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Guillermo del Toro’s potion intoxicates. His brand of alchemy includes a pinch of macabre, a dash of melancholy and a few handfuls of stunning horror, but then he adds that perfect dollop of whimsy that keeps his audience gripped to the screen as close as Ola Ray clutches to Michael Jackson in the Thriller video.

To watch one of Guillermo’s masterpieces is an experience in escapism and wonder. To gnaw on the totality of his work reveals an obsession with the eternally forbidden romance between beauty and beast. Guillermo is in love with monsters and lives to show us that we are too. With each fable he weaves, he pushes us closer to acceptance of a primal truth: that we each have a deep connection to the spectrum of otherness.

You can develop the ability to orchestrate mythology the way Guillermo does only by being an obsessively empathetic person. He is an auteur whom artists adore. We look up to him because he doesn’t compromise in his mission to burrow down into the craggy pit of love and fear and invite us down there with him.

Peele is an actor, director, producer and Oscar-winning writer