Out of the Mouth of Abe: Hellboy II’s Doug Jones Finally Gets To Speak

Doug Jones is underheard but not underseen. He’s a gifted physical performer and completely unafraid of wrapping himself up in heavy makeup to play the most fantastic and interesting characters. The trouble is that they don’t let him speak. He played a silent role in Pan’s Labyrinth, he portrayal of the Silver Surfer was overdubbed by Laurence Fishburne in the sequel to Fantastic Four, and even in the first Hellboy film he was voiced over by David Hyde Pierce. Finally, in Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Guillermo Del Toro has gotten his way, and Jones’ performance is intact and just as pitch-perfect as you could ask for.

It was a pleasure to learn that Jones is actually an incredibly sweet, down-to-earth and amiable fellow, and a delightful Chatty Kathy. It’s not easy to keep a room full of interviewers quiet while telling involved and interesting stories, but he managed it. He told us all about the pain of having his performances taken from him, all his upcoming projects and why he wants to kiss David Hyde Pierce.

Your performances in Hellboy II were Abe Sapien, the Chamberlain and the Angel of Death. Did you get to do the voices for all three?

Doug Jones: I did the voices for Abe Sapien and for the Angel of Death. The Chamberlain is a voice over, but it was only about three lines. Guillermo wanted a very specific British accent with a certain prissiness to it that I did do on set, but he did most of the ADR looping in England, so he could find the authentic thing there. With only three lines of dialog, that wasn’t a big heartache for me to watch that go. It was just easier to have it done there. That was fine.

The Angel of Death is a layering job that’s yummy. On set, my voice was hampered by those teeth. They were gi-normous. I was talking like Fire Marshall Bill. I couldn’t close my lips over those humungous teeth. Going into looping and doing a voiceover, we went over the voice with a low whisper. They tinkered with the low whisper as well, and together it just sounds lovely, I think.

Do you prefer the make-up or the voice-over work?

I like acting. I like taking on a character, period. If that involves visuals, audio, one or the other… sometimes characters I’ve played haven’t had any dialog at all, sometimes I’ve done voiceover for cartoons that is just voice… I really like it all. I don’t know that there is a preference. Mostly, for me, I like connecting with the character as though it was my best friend. Even if they’re evil – like the Pale Man from Pan’s Labyrinth, for instance, I still got to know him. What I find is that the better I know a character, the more I like that character, the more honestly I can play him. Even an evil character doesn’t know he’s evil. The Pale Man was just hungry, really. I like crawling into the skin of a character, into his heart, into his soul, into his mind. That’s a fun ride for me. Howver that plays out, whether verbally, audibly, visually, combination of all of the above, it’s all good.

David Hyde Pierce provided the voice for Abe Sapien in the first film. Did you have to try and mimic his voice for this one, or were you free to do it yourself?

I was free. When I was cast as Abe Sapien in the first film, I was told up front about the potential of having a celebrity bigger-name voice over person for this role, largely because when you’re looking at big A-list actor names with that much make-up on and never will their face ever show in an alter ego situation or whatever – in the Hellboy universe, we are superheroes that are stuck with our look. We don’t have a Bruce Wayne by day, we don’t have a Clark Kent by day, we are those freaks. Getting a big A-list actor to do that – difficult. Difficult to find someone who’s willing to not be recognized. So the studio thinking was ‘let’s get someone to do the visuals, and we’ll get an A-list actor name to voice it.” Of course me, as an actor, it’s like “what?” When you play a part, you play a part, and that includes all of it. So when I heard this up front, I said “I would rather you not do that. I would love to just play a character like anyone else would play a character. My name was thrown into the hat. The possibility was there that I could be a voice choice. That was as good as it was going to get for this particular job.

Once the film was completed and I had been on set every day delivering all of Abe’s dialog as well as all of Abe’s visuals, no one had any complaints with me. Everybody I heard from said I affected the right voice. I was directed to sound a little bit like Niles Crane from Frasier and a little bit like Hal the computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey, which makes me not very far from David Hyde Pierce in the end.

What happened was that everybody was happy with what I did. Guillermo Del Toro called me ahead of time to say “Your role has been voiced over by David Hyde Pierce.” I asked him point blank “Was it a performance issue on my part? Is there something I can learn from this, was there a shortcoming of mine? What can I take out of this experience?” He said “Nope, everything you did was perfect.” He said it was the studio saying “Yeah, that was great, but don’t you owe us a session with David Hyde Pierce like we talked about?” They’re thinking marketing, they’re thinking putting a name with the role, they’re thinking getting butts in seats. That’s a part of the moviemaking business that I’m not a part of and I don’t know anything about. So they made that decision for their own reasons.

What happened then was, David Hyde Pierce comes in, he hears my original performance in his earpiece, he sees my performance on the screen that he’s got to voice over, and he steps back and says “Why am I here?” to himself. He did his job as hired to do, and did it beautifully, and what happened was, when it came time to promote the film, the mileage they were hoping to get out of the David Hyde Pierce thing backfired a little bit because he did not take a credit in the film. He refused to take a credit in the film. He didn’t show up for any of the press. He didn’t show up at the premiere, and when asked why, later, he said “out of respect to Doug Jones.” He did not want to take any of the limelight away from me, and that makes David Hyde Pierce unlike anyone else I’ve ever met in all of Hollywood. (laughs) It’s a very ego-driven city we’re in, and for someone to do an act like that was exceptional. Not expected. I never would have sat there going “I hope he does that.” I fully expected he would take a credit in the film because he earned it. The fact that he didn’t made him an ilk different than anyone else. I haven’t met him yet, but when I do, he’s getting a kiss on the cheek, because I really appreciate what he did for me.

