same continuity, was originally set in The Mexican Revolution, but Del Toro moved it to the Spanish Civil War after he left Mexico following his father's abduction in 1998. Had this not happened it is conceivable that he would have set both films, in whatever state, in Mexico. For instance, the infamous bottle scene was based on an incident he was told had happened in Mexico.
  • Nevertheless, Del Toro still shopped Pan's Labyrinth unsuccessfully to producers in Mexico and the United States before going to Spain. Talks with US studios in particular failed because they wanted to move the setting to Nazi Germany, which he rejected.
• Word of God:
  • Some fans have interpreted the magic elements to be just Ofelia's imagination, and the ending to be a Dying Dream. Del Toro has claimed that he considers the magic real, but also said that Ofelia was creating the fantasy world (which is more in line with Ivana Baquero's view as noted below) which leaves it open to interpretation.
  • He's also claimed that Ofelia's famous Idiot Ball moment of eating food from the Pale Man's table to be a representation of her biggest virtue: courageous disobedience. According to him, it's a sign that she doesn't blindly follow orders - which emphasises her as a Foil to Vidal.
• Word of Saint Paul: In contrast to Del Toro, Ivana Baquero believes Ofelia is imagining the Faun and the other supernatural elements, saying she did this both as a coping mechanism and to convince her mother to accept fairy tales, and that while the fantasy world is her creation she believes Ofelia's spirit does escape there in the end.

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