MattBrady
03-13-2007, 12:26 PM
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/movies/Hellboy/Iron/HellboyBlood_Ironpic2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/movies/Hellboy/Iron/HellboyBlood_Ironpic2_t.jpg" border="0" align="right"></a><i>by Daniel Robert Epstein</i>
Ron Perlman will forever be known to genre fans as the “other” Big Red Cheese, Hellboy. Luckily, Perlman plans to stick with Hellboy for as long as he can especially through the live action sequel, <i>Hellboy 2: The Golden Army</i>, which is shooting this year. But if you are someone who has absorbs all the Hellboy material including the comic books by creator Mike Mignola, then the animated <i>Hellboy</I> movies are for you. The first animated movie <i>Sword of Storms</i> set a whole Hellboy universe where Hellboy is still teaming up with the BPRD, Liz Sherman and Abe Sapien. The second film, <i>Hellboy: Blood and Iron</i>, makes the world even bigger with Hellboy making the foray into battling undead vampires
<b>Newsarama</b>: Was it important for you to do the voice for the Hellboy animated movies or was there no question about it?
<b>Ron Perlman</b>: Important is whether we stay in Iraq or not. But it meant something to me to continue to work in any way I could on that character with Guillermo del Toro and with Mike Mignola. That’s a pleasure.
<B>NRAMA</B>: Point taken. You’ve been on television series where you get to develop a character over time, is doing so much work as Hellboy allowing you to bring nuance and new things to the character?
<B>RP</B>: I hope so. I try. I love the character. He’s got a really cool point of view. He’s got a network of quirks and idiosyncrasies that I completely relate to and identify with. He’s an underachiever and a slob, that kind of thing. He’s got a big heart though and I aspire to that. I’m not sure whether I achieve it on any given day but I try.
<B>NRAMA</B>: How was it working with Tad Stones on both <i>Hellboy</i> animated films?
<B>RP</B>: A complete pain in the ass, what can I tell you? [laughs] Nah, it was great, It was Tad and Mike Mignola who were onboard. Nobody knows more about who Hellboy is than Mike and Mike was there for the writing of the scripts. He was there for the voice sessions. He passed judgment on every line reading and every aspect of my performance. Tad was great but it was great having Mike there as well.
<B>NRAMA</B>: Mignola has said that all the different iterations of Hellboy exist in separate universes. Is there any difference for you, besides the obvious, in playing Hellboy in cartoons as opposed to live action movies?
<B>RP</B>: No, personality-wise and behaviorally it’s the same guy. The outer trappings of each individual exercise change but not to any profound degree. The day I started having kids of my own, my number one priority was to try to find things to do that would sit well with them their friends so that they could get points in the schoolyard.
<B>NRAMA</B>: So your kids can handle some of the PG-13 dialogue that’s in the animated Hellboy movies?
<B>RP</B>: Well, they’ve been my kids for their whole lives, so I guess twisted comes with the territory.
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/movies/Hellboy/Iron/HellboyBlood_Ironpic1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/movies/Hellboy/Iron/HellboyBlood_Ironpic1_t.jpg" border="0" align="left"></a><B>NRAMA</B>: What do you think of the design of the animated Hellboy particularly the stick legs?
<B>RP</B>: I think he’s got a really cool look. I’m a creature of habit so I was in love with the look of the comic book so I had a lot of trepidation about how that would transfer to makeup on a real person onscreen. Then I became completely enamored with what they came up with for the movie. With the animation, I said, “Well what if we kept the face?” Mike [Mignola] came up with the animated Hellboy and I said, “Wow man, this guy is very deep. He took the same character and without ever taking away from the natural integrity of the character, he came up with a completely different look that works.
<B>NRAMA</B>: In the movie version of Hellboy, you got to fight an H.P. Lovecraft type creature and in <i>Hellboy: Sword of Storms</I> you got to fight Japanese feudal samurais and in <i>Blood and Iron</i> it's vampires. Has Hellboy come upon your favorite era yet?
<B>RP</B>: At home I just fight with my wife.
<B>NRAMA</B>: [laughs] So maybe we’ll see Hellboy years in the future fighting with Liz.
<B>RP</B>: Not that far in the future [laughs]. I can’t comment on that but these are two very strong-willed individuals.
<B>NRAMA</B>: The Hellboy in the comics has been around for so much longer than all the other versions therefore it’s further along in Hellboy’s life, do you ever look at that stuff and try to think about where your Hellboy might be?
