Trivia / The Devil's Backbone

• Enforced Method Acting: In order to make Fernando Tielve cry if he was unable to, Guillermo del Toro would complain of his acting skills out loud and express his disappointment with his work.
• Extremely Lengthy Creation: Guillermo del Toro started writing the script in college before Cronos and spent sixteen years developing it.
• International Co Production: The film was co-produced by Spain and Mexico.
• Underage Casting: Jaime, as described in the book companion piece to the film, is nineteen years old, whereas Fernando Tielve was only thirteen years old.
• What Could Have Been: The "very different" original version was set in the Mexican Revolution and focused not on a child's ghost but a "Christ with three arms". According to Guillermo del Toro, and as drawn in his notebooks, there were many iterations of the story, some of which included antagonists who were a "doddering ... old man with a needle," a "desiccated" ghost with black eyes as a caretaker (instead of the living Jacinto who terrorizes the orphans), and "beings who are red from head to foot."
• Word of God: As to motivation for the villain, according to the actor who portrayed him (Eduardo Noriega), Jacinto "suffered a lot when he was a child at this orphanage. Somebody probably treated him wickedly: this is his heritage. And then there is the brutalizing effect of the War." Noriega further notes that "What Guillermo did was to write a biography of Jacinto (which went into Jacinto's parents, what they did in life, and more) and gave it to me."
• Write What You Know: The film was strongly inspired by Guillermo del Toro's personal memories, especially his relationship with his uncle, who supposedly came back as a ghost.

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