Raised in a deeply Catholic family in Guadalajara, Mexico, del Toro was so enthralled when he saw the 1931 Frankenstein film at age 7 that he opted to make Dr. Victor Frankenstein’s creature his “personal messiah,” he told NPR. Since then, he has made a career out of transforming so-called “monsters” into heroes—from the kaiju of Pacific Rim to the fish-man of The Shape of Water, the latter of which earned him Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture.