Sally Hawkins
For the formative years of her career, Sally Hawkins collaborated with the lauded British director Mike Leigh, and won multiple awards for her turn in his 2008 film Happy-Go-Lucky. Hawkins has also enjoyed a rich career acting in theatre and television. In fact, it was her role in the BBC show Fingersmith (2005) that brought her to Guillermo Del Toro's attention, ultimately helping her land the lead in The Shape of Water.
Michael Shannon
American actor Michael Shannon is famous for the very diverse roles he has taken over the years. With sixty-nine movies and over twenty-seven years of experience, Shannon has kept busy in all fields from cinema and music to small television appearances and taking up roles in plays. He starred in many movies from Vanilla Sky (2001) with Tom Cruise and Penélope Cruz, to Revolutionary Road (2008) which earned him his first Academy Awards nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He also appeared alongside fellow The Shape of Water actor Michael Stuhlbarg in Boardwalk Empire (2010 to 2014).
Richard Jenkins
Richard Jenkins has been acting on the big and small screen since his role in the 1985 film Silverado, but his break-out didn't come until his turn in the acclaimed HBO series Six Feet Under (2001 to 2005). He earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his role in 2007's The Visitor and has demonstrated top-notch comedic chops in the Coen Brothers' 2008 black comedy Burn After Reading and the Will Ferrell vehicle Step Brothers from the same year.
Octavia Spencer
Octavia Spencer is most famous for her role in The Help (2011), which won her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA. Her role in Fruitvale Station (2013) attracted a fair amount of praise as well. As a character actress, she has appeared in supporting roles in dozens of films, ranging from Bong Joon Ho's first English-language feature Snowpiercer (2013) to the Divergent series (2014 to 2016) based on the wildly popular young adult novels of the same name.
Doug Jones
Doug Jones has enjoyed a long-standing collaboration with Guillermo Del Toro. A former mime, Jones has appeared in a number of the director's films as a variety of strange, silent creatures, such as The Faun and the Pale Man in Pan's Labyrinth (2006) and Abe Sapien in the Hellboy films (2004, 2008). Del Toro has credited the actor's small head and long, narrow frame as making him especially conducive to fitting in a wide range of prosthetics. Jones quite literally fits whatever role Del Toro envisions for him.
Michael Stuhlbarg
Michael Stuhlbarg was catapulted into the public eye via his masterful turn as a Job–like Jewish family man in the Coen Brothers' 2009 film A Serious Man. On top of acting in supporting roles in lauded films such as Call Me By Your Name and The Post (both in 2017), Stuhlbarg has enjoyed praise for his television gigs. He depicted the real-life gangster Arnold Rothstein in the HBO show Boardwalk Empire (2010 to 2014) and Richard Clarke in the 2018 mini-series The Looming Tower.
Nick Searcy
Best known for his role as Art Mullen in the American crime drama Justified (2010-2015). Nick Searcy has played in many movies and made a lot of small appearances in TV series, including Seven Days (1998-2001) and the sitcom Rodney (2004-2008). Some of his other films are The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2005), Moneyball (2011), and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017).
