Mexican super director Guillermo Del Toro, auteur of such hits as Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth, might be a proud member of Los Tres Amigos crew of south of the border filmmakers, but his sentiments about returning to his native land are mixed. Del Toro, who lives between New Zealand and Los Angeles, says he’s basically an involuntary exile, as he fears for his safety in Mexico. Reports The New York Daily News:

“Hellboy” director Guillermo del Toro says he is unlikely to make another film in Mexico because his father’s kidnapping 10 years ago left him fearing for his safety, a newspaper has reported.

Del Toro’s father was eventually released, but the family says it later received death threats.

Del Toro, who is best known for directing the “HellBoy” movies and “Pan’s Labyrinth,” said he doesn’t feel safe directing films here because his daily routine becomes public.

“Not all of the people who participated in the kidnapping were captured,” El Universal newspaper on Thursday quoted him as saying.

He described his situation as a “forced exile” and said it saddens him to think he may never film again on Mexican streets.

If Del Toro sounds a bit paranoid to you, perhaps his explanation of the risks he feels he runs will put it into perspective. El Informador newspaper quotes him as saying:

“To return to Mexico would mean to become vulnerable to a kidnapping, as my routine is the same day after day, and everything I do is reported on, and these people will know what thime and where I’m picked up and where I’m going to be throughout the whole day.”

Del Toro says that after the kidnapping, there was no truce between his family and the criminals, and that he received numerous threats for a long time after. When reporters at a recent press conference in his country questioned whether this were the real reason he didn’t want to go back to Mexico (typical Mexican reporter question, as they consider those who make it abroad “sellouts”), El Informador says that Del Toro’s face changed and he got serious

“It doesn’t just hurt me not to return to Mexico. This isn’t the fear that a movie like Godzilla can make you feel. This is real terror…I feel like an amputee, because it doesn’t matter how well I do in life, I feel incomplete because I don’t just miss filming in Mexico but I need it to feel complete.”