Then what came around were Hellboy animated features. Hellboy: Sword of Storms, Hellboy: Blood and Iron. Voice jobs, really. So they went to the original voice person, David Hyde Pierce. He politely declined, and when he did that, they came to me and said ‘voice of Abe Sapien, would you like it?’ I went “Would I like it? YES! FINALLY!” That also helped the transition.

When I was told by Guillermo Del Toro that I had been voiced over in the first film, a part of that conversation was also “Doug, if we get to do a Hellboy part 2, if we’re fortunate enough, I would like to have your voice in that. I would like to bring it all back to you again.” That was already circling out there. The animated features being my voice was a nice way to transition and cement that decision. The die-hard fans are the ones who really saw the animateds – the fan response was very positive, very favorable, which I was eternally grateful to them for. I actually teared up when reading the reviews.

Going into Hellboy II, my performance was every bit the same as it was in Hellboy. I didn’t have to mimick David Hyde Pierce. We kind of worked off each other in the first one anyway. I’m very grateful that it’s come full circle like that, because it was a monkey on my back for a few years.

Have you and Guillermo talked about you doing something for The Hobbit?

He and I have not had official discussions about it, however he has answered questions in front of me. On the red carpet, someone said to him ‘so, Guillermo, what do you have for Doug in The Hobbit?’ So there he was in front of me, on camera, and I was like “I would like to hear this, too.” Guillermo said “Well, I’m sure I’ll put him through some kind of pain and suffering.” So he was giving a kind of thumbs up that yes, I’ll show up somewhere. Wouldn’t commit to what that was, so I don’t know what that is yet. He also said at some point during the night “Listen, if I direct a hemorrhoid commercial, Doug Jones will be in it.” I would be playing a hemorrhoid, but one with a heart and a soul, you know what I mean? And a beautiful vocal performance, I might add!

What voice did you use for the Silver Surfer?

For the Silver Surfer, I used my lower register all the time. I loved him. I loved the Silver Surfer character. I recently had the joy of having lunch with the writer of the Rise of the Silver Surfer script, who’s also head writer and producer on The Simpsons, Don Payne. Before his butt hit the seat, he was already going into “Hi Doug, it’s so good to meet you, I’m a big fan of your work.” I went “Don? I’m a big fan of YOUR work, are you kidding me?” He said “I just want to tell you right now, as dailies were coming back from Vancouver, when we were looking at the rough footage, your voice that you affected for the Silver Surfer is exactly the voice I heard as I was typing.” Which, ah, did that warm my soul? It really did.

Again, I asked the producers, I asked everyone on that job ‘was it a performance issue?’ And again, a resounding no. Even my castmates – Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, the Fantastic Four – every one of them was reported somewhere in the press as saying they loved my voice. Again, getting Laurence Fishburne - Morpheus! - was a marketing choice. Again, he’s a brilliant actor, he did a great job, but as an actor, none of us want to see any part of our performance taken away or replaced. I’m not bitter, it’s would just be nice to keep your performance intact. That’s all.

What are you working on now?

I have a lot to talk about. The next thing you’ll see me in is an episode of Fear Itself, the anthology, each episode directed by a famous horror director. There’s a darkness to this anthology series. My episode is entitled “Skin and Bones” – I wonder why they came for me, you know what I’m saying? I play a wealthy ranch owner who’s been missing for ten days up in the mountains. At the top of the show, I return home and I’m not quite right when I get back. I’ve been possessed by a little something up in the mountains, and I show up 50 pounds lighter than when I left. All the photos around the house are me with some ‘computer enhancements.’ It was directed by Larry Fessenden – he directed Wendigo and a whole litany of horror films with a heart. His stories have a nice psychological foreign film pacing. I really loved working with him.

I’m the cameo kid this year – I did a cameo in a picture called Quarantine, it’s a Screen Gems picture, a remake of the Spanish-language film called REC. It’s very hand-held, reality-looking, Cloverfield-ish or Blair Witch-ish, and I’m a cameo at the end of a movie that’s an “oh! OHHH!” - that’s the reaction you’ll have.

Another cameo I did, I was able to play a knock-off of Agent Smith of The Matrix in a superhero spoof movie called Super Capers. I don’t have a clue about distribution on that or when it’s going to happen. Another film I played a cameo – my role was a freaky little ice cream man in a film called Legion, another Screen Gems movie starring Dennis Quaid, Paul Bettany and Tyrese Gibson.

The next film I’m about to start is a slice of life dramedy about a middle-aged white guy going through a midlife crisis, needing a reason to reinvent himself, called My Name Is Jerry. I’m playing the role of Jerry. No makeup, no chase scenes, no revoicing. We also have Catherine Hicks playing my boss in the movie. Don Stark from That 70s Show is playing my best friend/mentor salesman guy in the movie, and then it’s a cast of a lot of newcomer young people as well. My character finds himself reinvented into the punk rock world. That’s where you’ll find some funny in the movie is that he doesn’t really fit in this reinvention process. He’s going through a little bit of self-discovery.

I’ve been very busy. I’ve been very blessed with the success of the recent years that I’ve had. Roles are coming to me that are really interesting and really fun. Directors who I’ve been wanting to work with are now calling on the phone, which is a dream come true for me. It really is.