There was a time in Ron Perlman’s career when one might’ve reasonably wondered if he was ever going to get an opportunity to shine as an actor without having his face covered in makeup, thanks to early film roles in Quest for Fire and The Name of the Rose as well as his work on the cult TV series Beauty and the Beast. Okay, yes, one of his other signature roles also found him working behind makeup – Hellboy – but we’ve long since passed the point where you know Perlman’s real face when you see him, including a particularly acclaimed turn on FX’s Sons of Anarchy, and he’s proven himself to be an actor who’s always ready to work.
Granted, some of those gigs are better than others, as Perlman is quick to concede, but Decider was fortunate to catch him doing press for a particularly strong outing: Succubus, a new horror film written and directed by R.J. Daniel Hanna that’s being released via Shout Factory. In addition to chatting with us about how the film came into his orbit and how much he enjoyed both the script as well as the finished product, Perlman also chatted about his experiences on Peacock’s Poker Face, a close encounter with one of his acting idols who also turned out to be a fan of his, and how he’s anxiously awaiting an opportunity to return to the comedic roots that you probably never knew he had.
DECIDER: I was able to watch Succubus this morning, and…I’m not sure what I went in expecting, but it was really a fantastic and decidedly creepy horror film.
RON PERLMAN: I had the exact same reaction. [Laughs.] I’m not sure what I was expecting, either. I knew it was gonna be something that I had a very small contribution in, but I had no feel for all of the other isolated elements that went into making the film and then how it would all congeal and come together. So I just watched it two nights ago for the first time myself, and I think I had the exact same reaction as you. It was, like, “Wow, this guy really knew what movie he was trying to make!” And even though – as one does in the world of very, very super low-budget filmmaking – he had to do so many things isolated… I never met hardly anybody else in the cast, and even when I was playing my scenes with Brendan Bradley, I was basically almost acting by myself. I think the only actor I had engagement with was Olivia [Grace Applegate, who plays] his wife, and even that was very brief and not nearly as augmented as what appears in the film. So he had a lot of work to do, in terms of grabbing all these people who showed up for a minute and then left, and now he’s got to cut it all together and make it seem like we were all on the same set and on the same page. So I was quite blown away by how adept Daniel’s filmmaking is and how it all came together.
I’ve seen films where they incorporate the computer screen and online camera footage into the proceedings, but they did this in a very unique way, and not for the entirety of film. That, in and of itself, felt unique, because it seems like usually if they’re going with that gimmick, they’re going with it from start to finish.
Yeah, he never seemed to lean on it. Even though he was exposing this creepy world of going down the rabbit hole that you can go down when you’re looking for meaning in a virtual world… I mean, that’s the language, the vocabulary of the movie, that interaction with direct messaging and going on websites and getting caught going on websites. All of that stuff is part of the DNA of the storytelling, so it has to be done in a way that’s vivid and very, very well researched, which I think he does. But he doesn’t lean on it to the point where it becomes the tail that wags the dog, so…I think that’s what I’m agreeing with you on.
Seeing the trailer beforehand and then actually seeing the film, I was glad that it answered a lot questions that you might have after seeing the trailer…like, say, “How could he fall for this? Surely he’d see it as a scam!” But that’s kind of tackled once you get into the film.
Yeah, people are vulnerable. People are ready to be taken down the garden path when they’re betwixt and between, when they reach a kind of crossroads in their lives. This guy doesn’t know whether his marriage is going to hold or not, so he’s exploring the idea of, “What happens if I’m alone? What happens if I’m a single parent?” And then the temptations that are out there in the universe are potentially really explosive and dangerous, and I think that’s what the movie explored.
How did you find your way into the movie in the first place? Did Daniel reach out to you personally?
R.J. Daniel and I used to be lovers, and I always wished him well when we split… No, that’s not true. [Laughs.] I’m just trying to start some shit here.
I understand.
