Interview by Nick Hyman
(With Additional Interviewing by Wendy Lynch & Mark Redfern)
Intro by Nick Hyman
Photos by Wendy Lynch

Crispin Hellion Glover is also known as George McFly, Willard, Andy Warhol, Cousin “I’m making my lunch!” Dell, Rubin, the guy who went crazy on Letterman, the Thin Man, and, imminently, Grendel. Crispin Glover has been the epitome of the cult actor since the mid-’80s, when his star-making turn as Marty McFly’s dad in Back to the Future charmed audiences and his portrayal of Layne in River’s Edge guaranteed that he was a performer to watch no matter how big or small his roles. Though his persona has garnered him a devoted fanbase (including early-’90s fanzine, Mr. Density), for the most part, the actor, writer, and filmmaker was and still remains enigmatic to many.

For the past ten years, Glover has been working on What Is It?, the first part of a planned trilogy of films that perhaps only Glover could have envisioned. With a cast made up almost entirely of Down syndrome actors, Glover himself, and emotive snails, the film draws on influences from such diverse filmmakers as Fritz Lang, Werner Herzog, Luis Buñuel, and David Lynch. With the first part of his magnum opus completed, Glover, whose works in progress have screened sporadically over the years, is now road-showing his film throughout the U.S., signing books and even presenting a slideshow about his creative work.

In this interview with Under the Radar, Glover opens up and talks about how he got his start, Back to the Future and suing Steven Spielberg, and how Charlie’s Angels afforded him more freedom as an actor than most of the films he’s ever worked on. We spoke to Glover in the living room of his Los Angeles house, after he screened What Is It? for us and some other journalists on a video projector in his bedroom. We now pull the velvet curtain back on one of the most singular talents of modern cinema.

Nick: You’ve had such a career.

Crispin: I guess so, at this point. I started when I was 14, and I’m 42 now, which is weird. [Laughs] So that’s 28, is that 28 years? I think it is.

Nick: How did you get started? Your dad was an actor, correct?

Crispin: Yeah, he still is. He’s in the sequel to What Is It? Both my mother and father are in the sequel. My mother was primarily a dancer and did musicals. She played Lola in the touring company of Damn Yankees. And other musical things as well. My parents met in New York on an audition. My mother retired when I was born, and my father still acts. And both of them have actually significant roles in part two, Everything Is Fine! They both did a good job.

Nick: Do you have any siblings?

Crispin: Well, I was raised as an only child, yeah.

Mark: What do your parents think of What Is It?

Crispin: They have not yet seen the 35-millimeter print of it. They haven't seen anything since what you saw as a bootleg. Which I should say, you better be very, very careful. If they find out about bootlegs or anything like that, I really, I wouldn’t be easy about it. Because it’s just so much of my life. Somebody did try to sell it on eBay at one time and I was nice about it that time. But I wouldn’t ever be nice again. So if people come across bootlegs, they should let me know. [Laughs] Because I don’t want them around.

Nick: Can they get in touch with you at your website?

Crispin: Oh, yeah. I mean I don’t use the website really as a personal contact space. It really is for booking the film. Theater owners often book me and write letters. I have a long list and then I’ll be continuing to be touring around with the film for years to come, really. And the big slide show, which is an hour dramatic presentation. A narration of eight different books that I have slides of and I've been doing it for many years. I do that for an hour before the film, and the film is 72 minutes. And then I have a question and answer period that lasts for about 25 minutes and then I have a book signing. Wait, I was saying something before that about, I can’t remember.

Nick: Well we were talking about your upbringing and how you got started into acting.

Crispin: Right. So when I was— I was around 13, 12 or 13 when I kind of became aware that it was…really an understanding that it would be something that I would be able to do. Not, I can’t say it was a drive in the way that it is. I mean now it is my career. I can’t imagine not doing any of the various things that I do. But at that point in time, I just, there was a logic to it. I knew kind of what the business was about and I knew I would be able to step into it. I did not, it’s not necessarily that my nature was an actor’s nature. But I knew it was something I’d be able to assimilate. It’s hard to describe. Like, I think my father has more of a personality of an actor than I do. My father loves being on the set and kind of on some level of being the center of attention. And I’m a little more comfortable with the concept being the center of attention than my own self. I think my father is comfortable—he like’s talking about things, too, but there is a slight differentiation. So I think, I’m sure of the fact that I grew up around the business had a great influence on me. My first job I got was when I was 13. It was a Coca-Cola commercial, but I wasn’t there on the day, I don’t normally get sick and I really wasn’t nervous or anything. But I did get the stomach flu and I wasn’t able to shoot it. I was really mad. The first job I actually did was The Sound Of Music at The Dorothy Chandler with Florence Henderson. And I played Friedrich Von Trapp, one of the Von Trapp children. And then we toured to San Francisco and that was a good first job experience.

