{"id":121742,"date":"2017-12-23T06:00:59","date_gmt":"2017-12-23T11:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oncubamagazine.com\/?p=111213"},"modified":"2018-06-19T04:59:02","modified_gmt":"2018-06-19T08:59:02","slug":"ron-perlman-so-fucking-proud-to-film-in-cuba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/advertorial\/ron-perlman-so-fucking-proud-to-film-in-cuba\/","title":{"rendered":"Ron Perlman, \u201cso fucking proud\u201d to film in Cuba"},"content":{"rendered":"

 
\nFor Cubans Ron Perlman will always be Vincent, the main character of the TV series Beauty and the Beast, a role that made an impression on several of the island\u2019s generations ever since it was broadcast for the first time in the late 1980s.
\nBut starting now, Perlman \u2013 who has been Amoukar in Quest for Fire, Salvatore in The Name of the Rose, Angel in Cronos and in Hellboy in the saga of the same name \u2013 will also be Peter, the \u201cquasi revolutionary Jewish journalist from New York,\u201d in the Cuban film Sergio and Sergei.
\nThe film, directed by Ernesto Daranas (Los dioses rotos, Conducta), was premiered in Cuba as part of the 39th International New Latin American Film Festival, and the famous U.S. actor didn\u2019t want to miss it.
\nHe traveled to Havana for a premiere that had to be suspended a few times but that finally had its reward last Wednesday in the Acapulco movie theater.
\n\u201cIt was really exciting,\u201d he said a day later to the press in the Hotel Nacional. \u201cI was able to feel the spectators during the entire presentation: they laughed at every funny thing, remained very quiet and reverent with each moving scene, and believe me, I\u2019ve been in the presentation of many movies in 45 years and the final applause was genuine and pure love for the film.\u201d
\nPerlman accompanied Daranas and other members of the film crew in a press conference, in which he told how he got involved in the project and showed all the charisma and sense of humor that the film\u2019s director advanced when presenting him.
\n\u201cHe is very professional and a very congenial guy to film with,\u201d the director commented when telling the story about his first meeting in Cuba in which, through producer Adriana Moya of RTV Comercial, he negotiated with Perlman his participation in the film.
\nThe actor responded with a joke: \u201cDaranas convinced me because he said there would be a lot of chocolate on the set\u2026. But there was no chocolate.\u201d
\nThe protagonist of series like Sons of Anarchy and Hand of God did not hide the emotion Cuba awakens in him, a passion that, he affirms, he caught from Mexican filmmaker Gabriel Beristain. He traveled to Havana with him to explore possibilities of collaboration and ended up finding a link with his own life, with his past.
\n\u201cI wouldn\u2019t know how to describe well how I felt in Cuba, but it was like when you leave home and get to another place in which you feel you are home again. It was a very moving, very gut feeling,\u201d he said to OnCuba.
\n\u201cI felt like when I was 10, when I was experiencing childhood and adulthood at the same time, and I remembered things from my own life linked to Cuba, like President Kennedy\u2019s assassination, the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Missile Crisis, experiences that marked my political awakening. It was very moving to come and be able to be part of the film.\u201d
\n

\"Ron<\/a>
Ron Perlman with Daranas (standing) and director of photography Alejandro Men\u00e9ndez during the shooting of \u201cSergio and Sergei.\u201d Photo: Sergio and Sergei Film \/ Facebook.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Sergio, Sergei and Peter<\/h3>\n

In Sergio and Sergei, Ron Perlman shares the protagonist triad with Cubans Tom\u00e1s Cao and H\u00e9ctor Noas, who play the part of a Cuban professor of philosophy and radio ham (Sergio) and of a Russian cosmonaut trapped in the Mir space station (Sergei).
\nPerlman was proposed the role of Peter, a New York Jewish journalist who is trying to expose the corruption in his country\u2019s government, is watched by government agents and starts communicating with the other two in an attempt to rescue the abandoned Russian cosmonaut.
\nHowever, the American \u2013 very Jewish and a New Yorker \u2013 has his own (funny) version of the story:
\n\u201cI started wondering what my job in the film would be and I asked Adriana [Moya] if what they wanted was that a play the role of the Cuban professor of philosophy, and she said no. Then I said to her \u2018OK, you want me for the Russian cosmonaut,\u2019 and she said no again, so I told her that I couldn\u2019t be a Jewish U.S. journalist who lives in New York because that wasn\u2019t me.\u201d
\nApart from the joke, Perlman affirmed having been fascinated with \u201ca plot that mixes such different characters and political and ideological positions in one same story,\u201d in such a significant moment as 1991, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
\n\u201cI loved all that,\u201d he confirmed to OnCuba.
\nFor the actor it was a delight to work with Daranas, whom he calls \u201ca visionary director.\u201d His character, he said, has \u201ca beautiful evolution\u201d based on what was initially written in the script, thanks to the interaction between him and Daranas.
\n\u201cHe is the most important person in this entire mix,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

More than a character<\/h3>\n

Perlman was so enthusiastic about the project that he even decided to participate in its production, at a time in which he was launching his own independent studio (Wing & A Prayer Pictures).
\nThus he fully embraced what he would later define as \u201cthe first Cuban-American feature coproduction in almost 60 years,\u201d together with Cuba\u2019s RTV Comercial and ICAIC, the Spanish MediaPro and the international producer WestEnd Films.
\n\u201cFor me it was clear that if we made this project come true it would be one of the most amazing moments of my life,\u201d he affirmed at the press conference.
\nHe was especially attracted by the possibility of working far away from the big Hollywood studios.
\n\u201cWhen making an independent film you know that all the persons involved are not in it for the money but because they love cinema and share the enthusiasm for the film\u2019s vision. That is the purest of the experiences an artist can have.\u201d
\n

\"\u201cSergio<\/a>
\u201cSergio and Sergei\u201d press conference in the Hotel Nacional de Cuba. Photo: Sergio and Sergei Film \/ Facebook.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nPerlman\u2019s political intrepidness also played a part.
\n\u201cI supposedly shouldn\u2019t have been in Cuba. Obama still hadn\u2019t come and I didn\u2019t even know if it was legal to be here having a beer,\u201d he commented.
\n\u201cTo be able to film, I had to go to the American Actors Association because I can\u2019t work anywhere on the planet without their permission, and the Association reminded me that there was an embargo, and I said to them: \u2018Really? I hadn\u2019t heard about that\u2026,\u2019\u201d he said between chuckles.
\n\u201cThere were many weapons pointed at many heads, but I\u2019m very proud to have gotten the Association to allow me to come to Cuba to film as a guest actor. I had to fill out many permit pages to be able to work here, on a film in which what was most important wasn\u2019t the money but rather the love of cinema, but in the end we were able to do it.
\n\u201cImagine what I feel to be one of the first American actors to come to Cuba to work in the middle of a more than 50-year embargo, not in a U.S. production but in a Cuban film. I\u2019m so fucking proud of having done it. It\u2019s a great feeling.\u201d
\nTN: Perlman\u2019s quotes were retranslated from the Spanish.<\/p>\n