Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
An offbeat monster movie opens in theaters
Octavia Spencer: ‘my career is crazy fun’
Octavia Spencer talks about co-starring in “The Shape of Water,” opening in theaters this weekend.
After winning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for “The Help,” Octavia Spencer has continued racking up one acclaimed performance after another in such films as “Black or White,” “Fruitvale Station,” “Gifted” and last year’s “Hidden Figures,” for which he notched yet another Oscar nomination.
But, to hear her tell it, her latest movie “The Shape of Water” represents something very special for her.
“Doing this film, I saw that’s possible to have a supporting role that was fully fleshed out,” she says. “That’s the thing about this movie: every supporting character, you go to their homes and you see their backstory. You see what’s going on in their lives.
“We also facilitate the main story but we get to have our story within the story.”
And what a story it is! Directed by Guillermo Del Toro, “The Shape of Water” revolves around Elisa (Sally Hawkins), a mute, lonely young woman who, with her boss and best friend (Spencer), works as a janitor at a super-secret government facility in early 1960s Baltimore.
Elisa’s life changes forever when she bonds with the lab’s classified secret: a mysterious, scaled creature (Doug Jones) from South America who lives in a water tank.
Oddly enough, both “The Help” and “Hidden Figures” were also set in the early ‘60s. It was a time when black women, in particular, were unable to stand up to the powers that be.
In “The Shape of Water,” Spencer’s character must endure racist comments from her boss (Michael Shannon) but she also has other plot elements to handle as well.
“[In my other ‘60s movies], I’ve had to deal with the circumstances,” says Spencer, a native of Montgomery, Alabama. “[I played] women who had no agency and no civil rights. It was always a part of my narrative and I always had to play to that.
“In this film, those circumstances are still there but it’s not a part of my narrative.
“My character’s narrative in this movie is that I have a husband who doesn’t appreciate me. My narrative is that my best friend is in love with a fish, and she is endangering not just her life but our jobs by stealing the fish. Then, there’s a caper.
“So, there’s a larger objective that I get to play.”
Spencer is known for preparing extensively for every role she plays. Before “The Help” and “Hidden Figures,” she read about the era and watched the doc “Eyes on the Prize,” which recounted the rough realities of life in the Jim Crow South.
This time around, she also hit the books and immersed herself in the music of the 1960s.
“This was refreshing for me and it didn’t feel heavy because I’ve always played the woman who has had to persevere,” notes Spencer. “In this movie, I don’t have to persevere. Elisa does. So it was wonderful.”
Spencer counts “The Shape of Water” as among her favorite of her projects.
“The first time I saw the finished product, I was nervous but I walked away from it with a song in my heart and hopeful because I’m a romantic at heart and one of the overall themes is that there’s someone perfect out there for everyone, and that was beautiful to me.
“[There’s] the espionage element of it but, at the end of the day, it was just an uncanny love story.”
Even before “The Help” raised her profile, Spencer, 47, worked continually on TV and in films. But now she’s in bigger, more highprofile projects, including the upcoming Netflix series about entrepreneur and social activist Madam C.J. Walker.
“Life is still the same,” says Spencer. “It’s a little busier but it’s still the same. You’ve got to keep your life manageable but my career is crazy fun. Life is good.”
Spencer keeps her Oscar in her home near the fireplace in a specially designed cabinet. She’s enormously proud of the statuette even if she can’t remember actually receiving it. “It’s all a blur,” she says of the Oscars. “It’s like time happens in slow motion. It was wonderful. But the only thing I can definitely tell you is that my knees stopped working.
“They wouldn’t bend from all the adrenaline and I’m thinking, “How am I going to get up those stairs?”
Life might be good for Spencer but, like everyone else in Hollywood, she’s keeping track of all the allegations of sexual harassment which have rocked the industry lately.
“I think it is important that we don’t go on witch hunts but allow the space to be made for people to have their moment of reckoning,” says the actress.
“I think anyone who holds another person’s dreams hostage should lose theirs. They should lose their livelihood because you have not allowed a person to progress.”
Spencer has advice for women from all walks of life who must wade in shark-infested waters.
“I tell every woman I know to keep a fork in their purse,” says the actress. “A knife is too dangerous but a fork will give you enough oomph so you can get away or hit a vital organ without killing anybody. Women, always keep a fork in your purse.”