LOS ANGELES--Veteran producer Lawrence Gordon, whose résumé includes the action films Die Hard, Tomb Raider, and 48 Hours, had the opportunity to cast a certain name actor in his latest film, Hellboy, which opens Friday (April 2) in Vancouver. However, he turned down the star and asked Ron Perlman to play the title role instead. "The star wanted to do it, but we [Gordon, director Guillermo del Toro, and coproducer Lloyd Levin] walked away from the meeting saying, 'Life is too short' and went with Ron."

Perlman could have said no. The role required hours of makeup, something he had already endured for three seasons of the series Beauty and the Beast. But he says turning it down was not an option. "Are you out your mind?" Perlman asks during an interview in a Los Angeles hotel. "You work a lifetime to have that moment at the top of the mountain. You have no control over the outcome, but try being Hellboy for a day and you will have the coolest time you will ever have. It was the most tripped-out experience I have ever had and will probably ever have."

Asked if he could relate to the character, he says despite the fact that Hellboy is from "the other side", there are some similarities. "Let's put it this way. What does Hellboy do in this film? He fucks around with the guys that he works with to the point that they think of him as being a wise-ass dude. He trash-talks the people he is fighting against in this 'Is that all you got?' mode and he drinks beer, smokes cigars, and eats chocolate. That sounds like me."

Hellboy was adapted from the Michael Mignola comic book of the same name. The premise of the comic and the movie is that mad monk Rasputin, set on turning the world into a blazing inferno, discovers a portal to hell. He brings Hellboy across from the other side during the Second World War but loses him to the American forces and a professor who is an expert on the paranormal. The professor gives the baby a home and, when he's old enough, the job of battling evil forces. However, Rasputin is still waiting his own turn to exploit the talents of Hellboy.

At 53, Perlman may be the oldest actor to ever play a comic-book superhero on film. He says that he thinks his character, who is supposed to be 60, has more to say about the human condition than most heroes. "Guillermo is articulate and poignant in articulating what attracted him to this and I would have to concur, and that is that through the monstrousness of this character, we get a sense of our own humanity. The splashy universe of the comic-book character becomes the jumping-off point from reality into a world that lends itself to cinema. It's really something for an actor to be asked to become a superhero and to put your imprimatur on the creation of a new universe that allows for the existence of Batman and Superman and Spider-Man and Hellboy."

The monstrousness of Hellboy also appealed to the actor. He says he didn't have to dig too deep to find the devil in himself.

"My whole life, particularly the real early years, has been all about trying to manage what I felt was monstrous about myself, to the point of either suppressing it or overcompensating for it so that it would not be the thing that people saw when they looked at me. So I have a true attraction to the people who are grappling with that problem, and I have no interest in anyone who does not see the monstrousness in themselves. I have no interest in knowing a guy who thinks he is entitled to live outside the rules of humanity because he thinks he is better than everyone else. I think it is the monstrousness, or the sense of what is monstrous in you, that is more defining than any other aspect in terms of informing you as to who you are as a person. So getting to play Vincent [in Beauty and the Beast] and exploring that dilemma every day for three years was therapy. It was an amazing opportunity for me, personally, to get to celebrate someone who loves the world so much and yet is so limited from participating in it, someone who is capable of loving as much as he is but is prevented from doing what he wants the most. There is poignancy in both that show and this film that resonates with me."