Rob London

Published Sep 28, 2026, 12:00 PM EDT

A cinematic obsessive with the filmic palate of a starving raccoon, Rob London will watch pretty much anything once. With a mind like a steel trap, he’s an endless fount of movie and TV trivia, borne from a misspent youth of watching monster movies on TV, perusing the sun-faded goods at the local video rental shop, and staining his fingers with ink from the Video Movie Guide. Areas of interest include science fiction, film noir, horror flicks, ’70s disaster pictures, Bond movies, ’90s action, giant robots, dinosaurs, super heroes, and the exuberantly schlocky output of Cannon Films. He also enjoys both Star Trek and Star Wars when they’re good, and maybe even more when they’re bad. As a Canadian, he also has a vested interest in Canadian movies and TV shows, especially the cheesier ones dubbed “Canuxploitation.”

An expert on Marvel Comics, he has also written for the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, and is a member of the Marvel Research Team. He can frequently be found pontificating on comic-book continuity or bemoaning the misfortunes of the Toronto Maple Leafs on his Twitter account.

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Ron Perlman has played a lot of creatures over the course of his career, from the leonine Vincent in Beauty and the Beast to the titular heroic hellraiser in Hellboy. But now, he’s launching a campaign to help some real creatures. ​​​​​​​Perlman has never been shy about advocacy. He’s a vocal opponent of the Trump Administration and proponent of progressive political causes. He was very vocal during the twin SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes of 2023, especially after an article ran in *Deadline *in which an anonymous Hollywood executive said the studios intended to let the strikes go on until union members started losing their houses. Perlman recorded a video on Instagram in response: in a menacing tone familiar to fans of his on-screen work, he suggested that there were “a lot of ways to lose your house,” which he later clarified he wasn’t calling for violence. Next, Perlman is taking a stand against what he calls unethical animal experimentation on monkeys at his alma mater, and Collider is proud to exclusively present the open letter he’s written to the university’s administration.

Now, Perlman and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals are calling out the University of Minnesota for their cruel treatment of their macaque test subjects. Perlman graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1973 with a master’s degree in theater arts, and soon became a respected character actor. In an open letter to university president Rebecca Cunningham, Perlman calls for disciplinary action against researchers Jan Zimmermann and Matt Johnson, and for the university’s surviving research macaques to be transferred to a reputable primate sanctuary. Another Minnesota researcher, Geoff Ghose, was recently suspended for violating the university’s policies regarding animal research; Perlman regards this as a good first step, but wants further action to be taken.

Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.

You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.

You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.

You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.

You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.

You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.

The full text of Perlman’s letter is as follows:

I am writing to urge the University of Minnesota to retire the surviving monkeys used in experiments by Jan Zimmermann and Matt Johnson to reputable sanctuaries, where they can finally begin to recover from years of invasive experimentation. I was encouraged to learn that, following a formal letter of reprimand and the cancellation of his protocols, Geoff Ghose no longer experiments on monkeys. I respectfully ask the university to take similarly decisive action against Zimmermann and Johnson, end their experiments on monkeys, and ensure that no other monkeys are subjected to such suffering.

I have learned that, for years, these laboratories have subjected monkeys to invasive brain surgeries in which portions of their skulls are removed, metal devices are implanted into their heads, and electrodes are inserted into their brains. According to records obtained by PETA, these laboratories have experienced repeated surgical complications, infections, device failures, and other serious animal-welfare concerns, raising profound questions about oversight and accountability.

At a time when leading universities are increasingly embracing sophisticated human-based technologies—including organs-on-chips, organoids, advanced imaging, and artificial intelligence—that are more directly relevant to human biology, and when funding priorities at the National Institutes of Health and among private philanthropies increasingly reflect that shift, continuing to rely on invasive monkey experiments leaves the University of Minnesota increasingly out of step with the direction of modern biomedical research.

Retiring the surviving monkeys to reputable sanctuaries would allow them to live out the rest of their lives in peace after enduring years of invasive procedures. After everything these monkeys have endured, they deserve retirement—not another experiment. Taking this step would also demonstrate compassionate leadership and help ensure that no other monkeys are subjected to similar suffering.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I respectfully urge you to act.

Perlman recently turned up in Apple’s Cape Fear, as the father of Max Cady (Javier Bardem). Coming up next for him is the World War II film Fortitude, in which he’ll play General George S. Patton. Next year, he’ll star alongside Adam Scott and Danielle Deadwyler in the black comedy The Saviors. He’s also set to reunite with many of his Sons of Anarchy castmates in the upcoming series Legacy, a meta-take on the show’s fandom and popularity.

Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.

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