Sure he’s done Hellboy and played The Beast, but why not SNL?
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.
