In Hollywood, where million-dollar looks win multimillion-dollar contracts, actor Ron Perlman has become a star not so much because of his looks but rather because he looks good wearing a mask.
Perlman, 58, has built a career playing several deformed characters, from 1981’s La Guerre du Feu (Quest for Fire) to his breakout role as the beast in US television’s Beauty and the Beast.
Recently, his devilish-looking, tail-wagging, red-bodied comic book character Hellboy returns to theatres in Hellboy II: The Golden Army.
The irony behind Perlman’s rise to stardom is not lost on the actor. He says that early in his career, working with make-up helped free him from any personal constraints.
Still, Perlman said the goofy, slovenly, oddly brainy Hellboy is such a delight, he spends days in elaborate facial prosthetics playing the character.
“I no longer need the mask as much as I used to,” Perlman told reporters recently. “So now it becomes like, ‘How much pleasure am I going to take in playing a mask character?’”
The lore
According to comic book lore, Hellboy was “born in the flames of hell” and brought to the Second World War in an evil Nazi project.
Yet as an infant, he was rescued by the US Army, raised by a professor and put to work for the US Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defence.
In Hellboy II, his task is to save humanity from an evil underworld prince who is amassing an ancient army of golden robots to rule the planet. But Hellboy has got a problem: his girlfriend is being a royal pain.
That love interest, who is filled with pyrokinetic energy, is Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), and has a little secret she is keeping from Hellboy as she helps him battle his nemesis.
Ducky reviews
“Circumstances are that he is now living with Liz, and it is really not going well,” Perlman said. “And he has to save the world while he is a little buzzed.”
The reviews for Hellboy II are just as ducky, which seems an appropriate word to describe the comic book movie.