<B>RP</B>: My Hellboy is Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy so my Hellboy is napping until Guillermo wakes him. Then I basically try to figure out what it is they are asking of me and I do it to the best of my ability and that’s it. I have no agenda of my own.
<B>NRAMA</B>: I read some of your comments after <i>Pan’s Labyrinth</i> didn’t win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film.
<B>RP</B>: Don’t believe any of that shi<aaa>t!
<B>NRAMA</B>: [laughs] I do have to agree with you, <i>Pan’s Labyrinth</i> was one of my favorite movies of last year.
<B>RP</B>: <i>Pan’s Labyrinth</i>, to me, goes into the list of the hundred greatest movies ever made. There was one other film last year that should absolutely go on that list and that’s <i>Letters From Iwo Jima</i>. Neither of them won. So you can’t agree with everything, but that’s my opinion Goddamn it, and I’m sticking to it.
<B>NRAMA</B>: Guillermo seemed pretty unflappable about it.
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/movies/Hellboy/Iron/HellboyBlood_Ironpic4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/movies/Hellboy/Iron/HellboyBlood_Ironpic4_t.jpg" border="0" align="right"></a><B>RP</B>: Guillermo is the most solid human being I’ve ever known. He’s not going to change from who he is one way or the other on anything. Nothing is going to throw him, fame, fortune, winning or losing, it’s all just minor little moments that doesn’t compare to what it is he’s trying to do, which is tell stories and be a great filmmaker, which he does naturally.
<B>NRAMA</B>: How does doing the voice of Conan [for <i>Conan: Red Nails</i>] compare to doing Hellboy?
<B>RP</B>: It didn’t require a lot of adjustment on my part. Behaviorally and certainly as an acting exercise it was probably the least adjustments I’ve ever made. They used to accuse John Wayne of always playing himself and as close as I ever got to playing myself is Hellboy. Conan fits in there too, you don’t want to mess around too much with these men of action. They’re doers, they’re not big talkers.
<B>NRAMA</B>: You’ve been doing comic book related characters as far back as <i>Batman: The Animated Series</i>, right?
<B>RP</B>: Longer than that, my first ever gig in animation was on a show called <i>Bonkers</i>. Jim Cummings was the lead on that. He’s the lead on almost every cartoon in the last 25 years. He’s an incredibly talented guy. The setting was a police station, I played a lieutenant and Bonkers was a cartoon character who was a cop in real life. The character I played only lasted for a season because they retooled the show.
<B>NRAMA</B>: Have you gotten into reading comics as a result of your work?
<B>RP</B>: …I’ve been in the same room as comics.
If it is essential for my work I will read them, but it’s not something that I’ll actually run off and do with great zeal.
<B>NRAMA</B>: Besides Hellboy what has been necessary for your work in terms of reading comics?
<B>RP</B>: Well, Frank Darabont is a really close friend of Guillermo’s and they share a boyish passion for comic books. The first time I ever met Frank was in a comic book store here on Melrose in Los Angeles. In aisle three we had a long, wonderful meeting and he told me I had to read <b>League of Extraordinary Gentlemen</b> and everything that Alan Moore wrote. Then <b>Watchmen</b> came up because [Hellboy producers] Larry Gordon and Lloyd Levin have the rights to make the film version of that. They were pushing for me to play the Comedian.
I got into Frank Miller’s stuff because I’ve become pals with Mike Richardson who is the publisher at Dark Horse. Mike and I are actually talking about taking on the character of Charles Fort, which Dark Horse published a graphic novel about [<b>Fort: Prophet of the Unexplained</b>] and is a real character out of history. He’s another investigator of all things mysterious, unnatural, unexplainable, turn of the 20th century guy. So I’m steeping myself in that. But it is all work related, nothing out of a deep unquenchable thirst for comics.
<B>NRAMA</B>: How was it doing the voice for the villain Justice on <i>Afro Samurai</i>?
<B>RP</B>: It was great. By the way before I started talking to you, I didn’t realize how busy I was [laughs]. I’ve been working a lot. I don’t know what I’m complaining about. <i>Afro Samurai</i> was really cool. To me it’s all about how well it’s executed on the page. The great thing about Hellboy was how smart the writing was. The great thing about anything that I’m really super happy with is how good the writing is first and foremost. It is only then that you have the chance to do stuff that’s smart and be challenged into doing things that require some thought and some imagination. <i>Afro Samurai</I> fits right into that mold. It’s really smart and the guys who executed the animation give the term cutting edge new meaning. It was a pleasure to work on it even though I never met Sam [L. Jackson]. I’ve met him in the past on occasion but when I heard he was involved I jumped onboard blindfolded and luckily the gamble paid off because I was supported by really good material.
