Ron Perlman strikes with Amazon's 'Hand of God'

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – Ron Perlman has traded in his motorcycle club cut for a judge's robes, but the Sons of Anarchy star still dwells in a violent world in Amazon Studios' Hand of God.

In Hand, which is available for streaming starting Sept. 4, Perlman plays powerful, law-bending judge Pernell Harris, a married man with a regular call-girl appointment who suffers a mental breakdown and starts to believe he is getting messages and visions from God.

Those messages appear to be coming from his comatose son, who shot himself in the head shortly after being forced to watch his wife being raped. At the son's apparent request, Harris begins a vigilante quest to find his daughter-in-law's rapist.

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Creator Ben Watkins, speaking Monday at the Television Critics Association summer press tour, was asked about whether those messages indicated that the judge was divinely inspired or going insane.

"More than one thing can be true at once," he said. "The answer can be one or the other. The answer can be multiple things."

Perlman, a veteran of film and television, said he was excited to be doing his first series with Amazon, a streaming service.

"The only thing that allows them to grab the attention of the audience out there is originality," he said. "Amazon has been able to meet that head on and celebrate the originality of it."

Dana Delany, who plays Harris' wife, Crystal, found the Amazon experience freeing. "With women, always the thing on network television (is) the likability factor. That's something Amazon never mentioned."

Hand also stars Garret Dillahunt as a born-again sociopath in league with Harris; Andre Royo as the judge's ally and city's mayor; Julian Morris as a morally questionable preacher; and Alona Tal as the judge's daughter-in-law.