Guillermo del Toro has gone from a renegade visionary working within the studio system to an A-list director in the last year. His Oscar winning Pan's Labyrinth elevated him above "the director of Blade II" and now his job of helming two Hobbit movies puts him in charge of the most coveted franchise in all of Hollywood.
His big budget sequel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, reflects more of del Toro's own style than conventional comic book imagery. This time, the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense must stop a prince from unleashing a mythological army to shift the balance from humans' to creatures' power.
Guillermo del Toro insists that Ron Perlman, a staple of del Toro's other films like Cronos and Blade II, was the only man who could play the comic books title role. Hellboy took advantage of Perlman's long established ability to play characters in heavy prosthetic makeup. The Hellboy suit gives him a giant fist of rock, filed down demon horns and red skin. The image alone doubles the imposing form Perlman already sports.
Hellboy is not without vulnerability, though. Despite his size, he can stumble over deceptively miniscule enemies, and his sarcastic bravado may speak to a deeper insecurity. Hellboy II gives him a chance to showcase that humor while he's saving the world.
SuicideGirls sat down with Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman to talk about Hellboys aesthetic, his affinity for kittens, and a love of monsters.
Question: Guillermo, was this the Hellboy movie you really wanted to make the first time?
Guillermo del Toro: No. I wish I was that wise. I wish I was that fucking sleek. I think it is but it was not planned that way. The first movie I fully thought we were doing the exact version that would honor the comic and be faithful to the comic, but as time passed I realized mistakes were made or shortcomings were evident. I was prudish on the first one a little bit and I was completely unbridled on this one. It made a difference because on the first one I was there to try and satisfy a specific aesthetic I admire, which was Mike [Mignola]'s, and I made it my own only to a certain point. It was not conscious, it was not a process. It just happened and I learned and I was desperate to make the second one to improve, expand, go a little wider.
Q: Do you think there's a balance between Mike's vision and your own?
GDT: Yes, I believe so. I think that it is Mikes creation. It will always be Mikes creation, but I really allowed myself to disagree with more people on this one, sometimes including Mike. I feel it was a riskier proposition, but I feel if you were going to do the second one and be equally timid, you were going to come out with the exact timid approach.
Q: Are your creatures inspired by the classics like Frankenstein and Creature from the Black Lagoon?
GDT: Every movie that I referenced in the film, Harryhausen, Creature, Wizard of Oz, American Werewolf, whatever it is, those are movies I called my 12-year-old movies. The idea of Hellboy II was: can I shoot a movie like a 12-year-old? I am 43, Ive done X number of movies, but can I learn to devolve emotionally into a guy who is so in love with these things that I shoot it with that much emotion? When you see the resurrecting of the fairy, theres a wide angle with everybody around standing and the little fairy moving, exactly like a stop motion set up of Harryhausen, of Sinbad and the guys listening to the little homunculi. Or the resurrection of the stone giant portal, I told Danny Elfman, Lets listen to the Talus cue from Bernard Hermann on Jason and the Argonauts, the TONK TONK TONK and the horns, and we referenced it because those are all 12-year-old movies. I wanted very much, very much for this movie to have that, I wouldnt say innocence, but that wide eyed view of the creatures, when you have that love for monsters that is unbridled and untampered by any adult concern in the emotional aspect.
Q: Is that childlike innocence what attracted you to The Hobbit?
GDT: I believe so, to a point, because The Hobbit, like this movie, every movie has to be balance between the two. Pans Labyrinth is the same thing. It had a lot of that awe, but at the same time it is a more adult theme and a more adult tone. The theme and the tone of The Hobbit are very different from this movie aesthetically. It cant be as poppy as this movie so the approach will be different. The Hobbit is an 11-year-old book and I read it when I was 11 and it hit me right at that moment, so I tried to honor that feeling. It would be my most sincere hope that somewhere at some point on the Hellboy II exhibition there is a 10-year-old or 11-year-old with his or her parents that fall in love with one of the creature forever like Wink or the Angel of Death
Q: If you decide to do a third Hellboy, how are you going to logistically do that if you are committed to the next several years on The Hobbit?
