Trivia / Octavia Spencer

• Awesome, Dear Boy:
  • She was such a huge fan of Guillermo del Toro that she says she would have happily played "a desk" in The Shape of Water. She also liked that, since Elisa the female lead was mute, the majority of dialogue came from Zelda and Giles - a black woman and gay man.
  • She signed on to Insurgent because she was a huge fan of the books.
• Creator-Chosen Casting: Most of the roles in The Shape of Water were written with the actors in mind, and Zelda was indeed written for her.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Her role in the Divergent film series sees her as the pacifist Amity leader Johanna.
  • Snowpiercer was her first sci-fi role.
• Star-Making Role: Her Oscar win for The Help instantly made people know who she was.
• Typecasting: All three of Spencer's Oscar-nominated roles have been black women working under white people in 1960s America: Minny Jackson in The Help, Dorothy Vaughan in Hidden Figures, and Zelda Fuller in The Shape of Water. Outside of those, she's often the Token Black Friend.
• Underage Casting: She plays a mother in Coach Carter, but is only ten years older than her on-screen son Nana Gbewonyo.