<B>NRAMA</B>: What does float your boat lately in terms of books and movies?
<B>RP</B>: After Chris Matthews, Brian Williams and if the Yankees aren’t televised, I’ve got my TV set turned to Turner Classic Movies. I really like the old stuff, I like the old actors. That’s my antidote for this ugly and materialistic world we live in.
<B>NRAMA</B>: I know that some actors don’t like the term character actors.
<B>RP</B>: I do like that term. That’s what I am. That’s what I consider myself and now I’m not just a character actor, I’m a character.
<B>NRAMA</B>: [laughs] Do you have any favorite character actors from the Turner Classic Movie age?
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/movies/Hellboy/Iron/HellboyBlood_Ironpic5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/movies/Hellboy/Iron/HellboyBlood_Ironpic5_t.jpg" border="0" align="left"></a><B>RP</B>: Until <i>Pan’s Labyrinth</i>, my favorite villain of all time was Basil Rathbone in all the great Errol Flynn movies. But as for character actors, Charles Laughton has to go to the top of the list. Karl Malden has to go right to the top of the list. Thomas Mitchell, Gig Young and Keenan Wynn. Those guys could crossover and be leading men but essentially they were always the second or third lead supporting the really good looking guy. I could use up my cell phone minutes talking about this subject.
<B>NRAMA</B>: Do you feel that you are up there with those guys?
<B>RP</B>: I’ve always tempered my big canvas with leads, whether it was in high school or college onstage or in the movies or on television. I’ve wondered if I would approach it any differently if I played the 15th guy from the left. But I wouldn’t. I don’t feel any pressure regardless of what number I am on the call sheet.
<B>NRAMA</B>: Can you give us any inkling of what will happen in <i>Hellboy 2: The Golden Army</i>?
<B>RP</B>: I cannot. I’ve been sworn to secrecy. I will say that Hellboy is in it. Also we’ve got a couple more freaks. We’ve got another member of the BPRD right out of the comic book. That much I can say. I can’t mention his name, but now you know it’s a male.
<i>Hellboy: Blood and Iron airs Saturday, March 17 on Cartoon Network at 7 pm</I>
Ron Perlman will forever be known to genre fans as the “other” Big Red Cheese, Hellboy. Luckily, Perlman plans to stick with Hellboy for as long as he can especially through the live action sequel, <i>Hellboy 2: The Golden Army</i>, which is shooting this year. But if you are someone who has absorbs all the Hellboy material including the comic books by creator Mike Mignola, then the animated <i>Hellboy</I> movies are for you. The first animated movie <i>Sword of Storms</i> set a whole Hellboy universe where Hellboy is still teaming up with the BPRD, Liz Sherman and Abe Sapien. The second film, <i>Hellboy: Blood and Iron</i>, makes the world even bigger with Hellboy making the foray into battling undead vampires
<b>Newsarama</b>: Was it important for you to do the voice for the Hellboy animated movies or was there no question about it?
<b>Ron Perlman</b>: Important is whether we stay in Iraq or not. But it meant something to me to continue to work in any way I could on that character with Guillermo del Toro and with Mike Mignola. That’s a pleasure.
<B>NRAMA</B>: Point taken. You’ve been on television series where you get to develop a character over time, is doing so much work as Hellboy allowing you to bring nuance and new things to the character?
<B>RP</B>: I hope so. I try. I love the character. He’s got a really cool point of view. He’s got a network of quirks and idiosyncrasies that I completely relate to and identify with. He’s an underachiever and a slob, that kind of thing. He’s got a big heart though and I aspire to that. I’m not sure whether I achieve it on any given day but I try.
<B>NRAMA</B>: How was it working with Tad Stones on both <i>Hellboy</i> animated films?
<B>RP</B>: A complete pain in the ass, what can I tell you? [laughs] Nah, it was great, It was Tad and Mike Mignola who were onboard. Nobody knows more about who Hellboy is than Mike and Mike was there for the writing of the scripts. He was there for the voice sessions. He passed judgment on every line reading and every aspect of my performance. Tad was great but it was great having Mike there as well.
<B>NRAMA</B>: Mignola has said that all the different iterations of Hellboy exist in separate universes. Is there any difference for you, besides the obvious, in playing Hellboy in cartoons as opposed to live action movies?