GDT: There was four years between the first Hellboy and the second one. There can legitimately be four years between the second one and the third one. It took two years and a half to solve this script for me. I spent huge amounts of time just solving. I wanted to make the action set pieces relevant to the story. The Elemental for example, making it a moment where he says, Choose between him or them. Things like that, and with the third one the ante is up considerably, in that it is a very complicated movie because I wanted to signal the end of at least this incarnation of Hellboy. Not forever, but I would not be involved past that. It will be probably the last Hellboy Ron has physically in him. It is a very grueling process, he is entering the silver years shall we say. Hes a guy that I cannot demand physical action from again and again and I think that we would love to make it a sort of a capper.
Q: Are you going to stay faithful to the Hobbit novel?
GDT: Look, somebody said and I agree that the only faithful adaptation is to actually put the book in front of the camera and turn the pages one by one. That is the only way you are going to do it. Hitchcock used to make a joke, "If you have a goat in a garbage dump, and it eats the book and eats the film can, the goat will turn and say, 'I prefer the book.' It is just a common thing. We will be as faithful to what we believe has to be done. As I said, I found in my life with the Hellboy movies, the first one was slightly too slavish in some ways. So I think that we will try to honor it. If this is any indication, I find the differences, the changes Peter, Fran and Philippa did to the trilogy in adapting it into a filming trilogy, I found them to be absolutely necessary. Many fans will be irate or have been irate, many other have agreed and I see the same thing is going to happen with this.
Question: Ron, was it easy getting back into character after four years?
Ron Perlman: It's probably the least adjustment I make from the conversation I'm having with you to "action" that I've ever had to make as an actor. I mean, I didn't make any alterations behaviorally or voice-wise, or this or that or the other thing. Guillermo kept reminding me, "When you start acting, you're going to screw up, because I've done everything in my power to make Hellboy you, and you Hellboy. Don't make any adjustments. Just do it." That was very freeing, actually, the most freeing direction I've ever been given. But yeah, there's no real adjustment, either for Hellboy 1 or for Hellboy II. The only thing that changes are the circumstances of which scene we're shooting on any given day.
Q: How much fun was it to embrace Hellboy's humorous side?
RP: Great. My favorite aspect of Hellboy is the trash talk. The cynicism and the humor is real East Coast. I'm a New Yorker by birth, and spent almost my whole life there. I know that humor. I know that kind of gamesmanship that jocks have. Guillermo somehow captured it in a way that was hard to believe and too good to be true all at the same time.
Q: Is it harder to tap into that with all the heavy make-up on?
RP: Well, for some strange reason, the make-up has never been a burden. When it comes on the heels of absolute no sleep, then everything's a burden. But I regard the transition into the make-up every day as kind of like a ritual of preparing to become Hellboy. Almost like a samurai goes through that highly ritualistic transformation from mortal to warrior. I come out the other side looking a whole lot cooler than I do in real life, so why would anybody complain about that?
Q: Has the make-up process changed since the first one?
RP: Not a whole lot. It moved from being a Rick Baker make-up in Hellboy 1 to a Mike Elizalde Spectral Motion make-up in Hellboy II. But everything remained the same except for some slight alterations. I think he looks a little younger, a little bit more energetic. A little sexier.
Q: How do you maneuver in the Hellboy costume?
RP: It's not that bad. The tail is probably my biggest obstacle because it sometimes zigs when I zag. You don't want to trip over the tail, because then you squish the rubber.
Q: Hellboy has a love for kittens and television. Would you say you're a TV junkie or cat person?
RP: I love cats, and I love television. I love to watch cats on television.
Q: What are your favorite TV shows?
RP: Well, when I was a kid, Superman was my favorite show, and Soupy Sales. So anything that has "Supe" in the first syllable. What else did I love? I loved The Dick Van Dyke Show. I loved The Danny Kaye Show. I loved Dean Martin.
Q: Did you love horror/sci-fi before you were an actor, or has the passion come from the roles offered to you?
RP: The work that I've gotten and the work that makes up my resume is purely coincidental. It has nothing to do with my own personal aesthetic. When you do one, you're on the shortlist to do a second and then a third. Then the proclivity of the guys who found me acceptable to work with, and that's a very short list, happens to be
sci-fi oriented. There's Guillermo, there's Jean-Pierre Jeunet and there's Joe Dante.
Q: Why do you think Guillermo is the right person to do The Hobbit?
