1:00PM, Dec 05, 2007
He's red and has got a tail sticking through his leather trousers. He's got a giant stone fist instead of a right hand.
Ever since Mexican maverick Guillermo Del Toro grabbed Hellboy by the (trimmed) horns, he's been a wisecracking, chirpy antidote to the inner turmoil that is a night on the town with Batman.
We check out twenty facts about The Big Red One.
- Hellboy – real name Anung Un Rama - has been described as smelling of dry-roasted peanuts.
- Director Guillermo Del Toro turned down I Am Legend, One Missed Call and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to direct Hellboy 2.
- Conceived 300 years ago by a witch, Catherine Tanner-Tremaine, Hellboy's father is the demon Prince of Sheol.
- Doug Jones, who plays Abe Sapien, The Chamberlain as well as the Angel of Death, also portrayed The Silver Surfer in the Fantastic Four sequel.
- Hellboy actor Ron Perlman has a terrier called Nigel.
- Del Toro Became a vegetarian - for four years - after seeing The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
- Hellboy commonly carries an oversized pistol - the Good Samaritan - which uses specialized bullets incorporating silver, garlic and even holy water.
- Selma Blair (Liz Sherman) donned a large pair of fake breasts to play a stripper in the John Waters movie A Dirty Shame.
- Hellboy's right hand, referred to as the "Right Hand of Doom", consists of a large forearm and hand made of red stone.
- In the original Hellboy, Baby Hellboy, Sammael, Ivan the corpse, Train Driver and Kroenen were all voiced by Guillermo del Toro.
- When Hellboy debuted alongside The Passion of the Christ , some cinemas re-titled it or refused outright to run a "devil" movie against Mel Gibson's biblical saga.
- Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) was a normal child until she was eleven and her pyrokinetic abilities took the lives of her family and destroyed an entire city block.
- In 1998, Del Toro's father was kidnapped in Mexico and held ransom for 72 days until the cash was paid.
- Luke Goss and Anna Walton learned ancient Gaelic from a dialogue coach for their lines as Prince and Princess Nuada.
- Seth MacFarlane, who voices Hellboy ally Johann Krause, is a skilled pianist and singer who in his early years trained with Frank Sinatra's vocal coach.
- Character actor Brian Steele plays Mr Wink, a giant cave troll, map shop owner Cathedral Head as well as Fragglewump.
- MacFarlane based the voice of Johann Krauss on Jeremy Irons’ character from Die Hard: With a Vengeance.
- Del Toro describes Ron Perlman as having “the sexiest male voice this side of Barry White.”
- The studio wanted Vin Diesel to play Hellboy.
- After completion of the Hellboy make-up, the only part of Ron Perlman's body that can actually be seen are his eyelids.
