In the new issue of Shock Cinema, House contributor Jeremiah Kipp interviews unconventional leading man Ron Perlman. Topics include Perlman's collaborations with Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro (City of Lost Children), Guillermo del Toro (Cronos, Hellboy) and Larry Fessenden (Wendigo); his experience playing a romantic lead under heavy makeup in CBS' Beauty and the Beast; his decision to go on the lam to avoid $5000 in parking tickets, and his strange interlude working with Marlon Brando on The Island of Dr. Moreau:
You ever watch The Honeymooners? You ever see Ralph Kramden when he gets into a situation where he’s a little over his head. 'Hummana-hummana-hummana-hummana!' And every moment I was in Brando’s presence it was like that. I know there’s a lot of people like me who have an unhealthy fascination with Brando, and I say unhealthy because it’s completely over the top, it dwarfs all rationality. The fact that I was just going to be in his presence meant so much to me. What he was able to achieve as an actor during those certain parts of his career where he decided to apply himself — which was only three performances, really, as far as I’m concerned — he accomplished things that no one else will ever be able to touch, unquestionably. To me, he’s a God. What do you do when you get near a God? You just watch them. I spent so much time observing Marlon on that movie that I kept missing my own lines. I would hear him say (Brando imitation), “It’s your line.” And I said, “I wonder who he’s talking to.” Then he’d say, “Hey you, the blind guy, it’s your line.” I went, “Oh shit, it’s me!”...Best of all is Perlman's workaday summing-up of Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels:
You and I wouldn’t be having this conversation if cinema wasn’t as important as it is. We go to these movies and learn about whatever’s inside of us: the good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful. Whoever invented this art form should be canonized. When I get off the phone with you, I’m gonna go watch Sullivan's Travels and cry at the scene where he’s amidst all these homeless guys and a cartoon comes on and they’re laughing. And he has this epiphany that he’s been running away from being a comedy director. It’s the greatest contribution he could make in this piece of shit fucked up world—if you can laugh five or ten minutes a day that’s reason to go on until tomorrow.The entire article isn't available online -- Shock Cinema is an old-fashioned print mag -- but for info on how to find it, click here.
Posts
9 comments:
It doesn't matter who is doing it or how often I hear that scene cited from Sullivan's Travels, it never feels old or forced. So, I guess I owe some thanks to Ron Pearlman, cuz I'm feeling really good right now.
Don't worry, it won't last. It never does. Sic transit gloria.
Great as Perlman has been in his many fantasy/sci fi parts -- Alan Sepinwall once described him as "the go-to guy for prosthetics and ass-kicking" -- it'd be great to see him in something more earthbound. There's a tenderness in him that belies his menacing appearance. He's good in pretty much everything, but my favorite Perlman performance is in City of Lost Children, playing "One," the circus strongman trying to rescue his adopted brother, who's been kidnapped by the bad guy. He's somehow mythic and human scaled all at once; sometimes he reminded me of Burt Lancaster in The Rose Tattoo, other times of Lon Chaney, Jr., in Of Mice and Men, and of course there was a strong, clearly intentional echo of Anthony Quinn's Zampano in La Strada. But the character's purity is all Perlman, and his physical brilliance is beyond dispute; nobody that big should be able to move so precisely.
I really doubt there's anything Perlman can't pull off. He's been lovable and horrifying--hell, his specialty is managing both at once--brilliant and an idiot, comic and tragic. I love him in CITY OF LOST CHILDREN too, Matt; though my favorite performance of his might be his perceptive, marvelously self-aware Rush Limbaugh clone in THE LAST SUPPER. Granted, at least part of the appeal there is seeing the movie effortlessly snatched away from the young pretty cast by the hulking character actor with a mug born for radio. This last perhaps the conventional wisdom; I know I'm not alone in finding Perlman's features not only fascinating, but striking and--to again echo Matt--pure enough to qualify as lovely.
Dan, would it help extend your good mood if I brought up Stanwyck's erotic confessions aboard the honeymoon train from THE LADY EVE?
Bruce, stop trying to fill me with false hope.
What a great piece, Jeremiah. Let me just say that Perlman kicks all kinds of ass in Fessenden's latest (which is resonant in and of itself); he really is the genre Brando, and I imagine when he's 70-something he himself is going to be saying "It's your line" to some starstruck pup, if he's not already.
Matt, thank you for that post. Strangely, I have been out all day looking for this issue of Shock Cinema. Didn't find it either. So totally disappointing. I shall NOT give up especially now that you have teased me with a portion of Ron's interview.
Perlman and Tom Waits. Together. Playing brothers, of course.
Well, I can dream can't I?
David: From your lips to Robert Altman's ears.
Thanks all. I know my NYC compatriots can find Shock Cinema at St Marks Bookstore, certaub Barnes & Noble stores and even Virgin Megastore. I've seen it around. But copies of the mag can also be ordered through the link contained in this blog entry. Agreed, Perlman is one of the greats, and he shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.
Post a Comment