The Hellboy star was initially skeptical about the quality of a videogame movie.
Luckily, there were wigs and axes.
Ron Perlmanis used to being the monster, not the monster hunter.
Credit: Coco Van Oppens/Screen Gems and Constantin Films
(The Admiral gets a giant flaming axe.)
But he had fun doing it.
The actor speaks with EW about his amazing Admiral wig… and some other stuff.
That kind of thing.)
I was finally back to work on a couple of very well cared for projects, protocol wise.
Everyone has to make the right decisions for them about what they’re comfortable with.
It turned out I was right.
If it was good of Disney, it was good enough for R.P.
It seemed like you were involved in so many projects.
Mid-September we finally got to resume and they finished principal photography [a week] ago.
It went off without a hitch.
There was not one case of COVID on any level.
Are you also still doing VO work?
I know you’re inPinocchiofor Guillermo del Toro.Been doing sessions all along the way forPinocchio.
The sound stages that you work on have their own protocols between artists coming in.
I’m one of the lucky ones.
As much as I have set fallow for five months, it wasn’t a total blackout.
There were bits and pieces I was able to do along the way.
Videogames have been my salvation during this time.
Are you a big gamer?I’ve never played a videogame in my life.
I wouldn’t know the hardware from the software.
But I do love acting.
I was really taken with how nuanced, what great storytelling it was.
It was a real page turner for me, reading it for the first time.
This is a tribute to the adaptation from Paul W.S.
But, in making a film, it became a necessary step.
“Tell me what he’s thinking here.”
This is more of a collaboration between the filmmaker and the actor than it was anything else.
That’s not always the case.
Each time you give a performance, there are different parameters.
So, I’m working with a lot of auteurs.
Not too big, not too small.
Just exactly how they imagined their roles to be.
It turns out his genius was exactly what I just described.
So, I’m obsessed with being that guy as of late.
Do you think that’s helping inform which roles you gravitate towards moving forward?Not necessarily.
The criteria for that has always been the same.
I have to feel really engaged in the writing and the intelligence of the world.
One of the more fun elements ofMonster Hunteris your wig.
I’m kind of obsessed with it.
So I wanted to ask about your wardrobe.
it felt like a weighty piece of costume with all the different details.It was very elaborate.
It was very layered and very detailed.
It took about a half hour to dress me.
So, there had to be a pragmatic aspect to all the ways he adorned himself.
He had to always be ready to move freely and exhibit great force and focus.
The wig was… We were just trying to capture how this guy looked in the game.
We went through a lot of changes.
The wig, if you might believe, was bigger and blonder in the early go.
It went through an evolutionary process to get it to where it was.
Paul had mentioned there were some initial concerns with all the giant, flaming weapons you had to wield.
Probably, if i had to put a number to it, 50 percent of the time.
It’s more connected to the real world that’s depicted on screen.
There were a number of times when the axe was on fire.
Then there were times when it wasn’t safe.
I had to do too much with it that for it to be flaming.
Did it take special training to wield those props?They were big and they were heavy.
So, it couldn’t look foreign.
It had to look like something that was second skin.
I think that was true of all the cast members because everybody had a different modality.
They were all very cumbersome.
The monsters we go after require things that are larger than life because the monsters themselves are that formidable.
Once again, you’re taking something that is coming from a source material, theMike Mignolainterpretation ofHellboy.
Guillermo had a similar approach.
I wanted to ask about a member of the Admiral’s team, the cat-like Palico.
He gave a performance.
He was hysterically funny.
He almost ruined a few takes because he kept cracking us up, me and Milla.
It was like a well-needed moment of comic relief and whimsy.
Monster Hunteris now playing in theaters.
