Ron Perlman has a long list of impressive credits on his resume, including his fan-favorite portrayal of Hellboy in a pair of movies from 2004 and 2008. He also has a long history in video games, thanks to his work on the Fallout franchise. Perlman famously voiced the opening and closing narration for five games in the series, and he also voiced Butch Harris in the original game as well as the newscaster in both Fallout 4 and Fallout 76, leaving his imprint across the entire series. Starting in 2024, Amazon Prime Video gave new life to this saga with the live-action Fallout series, starring Ella Purnell, Walton Goggins, Kyle MacLachlan, Aaron Moten, and plenty of other A-list stars. Considering Perlman’s deep ties to the story, many hoped there would be a chance for him to play a role in the new series; however, it didn’t happen as easily as fans might have hoped. Speaking with MovieWeb’s Joe Deckelmeier during a panel at MegaCon 2026 in Orlando, Florida, Perlman discussed the process of getting involved in the live-action Fallout TV series. Noting that he was in one scene in Season 2 as Super Mutant, “a character that may or may not reappear,” he looked back on how he joined the original franchise for next to nothing, and reflected on how fast the games became a hit:
“The whole thing was like a mindf***. I never expect anything I do to hit the bell at the top of the thing. So I did the first ‘Fallout, as I said on other occasions, for $40 and a sandwich. And then a year and a half later, I get a call to do the second one, and I found out, ‘Oh, it was the biggest-selling game of the year.’ And of course, we’re doing a second one. Then there was a third, a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth. And then there was an announcement that Amazon is doing a live-action, very expensive, huge, epic version of the game in a new TV series. And the whole thing was like a mindf***, it was like $40 in a sandwich.”

He was eventually called to present at the Saturn Awards, where he was seated next to “the entire brain trust” from the show’s production team and multiple actors from the show. Jokingly noting that he didn’t get called for a role in the series, he made it clear that there were no hard feelings, even though he called them out for not including him in the show on stage:
“And then I was asked to present…they have these things called the Saturn Awards, which are mostly for science-oriented horror, and its on a Saturday once a year, and it’s a banquet. So, you’re having lunch, Burbank, 16 people at a table, and I was invited to be a presenter at the Saturn Awards two years ago. I wasn’t sure who I was presenting it to, I just knew it was free lunch. Turns out, I’m presenting an award to the team of ‘Fallout,’ wow! And I’m sitting at the table with the entire brain trust, from Geneva to Jamie Nolan to the whole brain trust of ‘Fallout’ is at this table, and some of the actors are there, 16 people and me. And I got a beef with them, right? Because they started shooting the series. My phone didn’t f***ing ring, but they’re lovely people, and we’re having a great, great time. And then I get up and am invited to come onstage to present them, and I give this speech how, ‘My phone never f***ing rang,’ the first F-bomb of the afternoon.”
After playing such a big role in the original run of video games, Perlman noted that the team behind the live-action series wanted to bring him in as soon as the show was announced. While it took them a long time to figure it out, he compared his appearance to “an amuse-bouche” from the world of food, hinting at how small the part was. Although he doesn’t know if or when he might return, he admitted that anything can happen, something he’s definitely learned through his experience in this business:
“So, right off the bat, I had everybody’s attention. And, you know, f*** these people, and they eat nicely. I’ve been having lunch with them, and here they are. And the following Monday, we were on the phone with all of them, and I was talking about how they’ve been racking their brain since they got greenlit to do the series, to figure out how to bring me in. And it sounded like they really, really were not going to bring me in unless they thought they could come up with something worthy, you know…And it took them that long to figure it out. They knew it long before I got invited to present their awards. I didn’t know it at all. And then we went and did this one scene, which is kind of like an amuse-bouche, they call it in the restaurant, free hors d’oeuvres from the kitchen. Nobody ordered it, nobody thinks they wanted it. That’s how long my scene was, an amuse-bouche that wasn’t on the menu. But we’ll see, who knows? I have no idea where it goes from here. It could have been one and done, I’ve seen that happen before in this business, but who knows?”
The Fallout series has already been renewed for Season 3, and while story details remain under wraps for the foreseeable future, fans remain hopeful that Perlman will get more opportunities to shine in a story he played such a big part in building from the ground up.

Both seasons of Fallout are available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.

Release Date

April 10, 2024

Network

Amazon Prime Video

Directors

Frederick E. O. Toye, Wayne Che Yip, Stephen Williams, Liz Friedlander, Jonathan Nolan, Daniel Gray Longino, Clare Kilner