I guess the script arrived, and – like what happens with me with every script – my quotient of interest begins and ends with how much I want to turn the page and find out what happens next. If I’m being led and I don’t know where I’m going… I mean, initially you have no idea. But if the world turns out to be multidimensional and interesting and smart, then you really start to have me. And then if the character is somebody I have a curiosity about exploring, then you’ve got me. So I think somebody sent me the script, I read it, and that’s what happened.
It’s one of those cases where I would’ve understood if you’d been hesitant just because you might not be able to tell from the page how they were going to create some of the key moments onscreen.
Um, if you look at my IMDb, you’re not gonna see a lot of hesitancy. [Laughs.] I throw a lot of spaghetti against the wall, bro. I was having a conversation with a very dear friend of mine, and he talked about careful he is in curating his career in terms of what he aligns himself with and what he chooses to avoid. And I said, “Gee, I’m not that guy at all!” Basically, what I just described… You know, you send me a script, it doesn’t matter if it’s a movie that’s been made for $150K or $150 million, it doesn’t matter if it’s a studio film or a first-time filmmaker. If it answers those questions – if it’s original to the point where I really can’t anticipate what comes next and it’s smart and idiosyncratic and behaviorally interesting and it has a role in it that I say to myself, “I wouldn’t mind spending a few weeks getting intimate with this guy” – then I’m in. That’s basically my criteria.
I’ve talked to more than a few character actors over the years, and the recurring theme seems to be, “No matter what project I’ve done, there’s always some sort of story I’ve walked away with that made it worth doing.”
[Long pause.] Okay. Can I get their names and address, please?
I’ll see what I can do. I wanted to ask you about a few things from your back catalog, one of which is relatively recent. How did you enjoy the experience of working on Poker Face?
Omigod, I mean, I can’t say enough. I love how Rian [Johnson] used me, how I’m basically just a voiceover in the first episode and then he circles back. You know, all he sent me when he first proposed the idea of me doing it was the pilot and the last episode, which is the one I finally appear in, and it looked to me like it was a continuous story. But then I realized, “Okay, he’s making, like, a Rockford Files, where every week it’s a standalone procedural episodic TV show.” But it does have these couple of thrulines that we ultimately arrive at at the very end that have kind of been peeking around corners throughout without depending on the fact that it’s one story, like most of these limited series that are exploring one particular storyline. So that was fascinating, and then come on, Natasha Lyonne? How lucky am I just to be in her atmosphere and work across the table from her? And then Benjamin Bratt, and then playing Adrian Brody’s dad… Come on! [Laughs.] What can I tell you? That’ was one of the paybacks for doing all this shit that you’ll see on my IMDb page. I was in a play one time, and there was a line: “With all this shit, there must be a pony in here somewhere…” So Poker Face was the pony!
As you say, you’ve got a fair amount on your IMDb page. Are you still actively looking for fulltime series work, or are you just happy with whatever comes my way?
I like series work. I like it for a number of reasons. I like to work, as you can tell. And then if you’re in a series, you’re guaranteed to work, as opposed to being in a movie, where you do it, you’re done, and God knows how long you’ll have to wait for the next project to come along. In a series, if you’re guaranteed 10 episodes, you take that worry out of the occasion and you just immerse yourself. The other aspect of it is, with that amount of time and attention to a storyline, the exploration of the character is way more holistic, which I kind of dig. So, yeah, I’m always looking for series work. I haven’t done a TV series since I think 2017, which is a long time. But I always have my eye open for what’s gonna be next.
Would you be up for doing comedy? Because I know you get comedic opportunities once in awhile. I know you did an episode of Reno 911 not too long ago, but I don’t think you’ve had the opportunity go fully comedic.
I would beg to differ. I think there’s a lot of comedy on the resume. I think Hellboy was comedy.
Oh, for sure. I was just talking about series work.
Oh, no, not series work. But listen, the very, very first thing I did in New York when I decided I was going to become an actor was that I did sketch comedy. You know, like what they do on Saturday Night Live. And then when I moved to Hollywood, nobody believed I was funny with this face, so they made me do very serious, heavy shit. And I now have to pay people to do comedies. I have to prove to them, “Hey, I’m really funny! I’m so funny, in fact, how much do you need to give me the role? I’ll pay you!” So, yeah, the answer – resoundingly! – is that, yes, I’m always looking to do comedies.