Nick: I can imagine.

Crispin: Yeah. And then I did some more commercials. I did a television pilot when I was 16. But I didn’t work a lot as a child actor, until I turned 18. ‘Cause the child labor laws, they might be a little easier now, but I really found that I didn’t work a lot until I turned 18. And that’s when I started working in film more. And then I started working a lot.

Nick: Were you afraid of typecasting in some of your earlier adult roles? You seemed to be pegged a little bit as sort of the you know, dark troubled youth.

Crispin: No, I…

Nick: I’m thinking of Teachers and River’s Edge.

Crispin: I liked those roles very much. And I particularly liked the film River’s Edge, it was a good movie. I probably did three movies that I really like that I’m in that are, as movies as a whole. They would be River’s Edge. A film I did at the the AFI. It’s called The Orkly Kid. It’s a 35 minute film. That’s a very good movie, and I do like What Is It? Those are really three movies that I like that I’m in. But, no, one thing that I get asked about that a lot—and one thing that I think actors, especially when they're starting out—is to be recognized for something. So I don't think that’s a bad thing. The concept of having an element that people kind of think of on some level when they think of you, I think is a very good thing to have a kind of identity. And I believe within that identity, there’s a myriad of, or a universe of ideas and elements that can be explored. That isn't to say you know, there are other roles or different types of roles that I wouldn’t mind playing. I mean I’m very glad to be working and I’m very glad to be able to be funding these films of my own. And so I don’t have a complaint about that.

Nick: In those roles, how close were you in real life to those roles? Were you emulating yourself in those roles?

Crispin: I would say those characters are pretty different from myself. But I mean of course you're taught in acting class to utilize elements of your own psyche and portions of your self that are true to the character. But it doesn’t mean you're actually like that person.

Nick: Did you have formal acting training?

Crispin: Oh yeah. I studied really solidly for five years straight. And I started studying formally when I was 15? Yeah, 15. And I studied straight through till I was 20. I had always planned to continue studying. But at a certain point it did become apparent that, it made sense to not. I was in a teenage class when I was 15 and then, with the same teacher I ended up going all the way through till I was 20. But I simultaneously went to another class that was improv with technique as opposed— it wasn’t comedy improv, which is different. Uta Hagen and Michael Chekhov and of course Stanislavski elements are woven into pretty much anything that is taught. And the I did scene study at The Loft studios, which a lot of well known people, like Sean Penn studied there and his brother who, and that was…I’m sad that Chris Penn died. And Nicholas Cage was there for a while. And Eric Stolz and Michelle Pfeiffer, I think, was there. It was a good set up for scene study. But I had learned a lot of technique prior to that. And which I was able to, which was good to utilize in a formal scene study.

Nick: You worked with Eric Stolz in Back to the Future.

Crispin: Right. We actually did a television commercial together when we were 16. I think he’s a year or two older than I am. And he played my older brother and it was a Bayer aspirin commercial.

Nick: How weird that he played your older brother in the commercial, then you played his dad.

Crispin: Mmhmm, we played related people twice.

Nick: How was that? That’s always kept hush-hush that Eric Stolz shot most of Back to the Future as Marty McFly before Michael J. Fox replaced him.

Crispin: Yeah I had shot most of my character when he was replaced with Michael J. Fox. So it was a lot or reshooting. But they did utilize a lot of footage from [the original shoot], so I’m actually playing off of Eric Stolz, but it’s cut in with Michael J. Fox. But then anything I’m in the shot with Michael J. Fox of course it’s with Michael J. Fox.

Nick: That must have been quite odd.

