Inside Guillermo Del Toro’s Deep Work Mansion
Chapters
0:0 Cal's intro1:0 GDT's house
4:30 Environment matters
00:00:00.000 | Alright final final segment of the show
00:00:02.780 | three interesting things
00:00:05.720 | This is where we take three things that I found interesting that you have sent to me in my interesting at Cal Newport comm email
00:00:12.100 | address that all relate to the general theme here of trying to live a deep life and
00:00:16.160 | I take three I like and we look at them. So if you are
00:00:20.280 | Listening to this show
00:00:22.640 | You might want to jump over to the YouTube version of the episode because the three things are visual
00:00:28.600 | That's youtube.com slash Cal Newport media
00:00:31.440 | We launch a video of the full episode of each podcast usually the same day that it comes out
00:00:36.420 | I'll explain in words what's on the screen here, but it's it's better than what so it's a good chance to jump over to YouTube
00:00:41.740 | All right. The first interesting thing I want to talk about is the director Guillermo del Toro or as I've discovered his fans
00:00:50.060 | Call him GDT
00:00:52.060 | his so-called bleak house
00:00:55.360 | All right, so I've loaded on the screen now an article. There's a lot of articles about this
00:01:00.640 | This happens to come from a Southern California
00:01:02.640 | Radio station and the headline here is bleak house a tour inside Guillermo del Toro's creative man cave
00:01:09.840 | there is a picture of him in a
00:01:13.240 | Victorian decorated room with a terrifying monster
00:01:16.400 | Statue so here's the subhead. I'll read this on the screen right now
00:01:22.180 | The director behind pans labyrinth and hellboy owns a house filled with artifacts. He has collected throughout his life
00:01:29.660 | Now the reason why we're hearing about this is there's a exhibit they're now doing where you can come in a museum exhibit
00:01:36.380 | We can see a lot of these things, but the key thing is before this exhibit
00:01:39.420 | He has a two-story house filled with more than 10,000 items
00:01:44.700 | artwork sculptures artifacts books movies collected over a lifetime
00:01:50.580 | But he insists he's not collecting for collecting sake
00:01:53.580 | So let's dive a little deeper. Here's a Guillermo quote
00:01:57.580 | This is a religious place for me. See to me everything that surrounds us is not a collection
00:02:02.460 | It's a relics its relics or its talent talismans, whatever you want to call them
00:02:06.820 | They have a spiritual hold of who I am. Essentially this goes right back to the question. We talked about before the break
00:02:12.020 | About the the value of having symbolic symbolic objects to capture your values
00:02:18.180 | GDT is getting right to the core of this. He sees these things he collects as relics. It's it's a power is being captured in there
00:02:24.440 | Where is the bleak house?
00:02:27.540 | It's a in the suburbs. He just bought a house in the suburbs of LA near his existing house and he gets into it
00:02:35.180 | Later in this article he gets into how this came about
00:02:38.300 | He was collecting this stuff because if you know GDT he does these these beautiful
00:02:42.620 | Fantastical movies that often have the macabre or terrifying in them
00:02:45.900 | So he was collecting these somewhat disturbing objects and at some point his wife very reasonably said this cannot be in our house
00:02:52.960 | Like we have young kids if you want to know what I'm talking about and you're watching on YouTube
00:02:57.460 | I have an example on the page of something that's in his bleak house. It's um
00:03:01.600 | It's a man's face that has been ripped open and there's like jaws coming out of it
00:03:07.180 | It's not the type of stuff you want in your house
00:03:09.180 | So he said fine, I'll buy another house and that's we're gonna store my collection
00:03:13.460 | So he has the second house. Here's another big picture. I put on the screen. It's cool. Jesse. Look at this
00:03:18.460 | It's a there's a monster a giant Frankenstein head
00:03:21.420 | The whole thing is done up Victorian red walls. All the pictures are covered in framed art, but it's like weird macabre
