Ron Perlman won a Golden Globe back in the day for his portrayal of The Beast in the BEAUTY AND THE BEAST TV series, and now, he’ll be playing one of the titular characters in FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM.
Perlman will play a goblin in David Yates’ Harry Potter spinoff. Now, we’ve seen goblins in the Potter-verse before, but they’ve been, you know, small, and Perlman is, you know, not (though, at 6’1”, he usually comes off way taller than he is). Is Perlman going to walk on his knees like Mel Brooks in SPACEBALLS, or have his face digitally implanted on a smaller actor? Maybe some of the forced perspective that made big ol’ John Rhys-Davies a dwarf in LOTR?
It’s crazy enough that Perlman is playing a creature again. He’s gone on the record as saying he shies away from that stuff these days, after he spent decades defined by his abilities under mounds of rubber and latex. In fact, HELLBOY II might’ve been the last time he actually played a character that required this level of latex appliances (though he's had fucked up eyes and stuff in the interim), so one has to imagine that there was something to this character to make the now mid-60s Perlman brave hours upon hours in the makeup chair for the first time in 7 years.
Or maybe he just loves Harry Potter.
It’s bizarre seeing guys like him, Jon Voight, Ezra Miller, and Dan Fogler enter the Potter-verse after Rowling’s mandate that the POTTER films be only populated with British talent, but it’s hard to think of someone more appropriate for the franchise on this side of the pond than Perlman. Hell, he probably could’ve been an amazing alternate-universe Hagrid, recalling aspects of his character from CITY OF LOST CHILDREN. Can’t wait to see what his character looks like!
I wanted you all to be the 1st to know I'm changing my name to #BenGazi so I can finally know what it feels like to trend.
— Ron Perlman (@perlmutations) October 8, 2015
FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM may feature a 6-foot-tall goblin on November 18th, 2016.
