‘Hellboy’s’ Perlman: Man behind the mask

‘Fantastically gifted physically’
For years, studio bosses held out for a bigger name to improve the movie’s box-office prospects.

Del Toro persisted and eventually won out, casting Perlman as the colossal red-skinned Hellboy, who stomps on evil demons then unwinds with his cigars, cheap beer and menagerie of kittens.

“What I love about Ron is that he has the physical capability of playing a brute of enormous proportions. He’s really not that tall, but he’s sculpted like a Russian realism statue, with huge hands and a huge head,” del Toro said. “There is something of the noblest mammalian proportions in the guy. He’s fantastically gifted physically, and then his voice. He has one of the most enveloping, entrancing voices. This is a guy that at lunch can be reciting the menu, and you’re fascinated by the ingredients.”

While Perlman never set out to become Hollywood’s go-to guy for roles behind masks, one of his most-moving experiences as a movie fan came when he first saw Charles Laughton in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

“The most human character who happens also to be a gargoyle that you’ve ever seen on screen,” Perlman said. “I remember how much humanity he was able to evoke with one eye kind of by his left cheek and the other eye above his forehead and this huge hump on his back. Completely obscured by some makeup artists’ design, there was all this heart and emotion and pathos. The fact that I kind of have a chance to work in that milieu is purely coincidental but also feels right to me because of the profound effect that had on me.

“I’m kind of lucky. Not that I’m comparing myself to how great Laughton was, but that we’re sort of working on the same problems as actors.”

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