<B>RP</B>: No, personality-wise and behaviorally it’s the same guy. The outer trappings of each individual exercise change but not to any profound degree. The day I started having kids of my own, my number one priority was to try to find things to do that would sit well with them their friends so that they could get points in the schoolyard.
<B>NRAMA</B>: So your kids can handle some of the PG-13 dialogue that’s in the animated Hellboy movies?
<B>RP</B>: Well, they’ve been my kids for their whole lives, so I guess twisted comes with the territory.
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/movies/Hellboy/Iron/HellboyBlood_Ironpic1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/movies/Hellboy/Iron/HellboyBlood_Ironpic1_t.jpg" border="0" align="left"></a><B>NRAMA</B>: What do you think of the design of the animated Hellboy particularly the stick legs?
<B>RP</B>: I think he’s got a really cool look. I’m a creature of habit so I was in love with the look of the comic book so I had a lot of trepidation about how that would transfer to makeup on a real person onscreen. Then I became completely enamored with what they came up with for the movie. With the animation, I said, “Well what if we kept the face?” Mike [Mignola] came up with the animated Hellboy and I said, “Wow man, this guy is very deep. He took the same character and without ever taking away from the natural integrity of the character, he came up with a completely different look that works.
<B>NRAMA</B>: In the movie version of Hellboy, you got to fight an H.P. Lovecraft type creature and in <i>Hellboy: Sword of Storms</I> you got to fight Japanese feudal samurais and in <i>Blood and Iron</i> it's vampires. Has Hellboy come upon your favorite era yet?
<B>RP</B>: At home I just fight with my wife.
<B>NRAMA</B>: [laughs] So maybe we’ll see Hellboy years in the future fighting with Liz.
<B>RP</B>: Not that far in the future [laughs]. I can’t comment on that but these are two very strong-willed individuals.
<B>NRAMA</B>: The Hellboy in the comics has been around for so much longer than all the other versions therefore it’s further along in Hellboy’s life, do you ever look at that stuff and try to think about where your Hellboy might be?
<B>RP</B>: My Hellboy is Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy so my Hellboy is napping until Guillermo wakes him. Then I basically try to figure out what it is they are asking of me and I do it to the best of my ability and that’s it. I have no agenda of my own.
<B>NRAMA</B>: I read some of your comments after <i>Pan’s Labyrinth</i> didn’t win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film.
<B>RP</B>: Don’t believe any of that shi<aaa>t!
<B>NRAMA</B>: [laughs] I do have to agree with you, <i>Pan’s Labyrinth</i> was one of my favorite movies of last year.
<B>RP</B>: <i>Pan’s Labyrinth</i>, to me, goes into the list of the hundred greatest movies ever made. There was one other film last year that should absolutely go on that list and that’s <i>Letters From Iwo Jima</i>. Neither of them won. So you can’t agree with everything, but that’s my opinion Goddamn it, and I’m sticking to it.
<B>NRAMA</B>: Guillermo seemed pretty unflappable about it.
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/movies/Hellboy/Iron/HellboyBlood_Ironpic4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/movies/Hellboy/Iron/HellboyBlood_Ironpic4_t.jpg" border="0" align="right"></a><B>RP</B>: Guillermo is the most solid human being I’ve ever known. He’s not going to change from who he is one way or the other on anything. Nothing is going to throw him, fame, fortune, winning or losing, it’s all just minor little moments that doesn’t compare to what it is he’s trying to do, which is tell stories and be a great filmmaker, which he does naturally.
<B>NRAMA</B>: How does doing the voice of Conan [for <i>Conan: Red Nails</i>] compare to doing Hellboy?
<B>RP</B>: It didn’t require a lot of adjustment on my part. Behaviorally and certainly as an acting exercise it was probably the least adjustments I’ve ever made. They used to accuse John Wayne of always playing himself and as close as I ever got to playing myself is Hellboy. Conan fits in there too, you don’t want to mess around too much with these men of action. They’re doers, they’re not big talkers.
<B>NRAMA</B>: You’ve been doing comic book related characters as far back as <i>Batman: The Animated Series</i>, right?
<B>RP</B>: Longer than that, my first ever gig in animation was on a show called <i>Bonkers</i>. Jim Cummings was the lead on that. He’s the lead on almost every cartoon in the last 25 years. He’s an incredibly talented guy. The setting was a police station, I played a lieutenant and Bonkers was a cartoon character who was a cop in real life. The character I played only lasted for a season because they retooled the show.
