In 'Hellboy 2: The Golden Army' Selma Blair plays the pyrokinetic Liz Sherman, a member of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense and love interest of Hellboy, who comes into her own.
Blair explains, "In ['Hellboy'], she definitely had some hang-ups. She had some baggage, mostly under her eyes, looking back at that. She was sad. Her powers led to a lot of destruction; and in this one she matured and she could use her power and she's with Hellboy and she's a capable functioning woman. Still a little bit brooding, but definitely she's stronger. It was strange to play it. I thought I knew Liz and thought it would just be a cakewalk, but it's strange playing her with a little more confidence. I kept wanting to go back to the hesitant Liz."
Liz is the only member of the BPRD that appears human as the other characters are created through make-up and special effects. She "didn't realize it until we were halfway through with the movie and I was like, 'Wait a minute, I'm the only face here.' It just seemed wild. I don't know what that says about me, but didn't even notice it.
"I'm told that at one point when we are doing the golden army scene, which is the only CGI stuff in the movie and everything else was really there including the monsters, which was cool to look at and I said, 'Where are you guys looking?' and someone said it didn't matter because no one could see their eyes, and I realized, 'Oh my God! Everyone can see my eyes! Oh my God! I have a face! I have a face!' There was a moment of terror. I'm going to be the one that will crap all over this movie. I'm going to be the mess."
The most challenging sequence for Blair was "probably some of one with the guns in the auction house scene because. It's very embarrassing but I'm actually really good with a gun. My sister was a cop for twelve years so she always taught me about gun safety and everything, but I never pretended to shoot a gun on camera because you don't actually have bullets of course and you will do a couple with blanks but with the rest you are just miming it.
"It's such a strange thing to shoot a gun and pretend like there's a kickback. I'm not a very good mime. I'm the pits. I have to admit that I'm not a good action star. Doug [Jones] too and Guillermo calls us "Selma and Louise." He looks like Barberella in the background and we're the pits. We were on the floor laughing at what little girls we look like with the guns in the background and Guillermo thought that we would never get through the scene."
Although there's plenty of action and special effects to go around, at its core 'Hellboy 2' is a love story. Blair noted the characters had "a stronger relationship but I always knew that it was headed that way. The first one seemed that Liz and Hellboy had a bond, and I was just waiting to move into this direction and that we would be together."
When talking about how Guillermo's use of real creatures over CGI helps an actor, she explained, "It adds a sense of reality; and when you are making such a fantastical movie like this, it can only help. To have Hellboy dressed up so realistically everyday, it made it so real. When we did the first one, the first moment I stepped on set with him, I wondered if I should touch him. Does it make a noise? Will it pop if I try to caress it? No. I have never worked with prosthetic boyfriend," Blair said, laughing. "That doesn't sound great but I'm sure I have...I didn't know what to expect. It was so real. Guillermo has put so much love and effort into this monster-making that after that first scene was done, I completely bought my love story with Hellboy. It made sense to me. After that scene, it never seemed weird. I never once questioned this person in a suit. It didn't seem like that."
In terms of the working atmosphere on the set, they "were working at such an intense pace because we had so little time to get so much done that there so little time for clowning around or letting any mistakes happen because we needed to get it done. It was a precise set."
But that didn't mean there weren't moments of levity. "We always had Jeffrey Tambor singing…Frank Sinatra songs and old show tunes. It's so surreal, and then there's Hellboy crooning with a cigar. It always blows my mind. It's fun. It's really fun. It's an intense work schedule, six-day weeks, mostly nights, and I would be off shivering in a corner somewhere. None of them were cold because they always had on prosthetic gear on but usually sweating. They were grateful when winter came around. In the summer, they hated life."
In reaction to the completed product she "thought the film was pretty epic. I thought Guillermo really did an amazing film. I can't believe how successfully he covered all the bases. Everything is in the film from love and death and amazing action sequences, and war and monsters, and it's incredible."
When asked about a potential 'Hellboy III' down the line and thoughts on what the story might be, Blair responded, "God, I hope it happens. I guess I better take my Geritol. (Laughs) We haven't really talked about it. We've talked about what the storyline would be like in 'Hellboy III,' which excites me, and I think Liz would be in unendurable pain, and I would love to see what Guillermo would bring to that. The Angel of Death assures her of that. Guillermo is such a master of raising the stakes of what something could be and what's possible and I would love to see what that is, but I don't know. It depends on the success of this movie."
'Hellboy II: The Golden Army' opens in theaters this Friday.
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