Ron Perlman as
Asher, the hitman
on a last job that,
perhaps inevitably,
goes south.HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY (2008)
Another example of Perlman’s pipes, as Hellboy and Abe Sapien (Doug
Jones) get drunk, pour out their hearts over their romantic entanglements,
and end up singing along to Barry Manilow’s ‘Can’t Smile Without You’...“That was pure Guillermo. He’s able to take these mythic characters and bring
them down to this level of pathetic sentimentalism. You know if we get this
right, the audience is going to say, ‘I don’t know what this is doing in the movie,
but it’s my favourite moment.’ Usually you only have a third of the crew on set,
but when we shot that scene, there were 400 people. Word got out that they
were having fun on Stage 1. I’ll never forget that. Later, we were in New York
doing a press junket for Hellboy II. I got in the elevator to go to my hotel room
and there was Barry Manilow standing next to me. I tried to get his attention,
but he just looked straight forward. That was my brush with greatness.”ALIEN: RESURRECTION (1997)
Perlman’s sleazebag, Johner, hits upon Sigourney Weaver’s
alien-human hybrid version of Ripley, and promptly gets his ass
handed to him...“To get my ass kicked by Sigourney Weaver was an honour. He’s the
man, he’s supposed to be the take charge guy. But that’s not going to
happen. The moment I discovered Johner has a crush on Ripley was
the key to everything. It was easy for me to do once I knew that he was
a sucker for tall girls. And he’s
seeing the sexiest, tallest girl
he’s ever seen, and he’s done.
He’s besotted. He’s finished.”ASHER IS OUT NOW ON DVD
ALAMY, ALLSTAR, SHUTTERSTOCK AND DOWNLOAD
DRIVE (2011)
For a man who’s died countless
times on screen, this is a corker, as
his Nino is drowned in the Malibu
surf by Ryan Gosling’s silent Driver...“It was four in the morning, shot at
that time because of the way the tides
react in the northernmost point of
Malibu. [Director] Nicolas Winding Refn
wanted the tides to behave in a certain
way as I was held down. Very few guys
get to die like this. It was so charged
with eccentricity. There’s that moment
where Ryan’s character is pointing to
the ocean, basically saying, ‘Go ahead,
that’s your only way out.’ Once I realised
Nino’s form of escape is to run into an
ocean he cannot escape from, I was
like, ‘Alright, schmuck, I’ll help you
along. I’ll drown you.’” CHRIS HEWITTCRONOS (1993)
In Perlman’s first collaboration with
Guillermo del Toro, his sleazy psycho
Angel visits an antiques shop and
displays all kinds of idiosyncracies...“We shot that early on, and Guillermo
and I didn’t know each other well.
By the time we got done with the
scene, there was a kind of recognition.
I was trying to bring these characters
to life. He gave me these really weird
cards to hold up to my nose, to show
what nose I’m considering getting
after plastic surgery. How weird
that is. That sparked a lot of strange
behaviour in me — whistling, walking
around and being kind of a pig,
knocking things over. I’m not sure
where Angel ended and I began.
And from that point on, Guillermo
was staying at my house in LA.
We really became bros.”