Crispin: Well, it was, it was, it doesn’t, it isn’t easy to re-shoot things, especially if you felt like they went well. You're like, “Oh, did I get it right? I felt good about it the first time, did I do it worse this time?” It’s hard thinking back about that film, my memory of it is tainted by what happened with the subsequent films and the lawsuit [Crispin sued Amblin entertainment over the use of his likeness in second and third Back to the Future films without his permission and financial compensation] and how they had taken another actor and put him in prosthetics with a false nose, chin and cheekbones to make him look like me and then interspliced it with a very little bit of footage of myself, to fool people into believing that was me in the film. Which is still disturbing. Then the lawsuit, which now there is laws in the Screen Actors Guild that make it so producers and actors aren’t able to do that. But strangely, I just worked with [Back to the Future director] Robert Zemeckis again, doing Beowulf, which is interesting in that Angelina Jolie played my mother and Anthony Hopkins played my father.

Nick: You play Grendel, right?

Crispin: Ray Winston played Beowulf. And I played Grendel. It was great to work with all three of those actors. And there were other people around too that I wasn’t in such direct scenes, but I had direct scenes with those three. They were all great. And then I had a really great working experience with Robert Zemeckis himself. So it’s funny how that was, you know, 20, I guess 21, 21 and a half years later that we [laughs] worked again. It’s interesting, you know. Another interesting thing is that when I did the first Charlie’s Angels film, I did have a kind of a strong differentiation in how I started choosing to do movies. They had wanted me to come in for the film and I looked at the screenplay and the character they wanted me for had a lot of dialogue. But it was really quite a lot of exposition and I did not like the dialogue and it was not something I wanted to go in for. But they kept being persistent and asking and they said they wanted to hear my ideas. So, I went in for the meeting and they said, “Well what do you think about this character? What would be good for it?” Then I said, “Well, I think it would be better if the character just didn’t talk at all and was a silent, fighting antagonistic character.” [Director] McG, who can be very enthusiastic, stood up and said, “That’s exactly what we want to do, that’s great, that’s how we’ll play it.” And then they showed me footage of the Juen Woo Ping family that were going to be doing the fight choreography. I realized I had known some of their work and I liked them and I realized it really could be an interesting thing having this silent fighting character working with that team. And strangely, that character, I ultimately had far more influence on than I have had in independent films or studio films. It’s just, there are a lot of things that, the hair stuff. It wasn’t in there originally. And strangely, I knew that I could take that money from that film and directly fund the Steve Stewart film [Everything Is Fine!] whose lung had collapsed earlier that year, or the year before. It became apparent that if we didn’t shoot something soon we may not get to shoot it. So that is what I did. I took that money directly. I did one small independent between them, then there was a six month production with Steve. About three mini-productions inside of six months. And we got the film done and then within a month of that, he died. It was really good that we shot it because that film is getting close now and it’s going to be one of the best films I’ll have something to do with in my career. But since that, in my realization of it, that it was a good thing for me to continue making movies specifically to fund my own films. Prior to that, I was trying to look for films that somehow would reflect my own interests or my own psychological values. And it was always very frustrating because it would not happen that way. Now that I’ve separated myself psychologically from it, and I did go in whole heartedly with the concept of helping the director and the filmmakers realize whatever it is that they are really wanting to realize. And yet doing the best job I can in the film and then feeling less guilty, so to speak, about it, knowing that the money that I’m making from those things I’m putting directly into these films that I’m truly passionate about. And strangely, those films, I am making more money, and the films, the film roles are also becoming more interesting for me. And I’m able to fund these films of my own. So they're all, it’s all correlated together. Which is interesting. And that’s why ultimately coming around back to working with Robert Zemeckis again, it’s, you know, I thought about it when I first heard they were interested. I did not expect to work with him again. And then I thought, ‘Well, what I’m doing now is funding my films.’ And actually I gathered the material was interesting. It was Beowulf and playing Grendel.

Nick: Aren’t Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary involved?

Crispin: Yeah, those two wrote the script. And in this particular, as opposed to the Charlie’s Angels, Grendel originally was a silent character, but I do have dialogue in this. And I worked with a college professor where I’m speaking old, genuine old English, which is a different language. But it’s trying to utilize it as much as possible to make it understandable.

Nick: Is this a motion capture film? Like The Polar Express was?

