Ron Perlman has a knack for playing monsters, as evidenced by his performance as the titular demon in Guillermo del Toro’s “Hellboy” movies. Big Red wasn’t his first role of this ilk, however, as Perlman co-starred alongside Linda Hamilton in CBS’ “Beauty and the Beast.”
Created by Ron Koslow, “Beauty and the Beast” is a modern-day retelling of the classic fairytale. The story takes place in New York City and sees Perlman’s Vincent fall in love with Hamilton’s Catherine Chandler after rescuing her from an attack. It isn’t all mushy romance, though, as “Beauty and the Beast” is also great crime drama about the pair cleaning up the Big Apple.
For Perlman, adding depth to Vincent was his primary task on Koslow’s underrated fantasy series – and it didn’t matter if nobody recognized him under all that makeup.
“Whether you’re wearing makeup or not, your job as an actor is to identify the heart and soul of the character, how he moves through the universe, what his relationship is to his fellow man,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “That doesn’t change regardless of what trappings you add on externally.”
Why Ron Perlman has no problem wearing makeup
Ron Perlman apparently doesn’t have an issue with sitting in a makeup chair for hours. In an interview with Variety, he said the process is worth it.
“There’s a million guys that wish they were you right now and there’s absolutely no reason you should ever complain about the fact that it’s taking four hours to get on set,” he said. “Because by the time you do get on set, you’re Hellboy. It’s never been a burden to me because the roles I was playing as a result of all that work in the chair were phenomenal.”
Of course, Perlman has also starred in some notable projects that didn’t require him to wear makeup. Since 1987’s “Beauty and the Beast,” he’s been in roughly 250 movies and TV shows including non-fantasy series like “Sons of Anarchy” and he’s played numerous voice-acting roles that didn’t require him to appear on camera, at all.
This story originally appeared on TVLine
