BY BOB STRAUSS >FILM CRITIC

Ron Perlman is really a rather handsome devil.

Impressive jawline. Baby-blue eyes. Cleans up well.

Nice voice, too. He sings good karaoke.

But for most of his acting career, the powerfully built New Yorker has been associated with ... unlovely types. Maybe it's the hint of Neanderthal on that marvelously symmetrical head.

Or maybe it's his own damn fault.

"When I first started out in this business, I was really, really quite uncomfortable in my own skin. Luckily, the good Lord provided these roles almost in chronological order," says Perlman, referring to makeup-heavy work. "First it was `Quest for Fire,' which was mask acting. Then it was `The Name of the Rose,' which was mask acting.

"Then (TV's) `Beauty and the Beast.' They all happened during a period in my life when I was more comfortable behind the mask than I would've been naked, like this."

These days Perlman, who is in his late 50s, says he's quite comfortable in his own skin and no longer needs the mask as much as he used to. "So, now, it becomes about how much pleasure I'm going to take in a masked character."

Hellboy must be delightful. Perlman has played the scarlet-skinned superhero with the sawed-off devil horns twice now. And he does it thoroughly.

"It's complete transformation," Perlman explains. "There's none of me that's visible at the end of the day. But it's well worth the effort because the guy I'm transformed into is someone I'm sure a lot of guys would aspire to be."

It can't be easy, though, to project feelings past all those layers of latex. Even for a classically trained stage veteran like Perlman.

But rubber apparently has its pluses.

"You get to see a side of Hellboy's vulnerabilities in `The Golden Army' that you weren't quite as much aware of in the first film. What I found when I watched it was that whatever it was that I was trying to emotionally portray was enhanced by the makeup. It's pretty unbelievable that all that rubber can be as expressive as it is without me having to make any adjustment whatsoever. I just played him honestly and truthfully."

>Bob Strauss