Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, and Guillermo del Toro on the set of Hellboy II Courtesy of Universal

Another scene in HBII recalls the cantina scene in Star Wars and much of Men in Black, where strange creatures nonchalantly mix with the mundane. Hellboy and his colleagues are strolling through the troll market underneath the Brooklyn Bridge while similarly bizarre creatures wander among them.

"Mike kept referencing that cantina scene, but I wanted to do something different," del Toro says. "Putting the creatures in the background makes them more like extras, and they become more textural."

On the set, del Toro will use as long as he needs to get the shot that he envisions in his head. He'll never do less than three to four takes, and will use up to 12 takes if necessary. "I'm pretty obsessive. I usually have one vision, and until that vision appears, I keep shooting."

Yet it's not without cause, according to Selma Blair, who stars as Hellboy's flame of a girlfriend, Liz Sherman.

"He actually did a lot more takes for the first one," she recalls. "He's not shy about asking for what he wants. Everyone has so much respect for him. The mood on the set is that we're working with one of the most important directors in the world today."

Adds Tambor, "He has a strong sense of what he wants, but it's not a stern set. We have big laughs. He's painstaking on light and effects but later on, when you see it, you are grateful for both."

However, such perfection doesn't come without a price. The productions have been long, far away from home (the first film was shot in Prague and Hellboy II in Budapest), and, especially for star Ron Perlman, tiresome. Getting into his Hellboy character — horns and all — was exhausting for the actor, and tough to take on a daily basis.

"I think he'd much rather not wear makeup and prosthetics, but he only does it because he likes the character as much as I do," del Toro says. "Sometimes he'd be in the makeup chair for six hours and then shoot for 10 hours. We have a friendship that goes back 15 years. We can be frank and brutal with each other."

The buzz around del Toro this summer will be nothing compared what's coming his way when he begins work on The Lord of the Rings prequel, The Hobbit. After years of chatter about The Hobbit's big screen future, producer Peter Jackson and New Line officially announced in April that del Toro would direct two films based the Tolkien classic. The second film will lead directly into The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.