Dec. 2007 - Ranked #37 on EW's The 50 Smartest People in Hollywood.

Turned down a chance to direct I Am Legend (2007), One Missed Call (2008), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2008) and Halo (2009) to work on Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008).

Lost 45 lbs. while making Laberinto del fauno, El (2006), which he admitted in the DVD's video prologue.

Turned down a chance to direct Blade: Trinity (2004), AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) to work on his dream project: Hellboy (2004).

In 2007, he was one of 10 Mexican Oscar-nominees. The others were Alejandro González Iñárritu, Guillermo Arriaga, Adriana Barraza, Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo Navarro, Emmanuel Lubezki, Eugenio Caballero, Pilar Revuelta and Fernando Cámara.

States Mimic (1997) as the worst of his films and has disowned it, blaming constant interference from the producers as the reason for the poor result.

He is friends with fellow successful Mexican directors Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro González Iñárritu.

1997: His father was kidnapped in Mexico and held for seventy-two days until his ransom was paid.

Turned down the chance to direct Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996).

Has a photographic memory.

In a January 2007 interview on the radio program "Fresh Air with Terry Gross," said that his strictly Catholic grandmother was a "Piper Laurie in Carrie (1976)" figure in his childhood. He told Gross that his grandmother would require him to mortify himself in self-punishment, in one case placing metal bottle caps into his shoes so that the soles of his feet were bloodied while walking to school. She also tried to exorcise him twice because of his persistent interest in fantasy and drawing monsters from his imagination.

Became a vegetarian after seeing The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) but only for four years. Currently, he's no longer a vegetarian.

His favorite movie monsters are Frankenstein's Monster and the Creature of the Black Lagoon.

Fought the film studios for almost seven years to get Ron Perlman for the title role in Hellboy (2004). The studio wanted a bigger name to insure the success of the movie, but del Toro thought that Perlman was the perfect choice and wouldn't make the movie if he wasn't cast.

Was asked to direct End of Days (1999), but he turned it down.