<B>NRAMA</B>: Have you gotten into reading comics as a result of your work?
<B>RP</B>: …I’ve been in the same room as comics.
If it is essential for my work I will read them, but it’s not something that I’ll actually run off and do with great zeal.
<B>NRAMA</B>: Besides Hellboy what has been necessary for your work in terms of reading comics?
<B>RP</B>: Well, Frank Darabont is a really close friend of Guillermo’s and they share a boyish passion for comic books. The first time I ever met Frank was in a comic book store here on Melrose in Los Angeles. In aisle three we had a long, wonderful meeting and he told me I had to read <b>League of Extraordinary Gentlemen</b> and everything that Alan Moore wrote. Then <b>Watchmen</b> came up because [Hellboy producers] Larry Gordon and Lloyd Levin have the rights to make the film version of that. They were pushing for me to play the Comedian.
I got into Frank Miller’s stuff because I’ve become pals with Mike Richardson who is the publisher at Dark Horse. Mike and I are actually talking about taking on the character of Charles Fort, which Dark Horse published a graphic novel about [<b>Fort: Prophet of the Unexplained</b>] and is a real character out of history. He’s another investigator of all things mysterious, unnatural, unexplainable, turn of the 20th century guy. So I’m steeping myself in that. But it is all work related, nothing out of a deep unquenchable thirst for comics.
<B>NRAMA</B>: How was it doing the voice for the villain Justice on <i>Afro Samurai</i>?
<B>RP</B>: It was great. By the way before I started talking to you, I didn’t realize how busy I was [laughs]. I’ve been working a lot. I don’t know what I’m complaining about. <i>Afro Samurai</i> was really cool. To me it’s all about how well it’s executed on the page. The great thing about Hellboy was how smart the writing was. The great thing about anything that I’m really super happy with is how good the writing is first and foremost. It is only then that you have the chance to do stuff that’s smart and be challenged into doing things that require some thought and some imagination. <i>Afro Samurai</I> fits right into that mold. It’s really smart and the guys who executed the animation give the term cutting edge new meaning. It was a pleasure to work on it even though I never met Sam [L. Jackson]. I’ve met him in the past on occasion but when I heard he was involved I jumped onboard blindfolded and luckily the gamble paid off because I was supported by really good material.
<B>NRAMA</B>: What does float your boat lately in terms of books and movies?
<B>RP</B>: After Chris Matthews, Brian Williams and if the Yankees aren’t televised, I’ve got my TV set turned to Turner Classic Movies. I really like the old stuff, I like the old actors. That’s my antidote for this ugly and materialistic world we live in.
<B>NRAMA</B>: I know that some actors don’t like the term character actors.
<B>RP</B>: I do like that term. That’s what I am. That’s what I consider myself and now I’m not just a character actor, I’m a character.
<B>NRAMA</B>: [laughs] Do you have any favorite character actors from the Turner Classic Movie age?
<a href="http://www.newsarama.com/movies/Hellboy/Iron/HellboyBlood_Ironpic5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.newsarama.com/movies/Hellboy/Iron/HellboyBlood_Ironpic5_t.jpg" border="0" align="left"></a><B>RP</B>: Until <i>Pan’s Labyrinth</i>, my favorite villain of all time was Basil Rathbone in all the great Errol Flynn movies. But as for character actors, Charles Laughton has to go to the top of the list. Karl Malden has to go right to the top of the list. Thomas Mitchell, Gig Young and Keenan Wynn. Those guys could crossover and be leading men but essentially they were always the second or third lead supporting the really good looking guy. I could use up my cell phone minutes talking about this subject.
<B>NRAMA</B>: Do you feel that you are up there with those guys?
<B>RP</B>: I’ve always tempered my big canvas with leads, whether it was in high school or college onstage or in the movies or on television. I’ve wondered if I would approach it any differently if I played the 15th guy from the left. But I wouldn’t. I don’t feel any pressure regardless of what number I am on the call sheet.
<B>NRAMA</B>: Can you give us any inkling of what will happen in <i>Hellboy 2: The Golden Army</i>?
<B>RP</B>: I cannot. I’ve been sworn to secrecy. I will say that Hellboy is in it. Also we’ve got a couple more freaks. We’ve got another member of the BPRD right out of the comic book. That much I can say. I can’t mention his name, but now you know it’s a male.
<i>Hellboy: Blood and Iron airs Saturday, March 17 on Cartoon Network at 7 pm</I>