Ron Perlman Interview - EXCLUSIVE!
By Abbie Bernstein
Ron Perlman is an actor who is constantly working. For five years, he’s starred as Clarence “Clay” Morrow on FX’s SONS OF ANARCHY. He also was the romantic, lionlike Vincent on CBS’s much-loved BEAUTY AND THE BEAST from 1987 through 1990, was one of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN on the TV series adaptation of the film and has played the heroic demon title role in two HELLBOY live-action films, as well as voicing the character in two animated features and a video game. His IMDB page lists 191 roles total so far.
Perlman is at a press event for the fifth season of SONS OF ANARCHY, but takes some time to talk about other things he’s got going on as well, which include his preparation for his feature film directorial debut on a project that is currently untitled.
“I always wanted to direct,” Perlman says. “I always had a notion that I’d like to see what that felt like for me, to be in that chair on a set. I have a huge regard for the moviemaking process, and I’ve always looked at the moviemaking process through a broader lens than just my contribution as an actor, so I thought I would want to tackle something more holistic. The minute I read this particular script, I said this would be the one to start with, because it’s beautifully simplistic, very, very moving, and it’s an actor’s piece. It’s a storyteller’s dream. So if I put the right people around me, I don’t think I can miss.”
As for shadowing the directors he’s acting for in order to learn from them, Perlman reports, “I’ve been shadowing the directors for thirty-six years now.”
Meanwhile, on SONS OF ANARCHY, Perlman’s character Clay starts this year recovering from being shot, left by his wife, stripped of his leadership role with the Sons and generally in bad shape. Is it more fun to play Clay when he’s down the way he is now than when he was up and in charge?
“It’s always fun to play Clay,” Perlman replies. “This year is a brand new type of challenge for Clay. It’s almost like pushing a reset button, because you’re playing the same guy, but now he’s lost everything, including his health, his wife, his position in the club, his fortune, every single thing he’s worked his entire life to build, he’s lost, except for his life. So we’re exploring what it means to still have a glimmer of hope, having lost all the things that have gotten him to this place and it’s quite challenging, it’s a wonderful problem for an actor to have. Very few of us ever get a chance to take a look at somebody we’ve been playing that long through a completely, totally reinvented lens, and that’s what I’m doing.”
In July of this year, Perlman got back into his Hellboy makeup and costume to visit with a seriously ill boy in a meeting arranged through the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which facilitates granting wishes for critically and/or terminally ill children. Asked how it felt knowing that it was one child’s bid dream to meet Hellboy, Perlman says, “It’s kind of what we [as actors] live for, is to know that somehow think what we do, and maybe it even has a positive effect on them. This Make-A-Wish Foundation thing, I’m no stranger to it, I did a lot of work with them when I was doing BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, and it’s an honor to have been associated with a tough moment in a kid’s life and maybe made it a little bit easier for him to get through and it was an honor to be asked to have a little intersection in this kid’s life.”
What was the interaction like? “Well, he did not know he was meeting Hellboy, so the look on his face when he walked out and saw me sitting on that couch – there are a few pictures I guess that have made it to Web sites that kind of tell the story, but the look on his face was truly a treasure that I will never, ever forget.”
Speaking of HELLBOY, will there be a third film in the series that’s been directed by Guillermo Del Toro, based on Mike Mignola’s comic books? Perlman relates, “Guillermo Del Toro, having seen the Make-A-Wish Foundation love that was exhibited spontaneously as a result of that little moment – because there was no press there, somehow all those things got leaked by Facebook, somebody posted some pictures on Facebook and all of a sudden it was on a thousand Web sites around the country for the next week-and-a-half. It became this story that was much bigger than any of us intended for it to be and it culminated with Guillermo Del Toro at Comic-Con announcing that he was actively seeking financing for HELLBOY III. So the Lord works in mysterious ways.”
Interview By Abbie Bernstein
