Toby Froud Says He Felt Destined to Work in Puppetry

Toby Froud, an filmmaker and puppeteer who worked on The Boxtrolls and The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, recently told ComicBook.com that he felt destined to work in the field. Of course, that makes a bit of sense. Froud, who was born in 1984, made his first screen appearance in Jim Henson’s Labyrinth…in 1986. Froud, as you might guess from that timeline, played the role of Toby, the baby kidnapped by the Goblin King (David Bowie) in the film. His parents, too, were Brian and Wendy Froud, who worked with Henson on both Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal.

The conversation came up as part of our conversation with Froud and Henson’s children Brian and Lisa, all of whom are on the press circuit now in support of Shout Studios’ first-ever 4K remaster of Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal. Given that one of the films features Froud as a literal baby, that was our opening question: Did this feel like destiny?

“I would say yes, absolutely,” Froud said. “I was destined to live with puppets in some form or other, I’d say — with creatures. I think what actually it did for me, growing up purely in that world, in the fantasy world of my parents after they created Dark Crystal and Labyrinth with Jim Henson…growing up in that world, it all felt very natural, and the rest of the world seemed very strange to me. It really does, and that’s where I felt most comfortable. So I always knew I wanted to be in the film industry — make things, if I possibly could, just because I loved it. It felt natural, it felt right. I just didn’t know where I would land and fit, but it turns out stop motion was a really lovely move for me, and live-action puppets when I can.”

Henson’s 1982 masterpiece The Dark Crystal and 1986’s beloved Labyrinth first became a part of ’80s kids’ everyday lives on VHS, a format where low resolution and frequent degradation made it easy for B movies from studios like Charles Band’s Full Moon to hide “the strings,” so to speak. Many of the movies that first became hits in the VHS era struggles with 4K transfers that make it clear the actors are standing on a set — but in the case of Henson’s movies, so much attention went into the costumes, puppets, and sets that the higher resolution makes the movies feel more real, as audiences can tell the sets are huge and dynamic, not just a corner someplace that has been set up to facilitate the shot.

Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal are available to purchase or rent digitally in 4K for the first time on February 6th. The 4K Blu-ray is currently on sale here on Amazon.