50 free The Shape of Water trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This The Shape of Water trivia quiz covers Guillermo del Toro's 2017 Best Picture winner, a Cold War fairy tale set in a Baltimore laboratory. It follows Elisa Esposito from her hard-boiled eggs at the tank to the canal in the rain: Colonel Strickland and his cattle prod, the Soviet spy in the lab coat, Giles's cats and regrowing hair, the escape plan, the calendar note that gives it away and the gills that open at the end. Behind the scenes it covers the breakfast where the idea was born, the Creature from the Black Lagoon romance Universal refused to let del Toro make, the drunken Golden Globes pitch to Sally Hawkins, the silent comedians she studied, Doug Jones's matador movements, the actor Giles was written for, the black-and-white budget Fox Searchlight offered, the Toronto locations, Alexandre Desplat's water-wave melody, the Venice Golden Lion and the plagiarism suit that collapsed. It ends with the 90th Academy Awards, where the film's thirteen nominations became four wins. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries before publishing.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who directed The Shape of Water?
Guillermo del Toro
It won him Best Director and Best Picture in the same night.
Q 02Who plays Elisa Esposito?
Sally Hawkins
Del Toro wrote the role for her and pitched it while drunk at the 2014 Golden Globes.
Q 03In which city and year is the film set?
Baltimore, 1962
Del Toro said 'once upon a time in 1962' turns it into a fairy tale for troubled times.
Q 04Which 1954 monster movie inspired the film?
Creature from the Black Lagoon
Del Toro wanted the Gill-man and Julie Adams's character to end up together.
Q 05How does Elisa communicate?
Sign language
She was found abandoned by a river as an infant with scars on her neck.
Q 06Who plays the Amphibian Man?
Doug Jones
He'd played a different amphibian, Abe Sapien, in del Toro's Hellboy films.
Q 07Who plays Colonel Richard Strickland?
Michael Shannon
He and del Toro discussed how Strickland would have been the hero in a 1950s version.
Q 08Who plays Giles, Elisa's neighbour?
Richard Jenkins
The role was written for Ian McKellen, who was unavailable.
Q 09What is Giles's profession?
Advertising illustrator
He's a closeted middle-aged man who has just lost a work assignment.
Q 10Who plays Zelda, Elisa's co-worker and interpreter?
Octavia Spencer
She found it funny that the mute heroine's voices came from disenfranchised groups.
Q 11Where did Strickland capture the creature?
A South American river
He brings it to the Baltimore facility for study.
Q 12Why does Strickland want the creature vivisected?
To gain an advantage in the Space Race
He persuades General Hoyt to examine its respiratory system.
Q 13Scientist Robert Hoffstetler is secretly what?
A Soviet spy
His handlers order him to kill the creature; he pleads to keep it alive instead.
Q 21What happens to Elisa's neck scars in the final scene?
They open to reveal gills
She revives underwater and embraces the creature.
Q 22With whom did del Toro form the idea over breakfast in 2011?
Daniel Kraus
They later wrote the novelization together, published in 2018.
Q 23Which studio rejected del Toro's remake pitch in which the Creature gets the girl?
Universal
That was for a remake of the 1954 monster movie he was in talks to direct.
Which silent comedian did del Toro specifically tell Hawkins to study?
Q 14Who plays Hoffstetler?
Michael Stuhlbarg
His real name in the film is Dimitri Mosenkov.
Q 15What finally pushes Giles to help with the escape?
Being rejected by a restaurant manager who is racist and homophobic
He had also just failed a work assignment.
Q 16Where does Elisa keep the creature in her apartment?
The bathtub
She plans to release him into the canal when the rains come.
Q 17What does the creature do to Giles's arm and head after slashing him?
Heals the wound and regrows his hair
The healing power reappears at the canal.
Q 18What does the creature try to eat in the apartment?
One of Giles's cats
Giles is slashed trying to stop it.
Q 19How does Strickland learn where the creature is being released?
A calendar note in Elisa's apartment
Zelda's husband had already revealed Elisa has the creature.
Q 20How does Strickland die?
The creature slashes his throat
The creature had just healed itself from Strickland's bullets.
Stan Laurel
He thought Laurel could 'do a state of grace without conveying it verbally'.
Q 25What did the actor inside the creature suit decide to model its bearing on?
A matador
Del Toro had told him to make it 'animalistic, but royal and regal'.
Q 26Whose breathing was mixed into the creature's voice?
Del Toro's
Sound editor Nathan Robitaille combined it with his own vocalizations and animal sounds.
Q 27Which film inspired del Toro to write Giles for Ian McKellen?
Gods and Monsters
McKellen played closeted Frankenstein director James Whale in it.
Q 28What did Fox Searchlight offer for a black-and-white version?
$17 million instead of $20 million
Del Toro chose colour, fearing black and white would look 'postmodern'.
Q 29Where was the film shot?
Toronto and Hamilton, Ontario
The Elgin and Winter Garden Theatres provided the Orpheum's interior.
Q 30Which Toronto venue's façade served as the exterior of the Orpheum cinema?
Massey Hall
The apartments above it were a set at Cinespace Studios.