Crispin: Yes it is. They've made the technique more advanced. But yes, you go into a soundstage and you're surrounded by 120 different cameras. And you have reflectors all over you. And it’s a very advanced digital technique where you go in, you can stand and then they're able to recreate all of your motions very exactingly. It’s interesting. It actually was a good thing for acting, because you don’t have marks. It is a different medium than working with film. And every single actor is in close up on all takes. And there is no such thing as a take. And it’s in 360 degrees so they can make all of their decisions later. You do have reference cameras that I think they kind of position in areas that they're thinking about. But if they want something to change from that, they can alter it. So for a director, you can understand why they really work in it. I asked Robert Zemeckis when will they be able to make it photo realistic and he said well we’re just about there. And then I read that, what’s the director of Titanic? James Cameron, he’s doing his next film in that technique and I believe it is photo realistic there.

Nick: It’s also in 3D.

Crispin: Yeah. Any of them they can make, they can 3D just like that, because all it does is shifting that perspective by just a little bit.

Nick: I am curious, you've been showing this movie [What Is It?] around, what kind of general reaction are you getting from audiences? You know, there’s obviously a lot of interesting you know, buttons you're kind of pushing in the movie.

Crispin: Yeah, I get, well you know, the people that are coming to see the film by and large are people that are familiar with me in various movies. And they generally have a kind of a concept in advance that it’s going to be something that’s unusual on some level. So for the most part, people are enjoying the experience. Early on, and maybe I can say— actually I haven't in the last several shows had such aggressive questioning. And I think because things have been written about it, people that might not be wanting to experience some of the more, some of the taboo elements in it, don’t come to the show. So I’m getting less aggressive questioning. But I have experienced very aggressive kind of questioning, but when I have those questions, I definitely go into them because the purpose of the film is to explore these areas and to go on tour with it and having these forums is generally an important thing to me.

Mark: What is your ideal reaction to the movie if somebody sees your movie and talks about it?

Crispin: Ideally if people get something where they're generally forming thoughts from it, that’s what I want. Yeah. Sometimes I’ll have people, you can tell, but sometimes people really do feel like they can’t put anything of it together. Which is always funny to me personally, because I naturally will put things maybe even that aren’t supposed to be put together, somehow I put them together in my own head and form an idea or a thought behind it. But, that isn't to say it’s, you know, people pay the money to see the film and I want them to have an experience. And so if they question that, I try to talk about that. There is something that’s really going on with the story. But it’s funny to me. I can tell that some people really have a hard time with putting anything together of it at all. Like, it just seems like random imagery. It’s so much not, that to my own mind that it’s hard for me to see how that could be, because it definitely isn’t [random imagery]. There are abstractions of poetry with it. But the film won best narrative film at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, which is the oldest experimental film festival in the U.S. But I was very glad to get that particular award. First off I was just glad to get an award because I have had reviews from people that were just, it was nice to have something that there is a body that, a group that sponsored it. And someone said this [film] is a good thing.

Nick: Right.

Crispin: But particularly that if it’s also in the narrative category. It was a film festival that Stan Brakhage would go and show off his work whose films are very beautiful. I really like his films. I don't know all of his work, but the ones I have seen are very abstract. Very beautifully abstract. Moving paintings, virtually. And yeah, interesting footage, found footage pieces of things that he’s put together on the film, drawing on the film. Butterfly wings, all kinds of stuff. It’s really neat stuff. That’s specifically why they have that category, because that would not be of a narrative. Whereas What Is It? is.

Nick: Do you encourage people to come up with their own interpretation? Or would you rather them stick to what you intended?

Crispin: No, I encourage that whatever it is in somebody’s head is accurate. Even the people that can’t put anything together of it, that’s accurate as well. I mean I like it when people are able to put something in their head together and sometimes people have things that sound quite close or have an interpretation that’s similar to my own thinking. But usually, even I don't know if I know anybody that’s said exactly what it is that I've been thinking. But that doesn’t matter. It’s interesting to me to hear how people are interpreting certain things. That is the truth. And I’m glad that's accomplished, that has happened. There are people definitely that have come together with thoughts from it that are their own personal thoughts. And that’s good. That’s an accomplishment that I’m glad of.

Nick: I worked on a David Lynch magazine for years called Wrapped In Plastic.

Crispin: I’m glad to have worked with David Lynch. And he had said he would executive produce what now would be part three of this film [It Is Mine?].

Nick: He would put his name on it like he did for Crumb?

Crispin: Correct.

Nick: Okay.

