Tommaso Boddi/WireImage(NEW YORK) — Ron Perlman plays a hitman looking to retire in the new film Asher, which hits theaters today. Perlman, a veteran character actor, is best known to some as the hulking figure under the red skin and muscle suit of the demonic comic hero Hellboy.
He played the role in two fan favorite films, both for Oscar winning Shape of Water director Guillermo del Toro. However, a long-in-development third Hellboy film with del Toro fell apart and a 2019 reboot took place, with Perlman succeeded by Stranger Things star David Harbour.
Perlman tells ABC Radio, “…I was very much at peace that I wanted nothing to with anything but finishing the trilogy. And that the journey was going to be on that included Guillermo [del Toro] or not at all. And frankly there’s so many things that are going on in my life right now, that I don’t think about it at all. I don’t miss it. I’m at peace with it. I’m just amazingly grateful to the two movies that we did get to do.”
Perlman’s peace had a lot to do with meeting up with Harbour, at a dinner hosted by his friend, actor and comic geek Patton Oswalt. “So, we had our little détente. And so I have nothing but good will for what happens with David in this next iteration of Hellboy.”
As for Asher, Perlman tells us he found some common ground with the titular trigger-man: “He is searching for some sort of legacy thing. And I know for a fact that you know when a guy hits his mid-sixties…those things come into play…What will they say about me when I can no longer be identified as the fastest gun in town? I think that’s what Asher is going through, I think that that’s what makes our watching him for two hours poignant.”
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