With the Hellboy reboot now in post-production ahead of its release next January, actor Ian McShane – who is set to take on the role of Professor Broom, head of the B.P.R.D. and Hellboy’s adoptive father – has been chatting to Fandom about the movie, and his character’s relationship with David Harbour’s titular hero.
“You don’t start with the birth of Hellboy, but the relationship between [Hellboy and Broom] is quite crusty. Does he trust his father? [Hellboy asks], ‘Why didn’t you kill me? I’m a monster.’ It’s a little bit of a psychological battle against Hellboy. There’s one important moment in [the film] when [Hellboy] sort of thinks he’s fighting his own people, the outsiders. So, he’s being used by the insiders, which is me, if you like.”
The character of Professor Broom was played by the late John Hurt in Guillermo del Toro’s two films, and McShane went on to state that: “I’m sort of playing this part as a slight homage to John [Hurt]. I mean, I’m not playing it like him, obviously… but the relationship [with Hellboy] is very much the same.”
SEE ALSO: David Harbour on reinventing Hellboy, and the heavy makeup process
Hellboy is directed by Neil Marshall (Game of Thrones), with Stranger Things star David Harbour taking on the lead role alongside Ian McShane (American Gods) as Professor Broom, Sasha Lane (American Honey) as Alice Monaghan, Milla Jovovich (Resident Evil) as the Queen of Blood, Daniel Dae Kim (Hawaii Five-O) as Major Ben Daimio and Penelope Mitchell (The Vampire Diaries) as Ganeida. It is set for release on January 11th 2019.
Originally published January 24, 2018. Updated April 16, 2018.
