Crispin Glover has a new movie out this weekend, and I did begin the interview by talking about The Bag Man. Glover plays a motel manager when a criminal for hire (John Cusack) holes up with the bag his boss (Robert DeNiro) hired him to obtain. However, Crispin Glover has many other interesting roles I wanted to talk about. There’s Back to the Future of course, and something I found clips of online called Rubin and Ed. I didn’t even have time to bring up What’s Eating Gilbert Grape or Wild at Heart. Glover also directs his own films and he told us all about where we can see them when we spoke by phone for The Bag Man.
CraveOnline: Each of the characters you play is so unique, including this one in The Bag Man, do directors know what they’re getting when they cast you?
Crispin Glover: Yeah, I feel like usually a director that’s approaching me for something, like I had not met David Grovic before. I think we spoke on the telephone but the offer was made before we spoke on the telephone. I think directors usually, my sense is, that they’ve seen me in various films and that they have something in their mindset that it will encompass. They may not know exactly what choices I would make or something but they know that they’ve seen me in enough things where they have found the character or the thought process proper enough for whatever it is that they’ve got in mind for me to play that character.
And then it’s like as it would be with any actor that you would cast without having had them audition for it, but there would be a trust that they’re not going to do something that makes no sense whatsoever, but there could be something differentiated. In this particular case, I liked the dialogue right away when I read it. Immediately the way that I looked in the film is what came into my head essentially, and how I would say it came into my head. I believe we discussed it a bit but that’s normal.
I’m all for auditioning for films. I find that it’s rare that I get called in for auditions. It’s very rare and I don’t have any problem doing it. I’m happy to read for a part, but I find that usually I get offered parts and that was the case in this.
Really, what was the last movie you auditioned for?
I think the last film that I had an audition for was a studio film, it would be 2002 that I auditioned. I think the film was done in 2003. It was called Like Mike. It’s a kids movie. I think what it was was the director wanted me and I think it was just the studio wanted to see a tape of how I was going to play it. So I knew that the director wanted me and I did the audition as he wanted me to do it and I got it.
That actually was a year it was very important for me to work because I had funded the second film. I tour with films, What is it? and It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine. and I perform two different live shows for each of those two different films. I’m on year nine of touring with the films now. I had just funded Everything is Fine with the money that I made from the first Charlie’s Angels film. I shot it on sets and I essentially spent all of my income from that movie, from Charlie’s Angels, on It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine., mainly for the sets.
So I actually had the most severe economic concern I ever have had that year and I was very glad when that audition came up because I really needed to work. I was very glad when I got it. Subsequently, that year, I felt like work was going to come on and I kind of knew that the sequel to Charlie’s Angels was coming up but I didn’t know exactly when it would be and I really was concerned about money. I got that Like Mike and then the last week of shooting Like Mike I got the offer for Willard, and I actually had to shoot one day of Willard while I was still finishing Like Mike. I look relatively different in Willard.
Then I went straight into shooting Willard. I finished Willard on a Friday, we shot that in Vancouver, and then came back to Los Angeles and started training. We did physical training for the second Charlie’s Angels film. So that ended up being my best monetary year. I took all that money and put it into private property that I own in the Czech Republic which is where I’m shooting my next feature film right now. I bought it specifically for that reason, because I like to shoot on sets.
