EDITORIALS

Premiere's Feature on Hellboy 2's Doug Jones

by Alex Billington
August 14, 2007

One of my favorite little-known actors in Hollywood at the moment is Doug Jones. He's the guy in the suits behind characters such as The Faun and The Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth, Abe Sapien in Hellboy and Hellboy 2, and Silver Surfer in the most recent Fantastic Four sequel. He's an incredibly nice and down-to-earth person and delivers some of the best performances on the big screen. Premiere has put together a full feature article on Doug Jones while he's out filming Hellboy 2 and it's worth a read.

The article goes over all of his roles, discussing how he came to each and his fascination with playing characters that require him to wear rubber suits and prosthetic makeup. The most interesting discussion in it is his recent comments on Hellboy 2 and what that film is leading up to. It's also great to see an actor in Hollywood with such genuine passion for his roles and his characters: Jones admits, "It is like visiting an old friend. I just adore Abe."

"It is an even bigger production," he says. "The original production in Prague was from start to finish longer but I was on it for a shorter time. That was a three-month commitment for me because my role was smaller: Abe Sapien dipped out — for the last third of the film, you didn't see him. In this one, he is a major player from start to finish."

"I think in the first movie," says Jones, "Abe Sapien was more of a one-note sort of character. In this one, he is showing more range of character traits. He has got a bit of a love interest this time, which is the first time Abe has ever felt that."

If readers of FS.net don't yet know, I'm a huge Hellboy fan. Even before Pan's Labyrinth and Guillermo del Toro's Oscar fame, I've been following Guillermo and Hellboy. Unlike The Dark Knight or Iron Man or even The Incredible Hulk, this lonely comic book movie that's filming deep in Europe has no set reports coming in weekly. Personally I like it being kept quieter so that we're surprised when it comes out next July and aren't already familiar with everything we'll see in the movie.

If you're just now getting familiar with Hellboy 2, here's the quick description that Premiere wrote up of the story. For reference, the new title is: Hellboy 2: The Golden Army.

In the follow-up, Hellboy and gang are on a mission to stop the prince of the woodland ghouls, who is hell-bent on retrieving three pieces of a key that will allow him to unlock the might of the Golden Army, a fighting force of invincible metallic soldiers. With two of the pieces already in hand, he must obtain the last from his sister. To divert a war, Hellboy and his troupe must protect the princess, but things get complicated when Abe falls in love with her.

Are you interested now? You should be! Ron Perlman as Hellboy is back again and Guillermo del Toro is back at it creating lush visuals and telling a great story. I really can't wait for next July and it's good to see Doug Jones getting some publicity, too. If you want to read the full article on Premiere, check it out, it's quite a good read.

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