RP: I think Guillermo's the right person to do any movie that you can think of. I think that he was born to be a filmmaker, that he occupies a class unto himself as a filmmaker. He's already made one movie in his short career, which goes on the 100 Best Movies Ever Made, which is Pan's Labyrinth. I think that The Hobbit, which is an exercise in fantasy, is very, very, very, very lucky to have Guillermo del Toro at the helm.
Q: Who are you going to be playing in The Hobbit? It's a given that you're going to be in it.
RP: Well, I hope you're right. We haven't discussed it. I did say, when I found out he was going to be out of the country for four years, "I'm going to miss you, pal," and he said, "No you won't!" That's all he said.
Q: But you know the book, so are there any characters you might want to play?
RP: Well, I haven't read The Hobbit since I was in sixth grade, and so that's about four and a half decades ago. So if you wanted to give me a test on comparing and contrasting The Hobbit to the works of Carl Jung, I'd probably fail.
Q: What else are you working on?
RP: Well, right now, I've had to put everything aside because I just started a new TV series called Sons of Anarchy, which will premiere on the FX channel about September 4. It's about a motorcycle club not unlike the Hell's Angels, in a town called Charming, California. I'm the president of the club and it's written by the guy who was the head writer on The Shield. We have an order for 13 episodes on the air, so we're going to get a chance to spread our wings a little bit and truly begin to explore this twisted, sick world.
Q: FX pushes the envelope. Is this in the vein of things like The Shield?
RP: Yeah, it's The Shield on steroids. These guys are completely ruthless. Let's put it this way: the character I'm playing in Sons of Anarchy has the least feminine side of any character I've ever played. In fact, he has no feminine side. Hellboy has a huge feminine side compared to Clay Morrow, the character that I play. He is the quintessential alpha male in terms of anything that I've ever attempted to do.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army is in theaters now. For more information go to www.hellboymovie.com.
His big budget sequel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, reflects more of del Toro's own style than conventional comic book imagery. This time, the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense must stop a prince from unleashing a mythological army to shift the balance from humans' to creatures' power.
Guillermo del Toro insists that Ron Perlman, a staple of del Toro's other films like Cronos and Blade II, was the only man who could play the comic books title role. Hellboy took advantage of Perlman's long established ability to play characters in heavy prosthetic makeup. The Hellboy suit gives him a giant fist of rock, filed down demon horns and red skin. The image alone doubles the imposing form Perlman already sports.
Hellboy is not without vulnerability, though. Despite his size, he can stumble over deceptively miniscule enemies, and his sarcastic bravado may speak to a deeper insecurity. Hellboy II gives him a chance to showcase that humor while he's saving the world.
SuicideGirls sat down with Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman to talk about Hellboys aesthetic, his affinity for kittens, and a love of monsters.
Question: Guillermo, was this the Hellboy movie you really wanted to make the first time?
Guillermo del Toro: No. I wish I was that wise. I wish I was that fucking sleek. I think it is but it was not planned that way. The first movie I fully thought we were doing the exact version that would honor the comic and be faithful to the comic, but as time passed I realized mistakes were made or shortcomings were evident. I was prudish on the first one a little bit and I was completely unbridled on this one. It made a difference because on the first one I was there to try and satisfy a specific aesthetic I admire, which was Mike [Mignola]'s, and I made it my own only to a certain point. It was not conscious, it was not a process. It just happened and I learned and I was desperate to make the second one to improve, expand, go a little wider.
Q: Do you think there's a balance between Mike's vision and your own?
GDT: Yes, I believe so. I think that it is Mikes creation. It will always be Mikes creation, but I really allowed myself to disagree with more people on this one, sometimes including Mike. I feel it was a riskier proposition, but I feel if you were going to do the second one and be equally timid, you were going to come out with the exact timid approach.
Q: Are your creatures inspired by the classics like Frankenstein and Creature from the Black Lagoon?
