hellboy 2 14Anna Walton as the beautiful, otherworldly NualaLanding a role in a Guillermo del Toro movie means travelling to fantastical far away lands, typically undergoing a transformation en route.

Someone familar with this is Anna Walton, who portrays the gentle fairy princess Nuala in del Toro's Hellboy II: The Golden Army. She's the sister to Luke Goss' fearsome Prince Nuada, a vengeful warrior plotting the downfall of humankind.

Walton is perfect as the fragile yet resilient princess and we caught up with her to talk about working with Guillermo del Toro, the hassles of make-up, and working with a member of British pop aristocracy.

Movies: How did you get involved with Hellboy II?

Anna Walton: I went about it the old fashioned way and auditioned for the part.  I knew the casting director and got the script in October 2007, but I was pregnant at the time so thought I was out of the loop. It then became a case of saying, "Look I’m pregnant but I can still play the role, with a bump if necessary!" (Walton eventually played a bumpless princess in the movie)

Movies: You said the film will make audiences feel like a children again.  Was it this that drew you to it?

AW: Yeah, Guillermo del Toro is a director who has the ability to make you look at things like a child looks at them, to imagine a world that isn’t there. That’s what really appealed to be honest, the chance to keep my imagination.

Movies: You seem drawn to fantasy roles, having starred in Vampire Diary, The Mutant Chronicles and now Hellboy II. How do you approach playing these characters?

AW: I always approach the roles looking for the humanity in the characters, and everything else whether you’re a princess, or a vampire, or a monk is pretty irrelevant. The character beneath is most interesting.

Movies: Were you familiar with del Toro's movies?

AW: Pan’s Labyrinth was my first exposure to del Toro. I was a Guillermo virgin when I got the script, so saw Pan's and the first Hellboy and that was my initation.  And I think it was Pan's Labyrinth that made me most excited about doing Hellboy II, to have the opportunity of working with the director who made that movie.  But that's me.

Movies: And most other actors out there I'd imagine.

AW: (Laughs) Yeah!

hellboy 2 10Walton avoided the heavy make-up endured by other cast membersMovies: Guillermo del Toro seems to have the whole movie in his head before he shoots.  Does he let you approach the character your own way or provide lots of direction?

AW: I’m not that experienced with how other directors work but I felt Guillermo was unusually generous with actors considering how much pressure he was under and how much he had to think about.

He always made time to listen to any questions you wanted to ask, and would fill you in on backstory or where he felt something had come from, and was absolutely clear about what he wanted.  

But, if you had something that made sense to him and it fitted in with the bigger picture he was prepared to take anything on board.

Movies: Did you stay pretty faithful to the script in playing the character?

AW: Yeah, there wasn’t anything I wanted to change, I loved the character from my first reading of the script and just played my own interpretation of her.  And luckily everyone was on the same wavelength, which was helpful! 

Movies: In this film you were reunited with the great Ron Perlman from The Mutant Chronicles, who plays Hellboy here. Can you give us any dirt or is he as nice as he seems?

AW: He is, really!  He’ll get cross with me for saying that because he’ll think it’s more interesting to be thought of as moody and dark and naughty. He’s very nice, but for some reason everyone always thinks that very boring!

Movies: Nearly all the main players from Hellboy return - what was it like being a newcomer to the series?

AW: From an artisitc point of view it was very helpful because Nuala is an outsider for most of the film, caught between the human world and the underworld.  But, offscreen everyone couldn’t have been more friendly; I was never made to feel like a newbie.
 
Movies: Selma Blair, who plays Hellboy's flamethrowing girlfriend, said she was the female star, but you got to wear all the great costumes and play a princess no less!

AW: Yeah, but she was the one that didn’t have to wear any make-up!  Even though I had no heavy prosthetics, just a couple of scars on my face, it still took four hours a day to apply because it was hand-painted on for continuity's sake, to make sure all the little bits stayed in the same place. 

And four hours was almost as much time as it took Ron to have his make-up applied. Originally, I did have full facial latex prosthetics and it’s really not very pleasant.
 
In the end I didn’t have to worry though because we went with subtler make-up for my character.  But it makes me in awe of Ron who gets so much emotion across through all that prosthetic. It’s incredible really.
 hellboy 2 30Luke Goss as the lethal Prince Nuada
Movies: Luke Goss seems very intense – were you the light to his shade offscreen as well as on?

AW: (Laughs) Well, it was such a long shoot I think it went both ways. 

Sometimes I was definitely the light to his darkness, but he was equally my light – everybody had some dark days no matter who you were playing.
 
Luke's an intense guy, but also a lot of fun and like a big kid a lot of time.
Movies: You play his sister in the movie, but were you a Brosette as a girl?

AW: I certainly remember them, but no, I was never one of the screaming girls at their concerts but remember the phenomenon they were. I was far too into horses at that time I’m afraid!

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