Fan Casting The Shape of water (1986)

Elisa Esposito, who was found abandoned as an infant with wounds on her neck by the side of a river, is mute and communicates through sign language. By 1962, during the Cold War, Esposito works as a cleaner at a secret government laboratory in Baltimore, Maryland, and lives a very routine life. Her only friends are her closeted next-door neighbor, Giles, a middle-aged struggling advertising illustrator, and her co-worker Zelda Fuller. Colonel Richard Strickland has just captured a mysterious creature from a South American river and has taken the creature to the Baltimore facility for further study. Curious about the creature, Elisa discovers it is a humanoid amphibian. She begins visiting him in secret, and the two form a close bond.