GDT: Every movie that I referenced in the film, Harryhausen, Creature, Wizard of Oz, American Werewolf, whatever it is, those are movies I called my 12-year-old movies. The idea of Hellboy II was: can I shoot a movie like a 12-year-old? I am 43, Ive done X number of movies, but can I learn to devolve emotionally into a guy who is so in love with these things that I shoot it with that much emotion? When you see the resurrecting of the fairy, theres a wide angle with everybody around standing and the little fairy moving, exactly like a stop motion set up of Harryhausen, of Sinbad and the guys listening to the little homunculi. Or the resurrection of the stone giant portal, I told Danny Elfman, Lets listen to the Talus cue from Bernard Hermann on Jason and the Argonauts, the TONK TONK TONK and the horns, and we referenced it because those are all 12-year-old movies. I wanted very much, very much for this movie to have that, I wouldnt say innocence, but that wide eyed view of the creatures, when you have that love for monsters that is unbridled and untampered by any adult concern in the emotional aspect.
Q: Is that childlike innocence what attracted you to The Hobbit?
GDT: I believe so, to a point, because The Hobbit, like this movie, every movie has to be balance between the two. Pans Labyrinth is the same thing. It had a lot of that awe, but at the same time it is a more adult theme and a more adult tone. The theme and the tone of The Hobbit are very different from this movie aesthetically. It cant be as poppy as this movie so the approach will be different. The Hobbit is an 11-year-old book and I read it when I was 11 and it hit me right at that moment, so I tried to honor that feeling. It would be my most sincere hope that somewhere at some point on the Hellboy II exhibition there is a 10-year-old or 11-year-old with his or her parents that fall in love with one of the creature forever like Wink or the Angel of Death
Q: If you decide to do a third Hellboy, how are you going to logistically do that if you are committed to the next several years on The Hobbit?
GDT: There was four years between the first Hellboy and the second one. There can legitimately be four years between the second one and the third one. It took two years and a half to solve this script for me. I spent huge amounts of time just solving. I wanted to make the action set pieces relevant to the story. The Elemental for example, making it a moment where he says, Choose between him or them. Things like that, and with the third one the ante is up considerably, in that it is a very complicated movie because I wanted to signal the end of at least this incarnation of Hellboy. Not forever, but I would not be involved past that. It will be probably the last Hellboy Ron has physically in him. It is a very grueling process, he is entering the silver years shall we say. Hes a guy that I cannot demand physical action from again and again and I think that we would love to make it a sort of a capper.
Q: Are you going to stay faithful to the Hobbit novel?
GDT: Look, somebody said and I agree that the only faithful adaptation is to actually put the book in front of the camera and turn the pages one by one. That is the only way you are going to do it. Hitchcock used to make a joke, "If you have a goat in a garbage dump, and it eats the book and eats the film can, the goat will turn and say, 'I prefer the book.' It is just a common thing. We will be as faithful to what we believe has to be done. As I said, I found in my life with the Hellboy movies, the first one was slightly too slavish in some ways. So I think that we will try to honor it. If this is any indication, I find the differences, the changes Peter, Fran and Philippa did to the trilogy in adapting it into a filming trilogy, I found them to be absolutely necessary. Many fans will be irate or have been irate, many other have agreed and I see the same thing is going to happen with this.
Question: Ron, was it easy getting back into character after four years?
Ron Perlman: It's probably the least adjustment I make from the conversation I'm having with you to "action" that I've ever had to make as an actor. I mean, I didn't make any alterations behaviorally or voice-wise, or this or that or the other thing. Guillermo kept reminding me, "When you start acting, you're going to screw up, because I've done everything in my power to make Hellboy you, and you Hellboy. Don't make any adjustments. Just do it." That was very freeing, actually, the most freeing direction I've ever been given. But yeah, there's no real adjustment, either for Hellboy 1 or for Hellboy II. The only thing that changes are the circumstances of which scene we're shooting on any given day.
Q: How much fun was it to embrace Hellboy's humorous side?
RP: Great. My favorite aspect of Hellboy is the trash talk. The cynicism and the humor is real East Coast. I'm a New Yorker by birth, and spent almost my whole life there. I know that humor. I know that kind of gamesmanship that jocks have. Guillermo somehow captured it in a way that was hard to believe and too good to be true all at the same time.
Q: Is it harder to tap into that with all the heavy make-up on?
RP: Well, for some strange reason, the make-up has never been a burden. When it comes on the heels of absolute no sleep, then everything's a burden. But I regard the transition into the make-up every day as kind of like a ritual of preparing to become Hellboy. Almost like a samurai goes through that highly ritualistic transformation from mortal to warrior. I come out the other side looking a whole lot cooler than I do in real life, so why would anybody complain about that?
