The folks over at GeekTyrant were able to catch up to the New Millennium's Man of a Thousand Faces, Doug Jones (of Abe Sapien fame), and get the dish on what horror master and Hellboy director Guillermo del Toro has on the workbench.
Starting with "The Hobbit," Jones says:
"We have not had any conversations about what he wants [for The Hobbit], but he's 'wink-wink, nudge-nudged' me a couple times with that 'Yeah, yeah, The Hobbit, yeah, we'll see you. I don't know what I'm doing or how many characters it will be, because he tends to like to use me the whole time depending."
But going on to Frankenstein, Jones says:
"We are starting makeup tests, actually, in a couple weeks. We are going to do some tests just to see, because he has five years to play with this. He's taking that luxury of time to make this absolutely perfect. This is his dream. He was inspired by Frankenstein when he was a kid. It was the monster that made him want to make monsters. So, because of that, it's been [a] lifelong [dream], and he wants to be perfect with him."
Jones goes on to clarify that this will not be like the famous lumbering Boris Karloff incarnation of the monster. Rather, it will be a slender, more skeletal type creature. Del Toro will be going back to basics, and pulling directly from the Mary Shelly novel.
The most exciting part (for me at least) is that the monster will be based off of comic book legend Bernie Wrightson's artwork.
Jones even said:
The designs I have seen so far of the makeup test we are going to try brought tears to my eyes. I can't tell you what I saw, but just know it brought tears to my eyes. I was emotionally touched that I may get to play this character."
Guillermo del Toro has already told the press that Jones is his monster, though nothing is official yet. Regardless, with a visionary like del Toro at the helm, the master of many faces, Doug Jones, under the mask, and the inspiration from Bernie Wrightson, this may just be the horror movie of the decade.
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Your friendly neighborhood Falcon,
John "Falcon" Ayers