10 Classic Movie Monsters With Unexpected Origins

3. The Host's Monster Was Based On...Steve Buscemi

Bong Joon-ho's cult classic 2006 monster movie revolves around a gigantic amphibious mutant monster terrorising South Korea, and though the director's immediate influence for making the movie was a news article about a deformed fish located in a nearby river, he turned to a major Hollywood talent for a more intimate inspiration.

When completing the creature's design, Joon-ho deferred to none other than Steve freaking Buscemi.

In his own words, "I tried to achieve some humanness through its behavior patterns. It was important to give the impression that the monster is somewhat clumsy - like when it misses its footing or rolls down the slope when it first attacks people. So I wanted it to be clumsy and violent and even hysterical - a character without charisma. Not like Hannibal Lecter, who’s full of charisma in The Silence of the Lambs, but like Steve Buscemi in Fargo. Actually, my creature designer and myself often thought of Steve Buscemi while working on the design."

Furthermore, the director gave the creature modelers and animators pictures of Steve Buscemi as a visual reference, and while the resemblance between the two is hardly uncanny, it's a fine demonstration of the abstract processes which go into designing movie monsters.