Pinocchio director Guillermo del Toro admits Ewan McGregor almost didn’t get cast in the remake

Ewan McGregor’s performance as Sebastian J. Cricket in the new Pinocchio movie is wowing audiences – but he almost didn’t get cast as Cricket with a conscience.

Director Guillermo del Toro has admitted he had his heart set on another actor and even toyed with killing Pinocchio’s sidekick – which would have matched the original dark story.

Del Toro said, “Ewan was a surprise. We wrote it for another actor and I was stubborn about that actor.

ALISON BOSHOFF: ‘I wanted someone else!’ Pinocchio director Guillermo del Toro has admitted that Ewan McGregor (pictured September 2022) almost wasn’t cast in the remake

“I wanted someone different… and I couldn’t look at cricket any other way.

‘The studio said, ‘Would you try Ewan?’ He’s a great actor, but that wasn’t the voice in my head. But they said, ‘Let’s try him. What’s the worst that can happen?”

Upon hearing McGregor’s audition tape, del Toro said he reached out to co-writer Pat McHale and said, “Am I crazy, or is the cricket the star of the film now?”

Honestly: Del Toro said, “Ewan was a surprise. We wrote it for another actor and I was stubborn about that actor.” (pictured December 2022)

He admitted that he had imagined the Scottish actor “having a portrait of Schopenhauer on his wall and seeing himself as a philosopher and a storyteller”.

“But Ewan did one performance that I haven’t heard from him before. It has a noblesse and an extreme sweetness.’ McHale added: “We actually expanded his role when we saw how charismatic cricket can be.

“I mean, we thought about killing him early on – just, you know, getting rid of him. I know that’s not cool.

“But instead we started saying, ‘Let’s put him in this scene and in this scene — and in this scene.’

In Carlo Collodi’s 1883 novel The Adventures Of Pinocchio, the character is called “The Talking Cricket” and is flattened with a hammer by Pinocchio. His ghost comes back to advise the doll boy.

Disney renamed him Jiminy Cricket in the 1940 film and is said to retain copyright, hence the name change in this version.

The Del Toro film is in theaters and on Netflix now.

Watch well: Ewan plays Sebastian J. Cricket in the new film, which is out now in theaters and on Netflix