411 Movies Interview: Ron Perlman

Posted by Jeffrey Harris on 04.24.2009

The veteran actor speaks on his new movie, The Mutant Chronicles.

Recently, I was given the opportunity to speak with the longtime established thespian of film and TV, the one and only, Ron Perlman. Perlman who is most famous for playing the role of Hellboy in 2004 and 2008 will soon be back on screen in the new sci-fi flick, The Mutant Chronicles, which finally makes its theatrical debut. Perlman has had a long illustrious career appearing in countless movies and TV shows as well as building an amazing reputation for playing characters under heavy prosthetics and makeup, sort of like a Lon Chaney for our time.

Perlman took some time out of his busy schedule to speak with me about the movie, his character, as well as his experience in his decades long career in the movie business:


Ron Perlman as Brother Samuel

Jeffrey "The Vile One" Harris: Mr. Perlman thank you so much for your time. It's a great honor and pleasure to be speaking with you.

Ron Perlman: Thank you very much.

TVO: The Mutant Chronicles is finally coming out in theaters. What can you tell us about the movie and your character?

RP: My character is Brother Samuel, and Brother Samuel is a monk that presides over an order of monks in this mountaintop monastery . . . and they are the keepers of this secret book which chronicles the enemy that had come 1,000 years earlier that had the ability and determination to obliterate the human race and turn anything and everything that moves into mutants. So, this order has been in place for 1,000 years . . . Brother Samuel is a spiritual leader and sure enough, the mutants reappear and bodies start dropping and the population is threatened which is when the chronicles get unlocked from safekeeping and Brother Samuel tries to mobilize a force to follow in the footsteps of the warrior prophet who was the one that set down these secrets in this book 1,000 years earlier.

TVO: You played a priest before as the role of Josiah in the TV series remake of The Magnificent Seven. This is a very different priest character, wouldn't you say?

RP: Yeah, he's very, very different from anything I've ever ever encountered before. He's very much -- well Josiah was a man of action as well -- he's [Samuel] very complex. He's a man of God, a man of taste. He has very articulate beliefs for which he would lay his life down, and at this juncture to put everything that he believes on the line. So there's a mortal(?) aspect to him that has probably been lying dormant most of his life which is also which is also where I get to play for this episode(?).

TVO: I'm a big fan of actor Thomas Jane and his intensity. So did you get to work much with Thomas Jane and match up with him?

RP: Yeah, I have all but a few scenes with him and he's the first one that I enlist. He's a professional soldier with no real allegiance or any particular set of beliefs. He just likes the action of being a soldier. He's a fatalist and a skeptic. And so the contrast between Brother Samuel who sort of lives and breathes inside of the concept of hope, in kindness and goodness, is contrasted by the hard as nails, take no prisoners, fatalistic attitude of Mitch Hunter (Thomas Jane's character).

TVO: You've played so many roles under makeup before such as Vincent in the Beauty And The Beast TV series, both Hellboy movies. Was there any particular role where you are working under such heavy makeup and prosthetics that it felt physically taxing, or after a while do you get used to the process?

RP: I judge the difficulty of the work more by -- I don't really ever have difficulty of the work because of the putting on and taking off of makeup is an honored element in film. Working in these particular jobs and these actors, the difference in playing a character and the one that is working with is this very much defines the quality of the experience. And pretty much 100% of the time when I had to put on the makeup, they were such great characters to play that I regarded the makeup as things that made me feel really fortunate for being chosen to be the guy in that makeup. So the makeup never became a burden or an annoyance. You know when you're on your 110th day of Hellboy, you've been working on it close to 7 months. Its a little wearisome, but . . . you're there portraying this amazingly beautiful character directed by a genius like Guillermo Del Toro, its really insignificant . . . I know other actors who can't stand the time in the makeup chair. For them its a burden and an annoyance, and it colors the experience for them very much, but its never been that for me.



TVO: Do you think you'll ever get to play Hellboy again, one way or another?

RP: I don't know. I sense that Guillermo's moved on. He's going to do these Hobbit movies, and they're going to take probably 4-5 years of his life. We both feel fortunate to have spent as much time on Hellboy as we already did, and would I consider it? Absolutely. But would I consider it a slam dunk? I wouldn't be surprised if I've seen all of Hellboy we're going to see.

TVO: You've worked with Guillermo del Toro on several films. You've also worked with such renowned directors as Jean-Jacques Annaud and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. With all these great filmmakers, is there any director who you are just constantly impressed by their work ethic and their method on set?

RP: All three that you named, first of all, without the first people you named: Jean-Jacques - 3 movies; Jean-Pierre Jeunet - 2 movies; Guillermo del Toro - 4 movies and counting; so without those guys, there's no me, there's no me as an actor anyway. And I just thank God that I was fortunate enough to meet them and to continue to have these collaborations, but now I mean they're all 3 amazing storytellers. And they all 3 have this wide-eyed love of storytelling and for film in general. And to be around them, to be in front of them is a state of grace. And there's not one moment I didn't love any of the time with any of them or don't recall with great joy and gratitude.

TVO: I love the animated voice work you've done like Orion in Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League. Any chance you might get in the booth again to play a character in Batman: The Brave And The Bold to work with voice-over director, Andrea Romano, again?

RP: I would if I were asked. I love working with Andrea. She gave me my very first job as a voice in a cartoon. She's a delight to be around, a delight to work with. She's always working on really cool stuff. The Batman thing was not working because they wanted actors that were always in one place, and I'm just all over the map in the last year. I've been to Budapest twice, Romania once, Detroit, New Mexico, and its really hard to do a running role -- its just the circumstances of being a part of that one.

TVO: In the future of humanity of The Mutant Chronicles where is mankind in the future? Are we still on Earth, or inhabiting different planets?

RP: Geopolitically speaking, its 400 years in the future is Earth. We've geopolitically evolved so there are no more "nations," there are only corporations. There are 4 corporations, two in the west, one in the center, and one in the east which is an Asian-oriented corporation. And they're all at war with each other. And this war compromises this spot in the earth where this machine has been buried, a machine which has the ability anyone who falls into the pit into mutants.

TVO: Do you think Brother Samuel is a moral character, or a character more trying to serve himself?

RP: He serves humanity. He believes in humanity. He has no political bent whatsoever. He has no political leaning about the corporations, the businesses, or the attitudes that they have. His sole purpose is as a humanist to uphold what is dearful about the human race. And the exercise that is The Mutant Chronicles, this film, is his willingness to put everything on the line, that is his own faith, his own comfort, and his own life in the quest preserve the human race. He's incredibly spiritual and he's very humanist.

TVO: Do you consider yourself a spiritual person, is that something you empathize this?

RP: Its not something I spend a great deal of time thinking about those things. I mean I pray an awful lot if that's what you're asking me. I believe that there's a force that is everywhere and that looks over all things, and I try to serve in the best and decent and as best a way as I possibly can.

TVO: Last question, if you could possibly tell me your favorite cartoon character you ever played?

RP: . . . its always like the first bite of chocolate you've ever had, or the first girlfriend. The very first cartoon character that I played was a guy named Grating for Andrea Romano on a show called Bonkers. I loved it. I loved it and it was very fun.

TVO: Thank you so much for your time sir. And I'm very much looking forward to this movie and whatever you have coming next.

RP: Thanks for being here.



The Mutant Chronicles hits theaters tonight. Perlman also appears in the new hit FX TV series, Sons of Anarchy as Clay, with a second season currently in the works.

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