00:03:27.460 | Sort of Hieronymus Bosch style artwork like it's it's a old lamps and bookcases
00:03:34.580 | so
00:03:36.940 | Here's the quote by the way
00:03:38.980 | his wife said
00:03:40.660 | that's too close to the kitchen the kids are gonna get freaked out and
00:03:43.180 | He GDT said inside of me something cracked and I said I'm gonna get my own place
00:03:47.620 | He has a haunted mansion room based off the Disney thing. He has a room that simulates a rainstorm outside
00:03:52.820 | He has 13 libraries. So each room has a different library. He's that as a research area
00:03:59.080 | So like he this one opens you're in a room. That's a haunted mansion
00:04:02.300 | But the haunted mansion room has a library that's all about mythology folklore fairy tales and myths
00:04:08.620 | Etc. So he uses this house
00:04:11.380 | not just to capture things that are valuable to him, but also as a
00:04:17.380 | Source of creative inspiration so he's not just reading about fairies when he's working on pans labyrinth. He's in a haunted mansion room
00:04:26.180 | Taking these old volumes off of the shelf
00:04:28.900 | I think this stuff really matters and I talked about this a lot on the show if you do any sort of creative endeavor
00:04:33.400 | Where you're trying to alchemize value out of the stuff in your mind environment metal rituals matter objects matter
00:04:39.380 | If you're an accountant, you might say this is crazy. You bought a second house just to store stuff how indulgent or whatever
00:04:45.120 | But this is at the core of what GDT does for a living these fantastical
00:04:50.500 | Incredibly creative inspired visual masterpiece style movies. This is just a completely pragmatic investment
00:04:57.340 | And I think people might say something similar about the deep work HQ
00:05:01.040 | But for what I do for a living
00:05:03.700 | It's an investment that makes a huge amount of sense to have a place to come to that
00:05:07.380 | I'm specifically decorating to celebrate what I care about in terms of cognitive work that have the ritual of coming here versus somewhere else
00:05:13.860 | The the lab we're building in here and Jesse's Saul today when he came back from vacation
00:05:19.500 | I bought a lot more electronics equipment because
00:05:21.920 | Me and my oldest son are
00:05:24.640 | Building things and that's really important to me and having that connection to so it seems completely crazy to you know
00:05:31.800 | I don't know like my brother
00:05:33.800 | But to me because of what I do it's like, of course, I'm gonna invest in this, you know, it matters
00:05:39.840 | Symbolic value matters ritual matters location matters. So anyways, I just think this is cool
00:05:45.400 | here's a I like this picture so for those who are watching there's a picture of a a
00:05:50.380 | Incredibly scary looking doll on an old Victorian
00:05:54.100 | Shay's lounge and I just I want to pull this up because of the photo caption
00:05:58.140 | Which just reads a couch piled with books and a demonic doll
00:06:02.020 | an awesome photo caption
00:06:05.280 | Here's the freaks room that guy's there I'm just sure if you're you're listening I'm just showing like terrifying pictures on the screen
00:06:11.740 | There's a simulated rainstorm room. Anyways, I put the link to this article in the show notes
00:06:16.540 | So there's Frankenstein drinking tea now Frankenstein's monster. I should be precise here drinking tea film room
00:06:23.380 | Anyways, I love that stuff Jesse who wins
00:06:26.980 | GDT's bleak house Brandon Saranson's underground lair
00:06:31.200 | Seems like GT had more stuff to look at I think he has to I think it's right
00:06:38.320 | I think he has the cooler house. It's Oregon is bigger. I love the idea of having themed rooms for different libraries
00:06:44.680 | Sanderson just wins on the coolness factor of being underground. Yeah, but it's yeah
00:06:50.280 | I'm gonna give I'll give this one that you also might just be upset because he has an answer, you know
00:06:54.540 | Door-knocking when you're outside is how it's just me shirtless
00:06:56.780 | Sanderson
00:06:59.420 | So now you're just knocking this. Yeah screw his lair
00:07:02.420 | *outro music*
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00:07:07.000 | (upbeat music)