Now you’ve captured my interest. What sort of sketch comedy was it? Like a comedy troupe?
Yeah, we were a troupe! We were all these dope-smoking degenerates in college, and we’re all finding theater, and we all loved… Well, I think the very first thing we did was called The MAD Show, which was created by the people who were involved in creating MAD Magazine. And it was a series of sketches. It was exactly the same format as what Second City does, what the Groundlings do, and what they do on Saturday Night Live. So we did that, and we all got addicted to it, and we started just creating our own improvisatory sketches. And we did that for a few years, all while we were just waiting to get out of college in the Bronx, New York.
Did you ever toy with the idea of trying to audition for SNL?
No, I’m telling you, man, no one believed I do this shit. [Laughs.] Nobody! In fact, this interview here is a plea as much as it is an interview.
I’ll make sure to get the word out.
Please do. My comedic life depends on you, bro! [Laughs.]
I know we’re up against the clock, but I’ve got two stock questions that I wanted to ask. The first is, do you remember the first time you met someone where you had to fight to keep from going full fanboy on them?
The first time? I mean, I’ve been lucky to meet a lot of my heroes, so I can’t remember exactly what the first time was. But when I first moved out to Hollywood, there was this restaurant on the Sunset Strip called Nicky Blair’s. Nicky Blair was an actor who came out to Hollywood with Tony Curtis and a few other people, and some of ’em made it as actors, and he made it as a restauranteur. But he had that restaurant that all of the celebs went to. And I’m sitting at a table one night, and Tony Curtis walks up to the table, and…I was in the process of either trying to get up from my chair or not shit myself to tell him, “Oh, my God, Some Like It Hot and Sweet Smell of Success…” I mean, he was a true hero of mine. And before I had a chance to say anything, he said, “You’re that guy from that caveman movie Quest for Fire. It’s one of my favorite things I’ve ever seen in my life.” And then he walked away. So that was an outstanding moment.
That’s amazing. And my other stock question is, do you have a favorite project that you’ve worked on over the years that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved? It can be more than one, but if there’s one in particular…
Well, I had a little independent film company, a production company that I owned, and we did about nine movies there. And the reason why I walked away from it is because getting distribution for these little independent films became so impossible. It’s, like, you make these movies, and then it’s like the tree falling in the forest. It’s like you never did. But the final one we made was called Asher, and Asher turned out almost exactly how I imagined it when I first read the project and optioned the project and decided to try and produce the project. So if I had to point to one, it would be Asher. And you can probably go to Amazon Prime, I think it’s in their library, I think you can stream it on there or rent it or whatever. If you get a chance to, go. I’m really proud of it. It’s a small little film, and it’s my idea of what movies should feel like. We had every punch in the nose you can get in making that film. We ran out of money twice, we closed down production twice… To get it finally finished was a heavy lift. But it was a huge labor of love.
Lastly, just to ask the question that I’m sure you get asked constantly, do you think there’s any chance of you ever being able to return to playing Hellboy?
Not as long as Guillermo [del Toro] doesn’t want to do it. The only way I’d return is if we finish the trilogy, and it has to be Guillermo’s script and direction. But, y’know, he’s in great demand. And I’m 74. So if it ever does come together, you’ll see the very first superhero / comic book hero chase where the hero is using a walker. [Clears throat, then in a voice like Old Jewish Man from The Simpsons.] “Don’t run so fast! I can’t keep up!”
I’ll be first in line to buy a ticket.
I just gave you a little preview. Free of charge, pal. Just get my word out about comedies, and then we’re even.
Will Harris (@NonStopPop) has a longstanding history of doing long-form interviews with random pop culture figures for the A.V. Club, Vulture, and a variety of other outlets, including Variety. He also collaborated on Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane!, a book with David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. (And don’t call him Shirley.)