Crispin: Which can be a good thing. I haven't talked to him about it in a long, long time. And we’ll have to see, you know, originally when he had said that when I was trying to get corporate funding. Now it’s apparent to me I’m going to be funding the film myself. So we’ll have to see what makes sense at that point. I mean it would be great to have his association. But it’s been you know, over a decade.

Nick: You worked on Wild At Heart, it’s the first thing you worked on together.

Crispin: Right.

Nick: That’s a pretty famously known part and it’s about maybe two and a half minutes of screen time?

Crispin: Yeah.

Nick: How long did that take to shoot?

Crispin: I think I worked on that two days, actually. And I think the one, the second day was the day my character comes back in a gas station. Is that in there? I can’t remember. Yeah, it was changed around, the story. I haven't seen it in a long time. And the structure is changed around. Originally, and I don't think that’s in there. There was stuff about Christmas. Actually, I’m forgetting about stuff. I suggested something about Christmas, which he shot. He didn’t put it in.

Nick: Yeah, you're in a Santa Claus suit.

Crispin: No, that was always in there. That was in the script. And I suggested something about a Christmas present or something, which we shot but that isn’t in there. But originally it had much more structure to do with the character losing his hair. There was a structure in it that had to do with that. That was changed around.

Nick: Later on when you're in the Santa Claus suit…

Crispin: Yes, right, and originally there was a story element to that, that was changed around. But you know, he is an expert editor and he’s an expert actor’s director as well. And that scene particularly, everything was very, for my character, extremely finely tuned. It wasn’t loosely directed, which you know, with a lesser director, it would be the kind of thing that would drive one insane. It would, or you wouldn’t like it. You could really react badly to it. But he’s such a great psychologically in-tune director, it’s just fascinating to— I could understand what the psychology was very clearly by everything that was being directed. But like that “I’m making my lunch” sequence, it was so specifically timed out as to how long it was to take, what I was to do. It was not something that I interpreted, you know, how I said the line, I guess. But I think, you know, even the fervor he would say. I can’t remember, you know it was a long time ago now. I can’t remember how much that part was directed. But I remember the timing was very, very specifically directed. And it was a great experience as well.

Nick: Did you actually put cockroaches in your underwear?

Crispin: No. That was of course just a fantastical film.

Nick: How did Lynch get in contact with you?

Crispin: I had met him, I had met him for a different film that he never did end up making. The first time I met him was for…

Nick: Ronnie Rocket?

Crispin: No, which…

Nick: One Saliva Bubble?

Crispin: Yes. After he did that, I had told him how, when I first met him I had already read Ronnie Rocket. I read Ronnie Rocket when I was sixteen. Which was around the same time that I had seen Eraserhead. And I had the script of it because I was friends with, I had done a television show with Nicholas Cage when I was 16. His name was Nicholas Coppola at the time. And we’re still friends. And his uncle, Francis [Ford] Coppola, had a copy of Ronnie Rocket that I think he had given to Nic. And then I was talking about how much I liked Eraserhead. I took Nick to one of the midnight shows of Eraserhead, I’m pretty sure, yeah. And then Nic gave me a copy of Ronnie Rocket. So I read it relatively young. And then when I met with him, I told him how really it was one of my favorite pieces of literature. I really love that screenplay. I still do.

Nick: A lot of it, in part, sort of came out in the Twin Peaks series and in the film, in a sense.

Crispin: Perhaps. Maybe I haven't seen all of the Twin Peaks episodes that would have things. But for me, the structure of that screenplay was really, really excellent. And of course that structure wasn’t made. And I was really surprised when it didn’t happen. Well I worked on Hotel Room, I had run into him at Musso And Franks. It was after I had done Wild At Heart. And I had heard that Ronnie Rocket was going to be made. And I went up and I shook his hand and I said, “I heard Ronnie Rocket’s being made. I’m so excited, that’s one of my favorite pieces of literature.” He said, “I know it is and you're going to be in it.” And so I thought, “Great, great.” And then I wondered what character I would be. I didn’t know, I think I asked Johanna Ray. No, I don't think it was exactly ascertained what it would be. But then I know Kyle McLachlan was going to play the detective and then I heard that he didn’t want to do it. And I somehow had his telephone number. I had worked with him and he was in The Doors movie.

Nick: Yeah, he was in The Doors.

Crispin: I met him, you know, I knew him around a bit. And I actually called him and said, “Why don’t you want to do Ronnie Rocket? [Laughs] You've gotta play it. That’s like, going to be just a great film.” And he had some, I don't know what it was exactly. There was some…

Nick: I think he was burnt out on playing Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks.

