Ronald Perlman (born April 13, 1950) is an American actor, producer and voice actor. His credits include the roles of Amoukar in Quest for Fire (1981), Salvatore in The Name of the Rose (1986), Vincent in the television series Beauty and the Beast (1987–1990), for which he won a Golden Globe Award, One in The City of Lost Children (1995), Johner in Alien Resurrection (1997), Hellboy in both Hellboy (2004) and its sequel Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), Clay Morrow in the television series Sons of Anarchy (2008–2013), Nino in Drive (2011) and Benedict Drask in Don't Look Up (2021).
Perlman is also known as a collaborator of Hellboy director Guillermo del Toro, having roles in the del Toro films Cronos (1993), Blade II (2002), Pacific Rim (2013), Nightmare Alley (2021), and Pinocchio (2022). His voice-over work includes the narrator of the post-apocalyptic game series Fallout (1997–present), Clayface in the DC Animated Universe, Slade in Teen Titans (2003–2006), Mr. Lancer in Danny Phantom (2004–2007), Lord Hood in the video games Halo 2 (2004) and Halo 3 (2007), the Stabbington brothers in Tangled (2010), The Lich in Adventure Time (2011–2017), Xibalba in The Book of Life (2014) and Optimus Primal in both the Transformers: Power of the Primes (2018) animated series, and the film Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023).
Early life[]
Perlman was born on April 13, 1950, in Washington Heights, New York City. His mother, Dorothy (née Rosen), was a municipal employee, and his father, Bertram "Bert" Perlman, was a jazz drummer and television repairman. His family is Jewish, originally from Hungary and Poland, and Perlman had a Bar Mitzvah ceremony.
Perlman said in 1988, "It was not a bad childhood but I had a perception of myself that was ... I was terribly overweight as a young kid, and it was sort of a low self image." He stated this experience is something that attracts him to roles where he portrays "these sorts of deformed people who are very endearing." Perlman had a "very close" relationship with his father, who convinced his son he "had to" pursue a career as an actor after seeing him perform in a college production of Guys and Dolls. He graduated from George Washington High School in 1967 and Lehman College in 1971. He later attended the University of Minnesota where he graduated with a master's degree in theater arts in 1973.
Career[]
Perlman started his career as a stage actor, appearing in various productions, and made his feature film debut in Jean-Jacques Annaud's film Quest for Fire (1981). Annaud later revealed that when he contacted Perlman to ask him about playing Salvatore in The Name of the Rose (1986), Perlman was thinking of abandoning his career. After various minor and supporting roles in films and television series, his breakthrough role came when he played Vincent on the television series Beauty and the Beast, opposite Linda Hamilton, from 1987 to 1990. This earned him a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series in 1989.
He went on to play roles in many films and television series throughout the 1980s and 1990s as well as the 2000s. His most notable film appearances were in films such as The Name of the Rose (1986), Romeo is Bleeding (1993), The Adventures of Huck Finn (1993), Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (1994), The Last Supper (1995), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), Alien Resurrection (1997), Enemy at the Gates (2001), Blade II and Star Trek: Nemesis (both 2002) and two Stephen King adaptations, Sleepwalkers and Desperation. His appearances on television series include Highlander: The Series, The Outer Limits, The Magnificent Seven, and the Amazon series Hand of God.
He played his first leading film role in 1995, when he played "One" in Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro's French-language The City of Lost Children. In 2003, Perlman starred in a commercial for Stella Artois beer. This commercial, which was called "Devil's Island", won a Silver Award at the 2003 British Advertising Awards. He got another leading film role in 2004 when he played the title role in the comic book adaptation Hellboy. Perlman reprised his role as Hellboy in the straight to DVD animated features Hellboy: Sword of Storms (2006) and Hellboy: Blood and Iron (2007) as well as Hellboy II: The Golden Army, released on July 11, 2008.
In 2008, Perlman joined the cast of the television series Sons of Anarchy on FX playing Clay Morrow, the national president of the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club. He also played Wes Chandler in the second and third seasons of StartUp in 2017–18.
In 2022 Perlman starred in Steven Brand's noir thriller Joe Baby alongside Dichen Lachman, Willa Fitzgerald and Harvey Keitel.
Filmography[]
Animation Dubbing[]
Animated Films[]
- Spirit of the Forest (2008) - Oak
Anime Dubbing[]
Anime Series[]
- Afro Samurai (2007) - Justice
External Links[]
- Ron Perlman at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
- Ron Perlman at the Internet Movie Database