"Pacific Rim" is the first film that Guillermo del Toro has directed in over five years. The project, which showcases epic fights between monsters and giant robots, gave the auteur a chance to work on one of his favorite subjects and experiment with his style. The director revealed some of the experimentation he did on the film during a press tour for the film in San Francisco on June 30, 2013.
By his admission, the Mexican helmer was never one to improvise. However, he decided to give his actors more freedom during the filming of "Pacific Rim."
"What I wanted was... I normally shoot, if you see 'Pan's Labyrinth' or you see 'Devil's Backbone' or the other films, I shoot [in a constraining manner with] the actors [and] with the camera," he admitted. "I make it almost like a ballet."
However, he felt that in order to maximize the abilities of his cast members, he would need to give them freedom.
"I knew Charlie Day was not [going to] be that way. And I knew Idris [Elba] was not [going to] be that way," he added. "So I knew I needed to shoot them [with] two cameras and I knew they needed to improvise so I opened the door to us finding stuff on the day."
The decision worked so well that some cast members did not even realize del Toro was trying out the technique for the first time in his career.
"[He did it] so freely that I didn't know that that was not something he'd done in the past," said a surprised Charlie Hunnam. "He did it completely freely on this."
While most of the cast members relished the opportunity to experiment with their characters, at least one del Toro veteran opted to avoid improvisation.
"I never ever wanted to change a line or add a line or subtract a line from anything Guillermo ever wrote," said Ron Perlman, who previously starred as "Hellboy" in two of del Toro's previous efforts. "[The writing is] pitch perfect. It always is. It's so perfect that it's almost the easiest to act because it's almost predigested for you."
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