Crispin: I noticed that there was a rewrite of Ronnie Rocket that happened later that started incorporating things from Twin Peaks. I didn’t like that as much 'cause I had this vision of it from when I was 16 that I wanted it to be stuck to. But then I was working on Hotel Room and I realized Ronnie Rocket never happened. And I was talking with Monty Montgomery, who was the guy who played the cowboy character [and who] was the producer on that. Cowboy character, what was it? The Lost Highway. Lost Highway. [It was actually Mulholland Drive] And he was the producer. And he was going to be the producer on Ronnie Rocket at the time. And I said, “Whatever happened to Ronnie Rocket?” And he said, “They just didn’t want to do it.” And I said, “Why?” And he said, “I don't know.” And David Lynch was sitting right there. And I said, “Why didn’t you want to do Ronnie Rocket? And that’s one of my favorite pieces of literature.” I think I kept repeating that. And he said, “Well it just doesn’t do it for me,” or something to that effect, I don’t want to quote something that’s inaccurate. And I said, “But you've got to make that film some time.” And he said, “Well maybe we should sit and have some coffee and talk about it some time.”

Nick: You should do that. You could co-direct.

Crispin: I never did. I do wish he would make it. But I guess I can understand. It’s like it did feel very much in the world of Eraserhead. That’s what I always pictured. And his films that he’s making now, I think he’s thinking about different things. But I do think people like him can come around to different ideas and thoughts at different times, and maybe it is something that he’ll come back to. I hope he does, 'cause I still very much would like to see that movie realized.

Nick: Hotel Room was sort of a little known project in a sense, I think, for you and Lynch because it’s not available on DVD.

Crispin: Yeah, that’s right. I wonder who [has the rights]. It was HBO, so I don't know who…

Nick: HBO aired it. I don't know if they produced it.

Crispin: It was put out on VHS. They put a long version of it out in France.

Nick: There was a Laserdisc that was overseas that came out.

Crispin: I heard, I knew about that, yeah. And I also believe they actually have filmed a film version of it in France. I could be wrong about that.

Nick: I don't know about that.

Crispin: That I might be wrong about.

Nick: But I think that segment is really smashing. You and Alicia Witt. It’s really an amazing piece. And I really wish it would come out [on DVD]. Was there any talk during that, that it would go to series?

Crispin: Well that was the concept. See the concept wasn’t to have recurring characters but more like the Alfred Hitchcock Presents and that was the whole idea. And I guess HBO didn’t want to do it. But I very much enjoyed getting to work with him again. And we shot it in very long takes. Like, 12-minute magazines and Alicia and I had worked through it, rehearsed a lot…she was very good at memorization. My memory, well, has never been [that good].

Nick: She’s a bit of a childhood prodigy. She was playing piano…

Crispin: Yeah, she is very intelligent. I enjoyed working with her. And we rehearsed a lot. And then so by the time, it was almost kind of like shooting a play and David Lynch is just a crack director. So he knows what to do.

Nick: You mentioned The Doors and McLachlan. I have to bring up The Doors real fast because, well, you played Andy Warhol. And that’s pretty significant. What, did you research, what did you do?

Crispin: Well what happened was…

Nick: How did that come about, what did you do to prepare for it?

Crispin: I had met Andy Warhol at Madonna and Sean Penn’s wedding. Which was like, 1980…

Nick: Five?

Crispin: Five, I think. It was right after Back to the Future had come out. And I had just worked with Sean Penn. I almost directly went from making Back to the Future to Tennessee to shoot At Close Range. And then Madonna and Sean Penn got married just a couple of months after that.

