Guillermo del Toro may have set his Oscar-winning “The Shape of Water” in Baltimore as a tribute to native-son filmmaker Barry Levinson, but he also had John Waters in mind as well.
Charm City’s favorite unregenerate degenerate appreciated the shout-out.
Last week, the Mexican-born writer-director won Best Picture and Best Director Oscars for his fantasy about a mute cleaning woman at a government research facility in Baltimore who falls in love with an amphibious South American gill man. Backstage after the awards show, he said how much he appreciated Levinson’s movies, before adding, “And then there’s John Waters, man.”
Waters, who’s been making and setting movies in his own version of his hometown for more than 40 years, said he enjoyed the nod.
“That was lovely of him!" Waters wrote in an email. "I thought maybe he had picked Baltimore because most people I know here, myself included, have had sex with a monster once in their life too …”