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- Caption: Doug Jones as Abe Sapien / The Chamberlain / The Angel of Death in Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (2008)
- Description:
You may not recognize his face on first (or even second) glance, but chances are if you're a fan of film and television you're already more familiar with Doug Jones than you realize. A master of disguise who could be equated to a modern-day Boris Karloff, Jones can frequently be spotted under some of the most elaborate special effects make-up ever to appear on camera and has an uncanny ability to instill his characters with a soulful sense of personality that simply isn't achievable through computer generated animation.
Jones was born in Indianapolis, Indiana the youngest of four brothers and raised on the city's Northeast side. Upon graduating from Bishop Chatard High School, Jones enrolled in Ball State University to study Telecommunications and Theater. It was there that Jones first took to miming, and his skill as a contortionist would soon lead to frequent commercial work (one of his earliest successes was being cast as the popular Mac Tonight character in a prominent, mid-1980s McDonald's advertising campaign).
While a stint in the Indiana theater circuit helped Jones to get comfortable performing in front of an audience, it wasn't until moving to Los Angeles in 1985 that he would become a regular fixture in the worlds of film and television. Early film roles for Jones included bit parts in Batman Returns, Hocus Pocus, and Tank Girl, with a small role in emerging Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro's sophomore effort Mimic (1997) serving to launch an enduring and fruitful partnership.
An appearance as one of the terrifying Gentlemen in an Emmy nominated Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode entitled Hush proved a highlight of the entire series. In the following year Jones would appear in such prolific box-office blockbusters as Men in Black II and The Time Machine - his visage frequently hidden under copious amounts of prosthetic special effects make-up.
While it was Jones' remarkable ability to project emotion through layer upon layer of monster make-up that enabled him to create unusual characters with whom the audience could connect with emotionally, his talents as a contortionist also allowed him to instill those characters with an strangely fluid sense of movement that made them entirely believable.
And while his collaboration with Del Toro momentarily lapsed with such efforts as The Devils Backbone and Blade II, the release of Hellboy in 2002 found the partnership between the pair growing stronger than ever. Cast in the part of aquatic fish-man Abe Sapien, Jones proved so effective that actor David Hyde Pierce refused to take credit for voicing the role.
Two short years later, Jones would essay the role as both the titular character and the horrifying Pale Man in Del Toro's Oscar-winning fantasy film Pan's Labyrinth. Additional roles for Jones have included that of various imps in the movie Doom and Cesare in the 2005 remake The Cabinet of Dr.
Caligary. In 2006 and 2007 the increasingly prolific actor would reprise his role as Abe Sapien in a pair of animated Hellboy tales before portraying the eponymous otherworldly visitor in Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer and preparing to bring Sapien back to the big screen in Hellboy 2: The Golden Army.
~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide. - Actor/Actress/Director: Doug Jones
- Movie: Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Hellboy 2) ( photos )
- Id: 11043590
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