Some things never change…for instance Hellboy’s love for cats, candy and his girlfriend Liz, but a return to the world of the crimson crusader finds a few differences, too. Hollywood.com talked with everyone from director Guillermo del Toro to Hellboy’s Ron Perlman to get the scoop on the sequel Hellboy II. Here are 11 things you didn’t know about the summer sequel:
1. The witty dialogue comes straight from Guillermo–no adlibbing here:
Ron Perlman: That’s simply the way Guillermo writes. I mean, it sounded like I was making the whole movie up in Hellboy 1, and yet I think there was maybe one improv in the whole movie. You know, he’s got this idiom down, this kind of like longshoreman guy who’s raised in New Jersey, eastern kind of barroom American slang for a guy who’s…you know, English is his second language. It’s kind of remarkable. [PAGEBREAK]
2. Hellboy II pays homage to Guillermo‘s favorite movies:
Guillermo del Toro: Every movie that I referenced in the film–Harryhausen, Creature [from the Black Lagoon], Wizard of Oz, American Werewolf–whatever it is, those are movies I called my 12-year-old movies, because the idea of Hellboy II was, can I shoot a movie like a 12-year-old? I am 43, I’ve done X number of movies, but can I learn to just devolve emotionally into a guy who is so in love with these things that I shoot it with that much emotion…When you have that love for monsters that is unbridles and untampered by any adult concern in the emotional aspect.[PAGEBREAK]
3. Liz Sherman is a whole new woman:
Selma Blair: We left Hellboy, and Liz obviously had taken some control of her power. I mean, you know, she saved the day at the end of Hellboy, and did embrace Red at the end of that movie. So there was only one way to go, which was to move forward and leave her sad sack of a life behind her, and become a more functioning, stable woman. [PAGEBREAK]
4. Wielding a spear isn’t as easy as it looks:
Luke Goss (Prince Nuada): Weeks and weeks in you finally start to think, “I might actually pull this off.” The hardest thing was actually to do it on set. We’d never rehearsed ever with costume, which you think well that would make sense. Part of using the spear is feeling it on your back and things and timing and things so when you can’t feel the weapon it is a learning curve and you’ve got to do it on set in front of everyone. [PAGEBREAK]
5. The creatures are Jim Henson inspired:
Guillermo del Toro: I am a huge Jim Henson fan and actually Solution Studios who participated in many of the creatures – many of them used to be on the Henson shop…they work in Little Shop of Horrors and Return to Oz and so on and so forth. One idea I had in the movie is that first and foremost we wanted to make the movie feel handmade. We wanted the movie to have an artisan pride in craftsmanship, pride in the sets and the creatures. When they designed the Golden Army I told them, “Make sure the gold is hammered not flat. It is hammered and a little rust or oil stains. Let’s make everything lived in” because I wanted everything to be texturally palpable. [PAGEBREAK]
6. Abe Sapien finds a lady love:
Anna Walton (Princess Nuada): I think [Princess Nuada] is there to represent the love story with her and Abe and just another take on their interspecies marriage…the fact that it doesn’t matter what you look like, it is the beauty inside, which is Guillermo’s theme in the film.[PAGEBREAK]
7. It was a toss up between introducing Johann Krauss or Lobster Johnson:
Mike Mignola (Creator): It was Guillermo’s idea [to use Johann Krauss] and then when they figured out how much it was going to cost to do the clear plastic head he tried to substitute Johann for [Lobster Johnson], which I wouldn’t let him do, because I just felt for what Johann needed to do in the film it needed to be Johann. I said if you want to lose the clear plastic head and make him a human who’s a medium that’s fine, but I don’t want you to bring in this other character and change that other character to suit this film. It would be kind of like saying, “We want Superman, but Batman is cheaper so we’ll put in Batman.” Different guys, different powers. [PAGEBREAK]
8. Guillermo’s troll market scene is reminiscent of the famous Star Wars’ Cantina:
Guillermo del Toro: That was Mike [Mignola]’s fear…every time we came to the troll market Mike [would hum a Star Wars tune]. I said “No” and we shot it completely different from that. Instead of doing a close up of every creature that we had I treated them like extras in the background. Sometimes we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a creature that happens only in the first shot. If you look at the movie ever again you’ll see a creature called the Strider, which are three large elephant like creatures with long legs like the elephants…the only ones in the whole movie and I said I will shoot it completely different from the Cantina scene. I will shoot it like we really wandered into a real place and I will use creatures that cost thousands of dollars to pass by and we did.
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9. This time it’s Doug Jones voicing Abe Sapien not David Hyde Pierce:
Doug Jones: When I was cast as Abe Sapien in the first film I was told up front the potential that they were thinking already and had talked about having a celebrity, bigger name voice over person for this role…When I heard this I said, “I would rather you not do that. I would rather play the character like anyone would play a character.” So then my name was thrown into the hat…I was directed to sound a little bit like Niles Crane from Frasier, a little bit like Hal the computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey and that’s the sound I did my best to effect, which makes me not very far from David Hyde Pierce in the end…What happened then was, David Hyde Pierce comes in, he hears my original performance in his ear piece, he sees my performance on the film footage that he has to voice over. He steps back and thinks, “Why am I here?” to himself. He did his job as hired to do and did it beautifully and then what happened was when it came time to promote the film, the mileage they were hoping to get out of the David Hyde Pierce thing, backfired a little bit because he refused to take a credit on the film. He didn’t show up for any of the press and he didn’t show up at the premiere. When asked why later he said, “Out of respect to Doug Jones.” He did not want to take any of the limelight away from me. That makes David Hyde Pierce unlike anyone I’ve ever met in all of Hollywood! [PAGEBREAK]
10. Transforming into Hellboy is ritualistic, sort of like a samurai preparing for battle:
Ron Perlman: Well, for some strange reason, the make-up has never been a burden. When it comes on the heels of absolute no sleep, then everything’s a burden. But I regard the transition into the make-up every day as kind of like a ritual of preparing to become Hellboy, almost like a samurai goes through that highly ritualistic transformation from mortal to warrior. And I come out the other side looking a whole lot cooler than I do in real life, so why would anybody complain about that? [PAGEBREAK]
11. This could be a set up for Hellboy III:
Guillermo del Toro: There was four years between the first Hellboy and the second one. There can legitimately be four years between the second one and the third one…with the third one the ante is up considerably in that it is a very complicated movie because I wanted to signal the end of at least this incarnation of Hellboy, not forever, but I would not be involved past that. It will be probably the last Hellboy Ron [Perlman] has physically in him. It is a very grueling process, he is entering the silver years shall we say. He’s a guy that I cannot demand physical action from again and again and I think that we would love to make it a sort of a capper.
