30 Lesser Known Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About Ron Perlman

8 December 2017, 5:05 pm EST By Ruby Karnick

Ronald N. Perlman, famously known for his role of Vincent on the television series "Beauty and the Beast," is often a collaborator of Hellboy director Guillermo del Toro, having roles in the "del Toro films Cronos," "Blade II," and "Pacific Rim." Here are some very interesting facts about the American actor:

Perlman is a classically trained actor whose career spanned over three decades. He worked along with Marlon Brando, Sean Connery, Dominique Pinon, Brad Dourif and Ed Harris to name a few.
He was born Ronald N. Perlman on April 13, 1950, in Washington Heights, New York, to Dorothy and Bertram Perlman. His mother was municipal employee and hisfather a television technician and jazz drummer.
He is Jewish of Hungarian and Polish descent. As a child he grew-up with low self-esteem of being terribly overweight,which according to him is the reason to accept the role of deformed people later in life.
Though he did not consider acting as a career, there were so many performance oriented members from his father side. His father’s brother was a fiddler, his sister was a singer and with his father taking to music, it was only right that he ended up as an actor.
He attended George Washington High School and later Lehman College. While at college his act in a college production ‘Guys and Dolls,’ convinced his father of his acting ability. Perlman later jointed University of Minnesota and graduated with a master’s degree in fine arts in 1973.
On February 14, 1981, he married Opal Stone, a jewelry designer and they have two children, a daughter Blake Amanda Perlman and a son Brandon Avery Perlman.
He started his acting career with stage and television before making his debut in 1981 feature film ‘Quest for Fire’ directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. The movie is set 80,000 years ago and was filmed in cave in extreme condition resulting in Perlman and Everett McGill suffering frostbite.
In 1986, when Perlman was thinking of abandoning his career, he was cast as Salvatore, who speaks six-languages at once in the movie ‘The Name of the Rose.’ The director Jean-Jacques Annaud, wanted the ugliest actors for he wanted the characters to look ‘real’ based on the men in the village where he lived. He admitted this to the villagers.
After appearing in number of minor roles he bagged career defining noble man-beast Vincent opposite Linda Hamilton in the 1987 television series ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ He is the only actor to appear in every episode of the series which required four hours make-up for each episode.
He kept himself busy with roles in films such as ‘Romeo is Bleeding,’ ‘The Adventure of Huck Finn,’ ‘Police Academy: Mission to Moscow’ and ‘The Last Supper.’

Perlman was the lead cast in the French language, 1995 science fantasy film ‘The City of Lost Children’ directed by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Perlman doesn’t speak French, but he learnt all of his lines and was the only American on the set.
As he was making his mark in the films he appeared in number of television series of 1986 Highlander, 1995 The Outer Limits and as gunman in the 1998 The Magnificent Seven.
In the 1997 film Alien: Resurrection, as a mercenary he performed most of his own stunts. While filming the underwater sequence he nearly drowned when he hit his head on a sprinkler knocking him out cold.
Though he is credited with the 1998 film ‘Frogs for Snakes’ he is only in two scenes and with only one dialogue scene.
In 1998, as the Cemetery caretaker in the film ‘I Woke Up Early the Day I Died’ has no dialogue, only atmosphere sounds, alternating bursts of laughter and screams. This is Perlman’s second film after Quest for Fire, without dialogue.
In 2002, he had four releases to his name, as leader of the Bloodpack in ‘Blade II,’ Reman Viceroy in ‘Star Trek: Nemesis’ and in the action drama video, Shakedown. He also was cast in the ‘Crime and Punishment’ but in the final version it was deleted.
His commercial named ‘Devil’s Island’ for the ‘Stella Artois’ beer earned him Silver award at the 2003 ‘British Advertising Awards.
With his deep rolling voice he carved a parallel career with his voice-over work for television, video games and for animated characters. He was Mr. Lancer in ‘Danny Phantom,’ The Lich in ‘Adventure Time, Kurtis Stryker’ in Mortal Kombat: Defender of the Realm,’ apart from various characters in DC Comics.
Perlman was cast as Colonel McKellog in the 2003 short drama film ‘Two Soldiers’ for which he did not charge his fee as a favor to writer and director Aaron Schneider. The film won an Academy Award in Best Short Subject.
In 2004, he starred as supernatural superhero role in the film ‘Hellboy’ which was a minor box office success and won Best Make-up award in the 2005 Saturn Awards. He was the first choice of both Director and its creator Mike Mignola, for the role.

To prepare for the film Perlman would read all of the Hellboy comics and worked out three hours a day. He also had to endure four hours of make-up routine.
Unlike in the Hellboy comics, he has a normal booted feet and not cloven hooves so as to perform his stunts safely but even then he broke a rib while filming the subway scene. He jumped onto a train that was travelling at forty-five miles per hour.
Perlman initially declined when the rough draft for the role of Father Duffy in the 2008 comedy horror film‘I Sell the Dead’ directed by Glenn McQuaid. He agreed after the revised script was sent for three days of works and his scenes were filmed six months after the shooting had wrapped-up.
In the crime TV series thriller ‘Sons of Anarchy’ as Clarence Morrow, he took time to be cool with his Harley for initially he was afraid of it.
On November 2016, he announced via his Facebook page his intention to contest for President Election in 2020s. He is yet to project his political aspiration more clearly.
He has volunteered as an actor with the ‘Young Storytelling Program’ which is an arts education non-profit Foundation serving School students.
Although the film ’13 Sins’ in 2014 was the remake of Thai horror comedy, Perlman didn’t see the original film, as he did not want it to influence his performance as Det. Chilcoat.
Presently he has five projects under post productions stage with Sgt. Horan in ‘Asbury Park,’ as sheriff in ‘The Escape of Prisoner 614,’ as Asher in ‘Asher’ and ‘The Jesuit.’
Starting his career with a TV series ‘Ryan’s Hope’ as Dr. Bernie Marx, he has to his credit as an actor over 230 films and has directed one TV series ‘Beauty and the Beast, which he also wrote the screenplay.
He is the winner of Golden Globe award for Best Performance by an actor in a Television Series ‘Beauty and the Beast’ in 1989 for his portrayal of man-beast character Vincent.