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Trivia / The Shape of Water

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  • Awesome, Dear Boy: Octavia Spencer jumped at the chance to work with Guillermo Del Toro - saying she "would have played a desk" if he'd asked.
  • California Doubling: The movie's fictionalized Baltimore was shot in Hamilton and Toronto.
  • Creator-Chosen Casting: Guillermo del Toro wrote the role of Elisa Esposito especially for Sally Hawkins after seeing her in Fingersmith and Happy-Go-Lucky.
  • Creator's Favorite Episode: Guillermo del Toro has said that this is the film he's most proud of. And that he would have retired from directing if it had flopped.
  • Divorced Installment: The idea started as a remake of Creature from the Black Lagoon more sympathetic to Gill Man, but Universal wouldn't let it happen.
  • Doing It for the Art: Guillermo del Toro self-financed the team that designed the creature and the lab.
  • Fake American:
    • Due to being filmed in Ontario, many of the extras are Canadian. This is even joked about in a scene where Montreal-born Morgan Kelly's pie shop counterman drops his thick Texan accent and confesses that he's from Ottawa.
    • Sally Hawkins is a downplayed example. She's British playing the presumably American girl Elisa. But as she's a mute who never speaks, she doesn't have to fake an accent.
  • Fake Russian:
    • Michael Stuhlbarg (American) plays Dimitri who is Russian but speaks with an American accent presumably as part of his cover.
    • Nigel Bennett (British) as Mihalkov.
  • Inspiration for the Work: The film was primarily inspired by del Toro's childhood memories of seeing Creature from the Black Lagoon and wanting to see the Gill-man and Kay Lawrence succeed in their romance.
  • Irony as She Is Cast: Nick Searcy, the actor who plays General Hoyt, holds similarly conservative beliefs that are espoused by Strickland, which are portrayed in a negative light in this film.
  • Missing Trailer Scene: A split-second scene from the trailer missing in the final product has Strickland murdering Fleming. In the context of the movie, presumably for not getting out of his own car. This may explain why the civilian police arrive in force in the film's final moments, too quickly for it to be in response to the gunshots.
  • Production Nickname: The Asset was nicknamed "Charlie", as in food mascot Charlie the Tuna.
  • Referenced by...:
    • ANNO: Mutationem: One of the various collectible posters is called The Shape of Water with a description about underwater sea creatures and the design of The Amphibian Man.
    • Inside Job: In "Blue Bloods", the Lizard Folk mentioned that some films like The Shape of Water are part of the ploy to make the populace more accustomed to the Reptoids' existence. Guillermo del Toro is shown to be a Reptoid too.
    • The Mermaid Princess's Guilty Meal: The cover of Chapter 30 is a parody of The Shape of Water, showing Ela embracing Gill-chan in the same pose as on movie's cover.
  • Self-Adaptation: The novelization of the film was co-written by Guillermo del Toro.
  • Shrug of God: Guillermo del Toro won't elaborate on what the Asset's sexual organ looks like beyond saying that a fanmade prop isn't accurate.
  • Throw It In!: In the scene where Strickland arrives at Elisa's flat, Michael Shannon lost control of the car and drove it up onto the sidewalk and into a telegraph pole. Del Toro kept the take as it fit Strickland's increasingly unhinged and desperate mental state.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • Del Toro briefly considered shooting the film in black and white.
    • The character of Giles was written with Ian McKellen in mind for the role.
  • Word of God: Guillermo del Toro wrote lengthy backstories for each of the characters, though he told the actors they didn't have to take them on. Richard Jenkins ignored the one for his character, but Michael Stuhlbarg followed his closely.
  • Write What You Know: Director Guillermo del Toro stated that the film is meant to reflect on how he feels to be living in America as an immigrant; all of the sympathetic major characters are outsiders in some way, and more or less isolated.

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