David Harbour Shares His Approach To A Comic Book Accurate Hellboy

Ahead of the film’s release next month, David Harbour shared his approach to bringing a comic book accurate Hellboy to life.

Hellboy is set to return to theaters soon, but not with Ron Perlman under the red makeup. Stranger Things star David Harbour has now taken up the mantle of the Dark Horse character in the upcoming reboot. 2019’s Hellboy is said to be more comic book accurate to Mike Mignola’s original work with the creator co-writing the script. During a set visit, JoBlo asked David Harbour about creator Mike Mignola’s involvement with the reboot:

“We talked a lot early on when I was sort of working on it. And I would just like text him kind of all the time, just like random questions. He told me that he talked a lot about his dad, that Hellboy was a combination of him and his dad, that his dad was sort of this working class, I forget what actual job he had, but some like longshoreman type guy. And so, this sort of rugged kind of job mentality was very much his dad. But the humor of Hellboy was much more Mike. Mike is like a weird kind of funny dude, like I am a weird, funny dude.”

David Harbour went on to talk about how the role differed to playing Chief Hopper on Stranger Things:

“So yeah, and then I would get into—because the funny thing about a comic is you have a framework or a structure where characters are doing things, they’re taking actions and you’re sort of like—it’s almost like ballet or something. Like you’re thrust into a framework of like, I am hitting these things, right? Like Hellboy looks a certain way, he sounds a certain way. It’s not something where when I read something like Chief Hopper on the page, I’m able to interpretively give you that. We don’t have a Chief Hopper comic, right?”

It seems David Harbour dived deep into the comics to nail the character:

“But with Hellboy, we have a comic. And so, he does certain things. He has certain gestures. He has certain looks. And I was very—studied like, all the comics and I have a whole book with just certain things that he does, just like jaw things that he does and different gestures and different ways he moves his body, ways he carries himself and stuff. And so, part of my job was to have that framework structure, but then for me to go deeper and to go into—I sort of approached it from the outside in, which is something I kind of rarely do, but it was very broadening as an artist for me, because now you have a framework and now you have to go back in and you have to find these things, where they’re justified sort of in a person’s psyche. Even though he’s a demon, I have to consider him human. He’s half-human, but I have to consider him psychologically like a human, right?”

Are you excited for the upcoming reboot? Do you think David Harbour be as good as Ron Perlman? Sound off in the comments below!

Based on the graphic novels by Mike Mignola, Hellboy, caught between the worlds of the supernatural and human, battles an ancient sorceress bent on revenge.

Directed by Neil Marshall from a script co-written by character creator Mike Mignola, Andrew Cosby, and Christopher Golden, the film stars David Harbour, Milla Jovovich, Ian McShane, Daniel Dae Kim, and Sasha Lane.

Hellboy will be released in theaters on April 12, 2019.

Source: JoBlo