Cinderella meets the creature from the Black Lagoon in Director Guillermo del Toro’s other-worldly romantic fantasy, The Shape of Water.
Set against the backdrop of Cold War-era America, del Toro’s film tells the story of Elisa (Sally Hawkins), a mute, isolated woman who works as a cleaning lady in a high-security government laboratory hidden in Baltimore. When she and co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) discover the lab’s classified secret – an intelligent scaled being from South America that lives in a water tank – she develops a unique bond with it and learns that its fate lies in the hands of a hostile government agent (Michael Shannon) and a marine biologist (Michael Stuhlbarg).
Following the DGA membership screening in New York on December 1, del Toro spoke about the making of the film in a conversation moderated by Director Baz Luhrmann (The Great Gatsby).
In addition to The Shape of Water, del Toro’s filmography includes the features Cronos, Mimic, The Devil’s Backbone, Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth, Pacific Rim and Crimson Peak; the pilot for the series The Strain; and episodes of the series Hora Marcada. He has been a member of the DGA since 1996.
You can listen to del Toro's Q&A by clicking the podcast episode embedded below. You can find more DGA podcast episodes here.