Octavia Spencer

Gratitude is the most important character trait when it comes to her career. The humble Golden Globe-winner broke through in 2012 when she received her first award for The Help.

Guillermo del Toro’s lifelong fascination with monsters and dark fable takes a liquid form in The Shape of Water, an otherworldly love story which is at its core a lyrical, poetic and poignant celebration of artists, idealists, and dreamers. And ultimately, as the director told an HFPA journalist just after receiving a minutes-long standing ovation at the Palazzo del Cinema, about love conquering fear.

She might be a petite woman (just 5'2"), but she's a giant as an actress. Octavia Spencer has earned her second Golden Globe nomination with Hidden Figures (she won in 2011 for The Help and doubled with an Academy Award for that same supporting role).

In director Theodore Melfi’s Hidden Figures Octavia Spencer plays mathematician Dorothy Vaughn, one of the real-life pioneers of space exploration, a team of women (including a contingent of African Americans) who worked at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics – the precursor of NASA- in the early 1960s, crunching the numbers that put Americans among the stars while dealing with racism and bigotry. Playing Dorothy, Spencer told us, led her to be “extremely, extremely grateful to have been  born in this time because there were so many women like Dorothy Vaughn who paved the way for me.

Directed by Theodore Melfi, Hidden Figures, based on the book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly, tells the fascinating and, well, hidden true story of the women of color who labored in the shadows of NASA’s space quest. Katherine Johnson (Taraji P.

Recipient of the Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture - Octavia Spencer - The Help @ the 69th Annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, CA on Sunday, January 15, 2012.

Golden Globe nominee (and later winner) Octavia Spencer (The Help) arrives at the Golden Globes.

Golden Globe nominee (and later winner) Octavia Spencer (The Help) arrives at the Golden Globes.