WATCH: ‘Nightmare Alley’ Behind-the-Scenes Videos Go Inside Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Neo Noir’

December 16, 2021 Patrick London

New behind-the-scenes featurettes give us an inside look at Guillermo del Toro’s new film, Nightmare Alley.

In the film, which opens December 17, the charismatic but down-on-his-luck Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) endears himself to clairvoyant Zeena (Toni Collette) and her has-been mentalist husband Pete (David Strathairn) at a traveling carnival. He crafts a golden ticket to success, using this newly acquired knowledge to grift the wealthy elite of 1940s New York society. With the virtuous Molly (Rooney Mara) loyally by his side, Stanton plots to con a dangerous tycoon (Richard Jenkins) with the aid of a mysterious psychiatrist (Cate Blanchett) who might be his most formidable opponent yet.

Willem Dafoe, Ron Perlman, and Mary Steenburgen also star in the film.

Del Toro says he very consciously wanted to stretch his filmmaking in new directions. “This is the first of my movies that, although it has a magical atmosphere, is not mannered or stylized. It’s set in a reality that is identifiable and immediate,” he said recently.

Cate Blanchett, who brings a mix of strength and smoldering heat as the film’s reverse femme fatale—the brilliant, avenging psychoanalyst Dr. Lilith Ritter—was drawn to those emotions. She sees the story as a cautionary tale, one as class conscious as it is attuned to psychological demons, and one very much about how contempt and dread can obliterate all, even love.

“Nightmare Alley is about fear, about greed, and it’s about manipulation. It has all the dark underpinnings of what seems to be a very polite society. The world of the carnival might have some trickery and deceit, but it has the beating heart of a true community. It is the high society in this film that is far more threatening and terrifying,” Blanchett said.

This featurette looks at Bradley Cooper’s character of Stanton Carlisle.