Ron Perlman could not have been more surprised that Hellboy was actually written with him, a 54-year-old actor, in mind. Hellboy is a heavily muscled (and bright red) demon who ages at a fraction of the rate of humans. That’s besides his various superpowers. But how could the tall actor possibly say no to writer/director Guillermo Del Toro? ‘Oh, you are kidding?” says Perlman. ‘Who in their right mind would say no to this character? It’s a dream come true.”
Perlman achieved massive success in the United States as star of the TV series Beauty and the Beast, but has performed as a character actor in many other films (including Quest for Fire, The Name of the Rose, Alien Resurrection and The City of Lost Children). He was unconcerned that by starring in the title role of Hellboy, he was stepping into yet another beastly, and unrecognisable, character.
‘It’s Guillermo, first of all,” he says. ‘My association with him is 14 years old now and you can’t revere a filmmaker more than I revere him and his incredible integrity and ability. So, when Guillermo calls you and says, ‘I’m cooking something up and I want you take part in it,’ that’s when you start looking. He’s animated me on three separate occasions that have been some of the greater chapters of my time on this planet.” Before Hellboy, Del Toro and Perlman worked together on Chronos (1993) and Blade II (2002).
Hellboy is the big-screen version of the comic book story about a demon who is rescued as a baby, from the Nazis, by American agents. He is brought up to become a defender against the forces of darkness.
Perlman says the heavy make-up and costume required for the part were not a hindrance. In fact, they enabled him to dig deep to play the character. ‘Those things are jumping-off points, the parameters,” he explains. ‘It’s what makes making movies as cool as it is, and makes every assignment absolutely unique. There are some that engage you and inspire the juices of your imagination to flow to a greater degree than others.”
Of course, Perlman, who has appeared in more than 40 films, was not the ideal choice for a studio that was investing $60-milion in this project. ‘I knew Guillermo had a desire to see me in the role, but I though he’d never pull it off,” he says. ‘I had been the kind of guy who was flying under the radar. I had a nice career as a character actor, but this was gonna be a big-studio movie, which it had to be by nature of the scope and epic quality of the story that he was gonna tell.”
But if the film ends up a huge success, perhaps even at this point in his career, is Perlman ready to move over the radar, as opposed to under it?
‘I’m happy with whatever comes,” he says. ‘I would love for this movie to vindicate the risks that Guillermo took in making it and I would love for Guillermo to be able to say it was worth it, that this was a battle worth fighting.”
Perlman remains genuinely passionate about this particular comic book adaptation. ‘It’s the best adaptation of another source that I’ve ever personally participated in,” he says. ‘His characterisation of Hellboy was so vivid and so obvious, from the way this guy talks trash, with the snide, wise-cracky, blue-collar kind of every man quality to him.
‘You saw this guy in your mind’s eye and see this thing as you’re reading it. Therefore, it was not a hard job to figure out Hellboy’s personality and to figure out his heart. Nor did it require a great deal of behavioural adjustment on my part, because he ended up writing a character that kind of moves through the shit in the same way I do.”
Perlman revelled in the physical hardships he endured making Hellboy and is quite happy to do it all again if a sequel is greenlit. (One has now been announced for 2006.) ‘The more typical and the greater the hardships, the more enthusiastic I am to embrace it,” he says. ‘In the case of Hellboy, he is a character anyone could play for the rest of their lives. He’s got every aspect of humanity that an actor would just revel in exploring, and he’s got this heart that is beautiful. My favourite part of Hellboy is his heart.”
In the meantime, while fans wait eagerly for Hellboy’s return, Perlman has another pet project he is working on. ‘I have actually been trying to set up a project that I’m going to direct, and the elements seem to be coming together rather rapidly, so I think I’ll be directing a picture in the fall,” he reveals.
It’s a low-budget film, the very antithesis of Hellboy, called Wooden Lake. He will not act in it, he hastens to add, with a smile. ‘I never direct myself, because I don’t like working with me. I would punch me in the mouth if I had to take my direction!”