Doug Jones

In person, Doug Jones appears to be normal. He calls himself a dyed-in-the-wool Christian from the Midwest and almost didn’t take the role of Abe Sapien because he wasn’t sure he wanted to be in, you know, Hellboy. Because Hell. And demon. And so forth. And that means it was totally in character for him to post an image on Instagram, I believe it was, with a Bible verse. And a B&W picture of himself with a rose. Midwestern Christians are gonna Midwestern Christian. The next post was him, in full colour, assuring us that he was not, in fact, dead and that had not been what that post was. Because being Abe Sapien, among other things, has made him beloved.

I asked in the writers’ section of the Media Magpies Discord (the part accessible to Patreon subscribers is also pretty cool!) if the article image for this piece had to look recognizably like Doug Jones, and the immediate response was that he almost never looks recognizably like Doug Jones. Which, you know, is true. I do now know what he looks like, but for a solid decade at least of his career I knew his name and even somewhat his voice but not his face, because none of the roles I knew him for required knowing what his face looks like. Guillermo del Toro, in particular, likes putting him in heavy prosthetics. It’s probably why he’s not in TrollHunters; no opportunity for makeup.

Actually, the first place I saw him on the big screen, I saw his face. He’s Pencilhead in Mystery Men. Which is a delight; he’s in the audition party. I love that scene. Though the first place I saw him full stop was as Mac Tonight, probably, on the old McDonald’s commercials. Where his head was the Moon, because okay, sure. I’m not sure if that was his voice or not, but it was certainly not the most complicated makeup he’d ever appear under.

He now has a clause in his contract that he can’t be dubbed over for English-language dialogue. Yes on, say, his Spanish in El Laberinto del Fauno, because he doesn’t really speak Spanish and del Toro wanted a bit more nuance in the dialogue, which is absolutely fair. Less so when his voice suddenly sounds like Laurence Fishburne as the Silver Surfer because the studio wanted more big names attached. I’m given to understand David Hyde Pierce chose not to return as the voice of Abe Sapiens because he was so fond of the work Jones was doing and thought he deserved more of the attention, which is incredibly sweet of him.

Once again, we are talking about someone who seems charming. A talented, pleasant man. He’s a contortionist and aware of the fact that, yeah, being a contortionist means your acting roles are probably going to require makeup. He is quietly beloved. The kind of role he does means a lot of moving between miserable schlock and That Oscar-Winning Movie About Monster Sex, but you know, it’s a living.