Q: Has the make-up process changed since the first one?
RP: Not a whole lot. It moved from being a Rick Baker make-up in Hellboy 1 to a Mike Elizalde Spectral Motion make-up in Hellboy II. But everything remained the same except for some slight alterations. I think he looks a little younger, a little bit more energetic. A little sexier.
Q: How do you maneuver in the Hellboy costume?
RP: It's not that bad. The tail is probably my biggest obstacle because it sometimes zigs when I zag. You don't want to trip over the tail, because then you squish the rubber.
Q: Hellboy has a love for kittens and television. Would you say you're a TV junkie or cat person?
RP: I love cats, and I love television. I love to watch cats on television.
Q: What are your favorite TV shows?
RP: Well, when I was a kid, Superman was my favorite show, and Soupy Sales. So anything that has "Supe" in the first syllable. What else did I love? I loved The Dick Van Dyke Show. I loved The Danny Kaye Show. I loved Dean Martin.
Q: Did you love horror/sci-fi before you were an actor, or has the passion come from the roles offered to you?
RP: The work that I've gotten and the work that makes up my resume is purely coincidental. It has nothing to do with my own personal aesthetic. When you do one, you're on the shortlist to do a second and then a third. Then the proclivity of the guys who found me acceptable to work with, and that's a very short list, happens to be
sci-fi oriented. There's Guillermo, there's Jean-Pierre Jeunet and there's Joe Dante.
Q: Why do you think Guillermo is the right person to do The Hobbit?
RP: I think Guillermo's the right person to do any movie that you can think of. I think that he was born to be a filmmaker, that he occupies a class unto himself as a filmmaker. He's already made one movie in his short career, which goes on the 100 Best Movies Ever Made, which is Pan's Labyrinth. I think that The Hobbit, which is an exercise in fantasy, is very, very, very, very lucky to have Guillermo del Toro at the helm.
Q: Who are you going to be playing in The Hobbit? It's a given that you're going to be in it.
RP: Well, I hope you're right. We haven't discussed it. I did say, when I found out he was going to be out of the country for four years, "I'm going to miss you, pal," and he said, "No you won't!" That's all he said.
Q: But you know the book, so are there any characters you might want to play?
RP: Well, I haven't read The Hobbit since I was in sixth grade, and so that's about four and a half decades ago. So if you wanted to give me a test on comparing and contrasting The Hobbit to the works of Carl Jung, I'd probably fail.
Q: What else are you working on?
RP: Well, right now, I've had to put everything aside because I just started a new TV series called Sons of Anarchy, which will premiere on the FX channel about September 4. It's about a motorcycle club not unlike the Hell's Angels, in a town called Charming, California. I'm the president of the club and it's written by the guy who was the head writer on The Shield. We have an order for 13 episodes on the air, so we're going to get a chance to spread our wings a little bit and truly begin to explore this twisted, sick world.
Q: FX pushes the envelope. Is this in the vein of things like The Shield?
RP: Yeah, it's The Shield on steroids. These guys are completely ruthless. Let's put it this way: the character I'm playing in Sons of Anarchy has the least feminine side of any character I've ever played. In fact, he has no feminine side. Hellboy has a huge feminine side compared to Clay Morrow, the character that I play. He is the quintessential alpha male in terms of anything that I've ever attempted to do.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army is in theaters now. For more information go to www.hellboymovie.com.
VIEW 15 of 15 COMMENTS
Tekky said:
guillermo del toro is a genius.
i can't wait for the hobbit.
i can't wait for harry potter and the deathly hallows.
i can't even wait for hellboy 2!
UGH! HE'S AMAZING!
Agreed. Completely and utterly.
Hellboy was very much like the comic and I loved it. Golden Army definitely felt more like a GDT movie. All I could think was Hellboy meets Pan's Labyrinth.
Which is totally fine, for me. I loved it. Though I didn't think the humour was as good in the second as it was in the first. Not as dry.
I will watch anything with Ron Perlman. I love that man. I just bought a life-size poster of him from Beauty and the Beast. I nearly creamed my pants when I saw it.