Nick: That was a crazy wedding, right? With helicopters an…

Crispin: Yeah, I remember they were all talking about the helicopters before hand, how they wanted to avoid it. But then they had it outside like, perfectly set up, you know. So, I don't know. But it was enjoyable. And even the helicopters were enjoyable. And then afterwards, I was going out with a girl that had, well she knew a lot about Andy Warhol. I did as well. And she went up to talk to him and she said, “Oh, he wants to meet you. And he’d seen Back to the Future and liked you,” or something. So I went up and I talked to him for not too long, but a bit. And he was very nice and after I talked to him a bit, I stood back and watched how he moved and how he held himself, 'cause I thought he would be an interesting character to play at some point. And I wanted to really get his way of being. And then he died pretty soon after that. And I am glad that I got to meet him. And then that movie came around fairly soon after that. It was the first real opportunity for anybody to play him. Then I did do additional research looking at things. And that was another time when I asked to have a reduction of dialogue. There’s a little bit, not too much more dialogue, but there was some more things that they had him say that I thought it was better if I didn’t say it. And I think Paul Williams, who was in the scene, ended up saying some lines, which was good. He was really good to work with and I had seen that movie, The Phantom Of The Paradise when I was a kid. I was at the right age where I genuinely thought of him as being like, a bad person in that movie. And he had all the albums out and I looked at the album covers thinking this is a very bad person. But he was good in that movie and I told him that story and I liked working with him.

Nick: Yeah, I was just in San Francisco, and one of the theaters there is playing The Phantom Of The Paradise at midnight. So it’s become quite a cult movie.

Crispin: It’s funny, 'cause I think I saw it again later on. I rented it just to see, and it had a very different effect of when I was a kid. I somehow didn’t think of him as such a bad person. But I guess I was at the age, when I saw it, that somehow I was more where you genuinely blur the lines of reality and fantasy.

Mark Redfern (Under the Radar): Wendy’s uncle was involved with Warhol and was in Chelsea Girls.

Crispin: I played What Is It? at the Andy Warhol museum a few months back. And they showed me some of the Chelsea Girls. And I have some of them on video. I particularly like Vinyl. I think that’s a really good one.

Wendy Lynch (Under the Radar): I think there was one called The Loves of Ondine.

Crispin: That’s right. I haven’t seen that one. And that’s your uncle? That’s neat.

Wendy: Yeah. I mean he died I think in ’89 or so. And you know, he wasn’t so interested in [the rest of the family] so much. [Laughs] But I really didn’t get to know him as much as I would have liked to.

Crispin: Right.

Nick: But it’s pretty cool, you know.

Crispin: Yeah.

Nick: So Oliver Stone. How did that come about? How did you get approached?

Crispin: I had met him for Platoon, and I liked him. We had a really good long meeting. For whatever reason it wasn’t right for me to be in that film. But I heard about the Andy Warhol thing, and I had my agents call and find out about it, saying I wanted to go in and meet and read for it. And he had me come in and I got the part. Recently, he invited me to see the World Trade Center movie. And he had produced, he was I think the executive producer or one of the producers on the Milos Forman film, The People Vs. Larry Flynt. So it’s like I’d know him over the years, throughout the years and I’ve always liked him. So I've always gotten along with him.

Mark: Same with Nicholas Cage, he’s in World Trade Center as well.

Crispin: That’s right, yeah. But he wasn’t at that screening. It was Oliver Stone. I think he was off shooting in Bangkok.

Nick: What did you think of the film?

Crispin: I thought there were effective things about it. I thought there were good emotional elements that were interesting, I did.

[We take a break to shoot some photos of Crispin.]

Crispin: We’re about to talk about digital. What Is It? was shot on sixteen millimeter. The Backwards Swing, I started shooting on video, just regular video. And I do want to finish those at some point.

Nick: What’s that project?

Crispin: What Is It?

Nick: The Backwards Swing?

Crispin: It’s based on one of my books. I started shooting it in the 80s. And it’s neat. But I’ve got to, I want to finish the Steve Stewart film and hopefully get back into the editing on that. We shot with a lot of primary sets that we were building. I directed that with David Brothers, who I also co-directed the sequel to What Is It? with. And he designed the sets. The set ended up being based on a German photograph. I didn’t know what it was, but I was watching Siegfried, and that tree that Steve Stewart comes out from under in the clamshell, Siegfried came under. I was sitting on the horse. And he just cleared that same branch, so it was probably about a third size of what the Babelsberg Studios, the Fritz Lang version was. But we, if you see that film, you'll recognize the set design. and it’s What Is It? It’s in color, nothing’s black and white. But then there was also influence from a film called Green, I think it’s Greener, Green Pastures, or Greener Pastures [it was actually called The Green Pastures], which was a kind of a heaven, a black version of heaven, that was made in the 1940s. A musical. People floated in clouds and we incorporated some of that into What Is It? And then he was watching a film called The Mole People, and that’s where the women coming out of that, those poles came into being. But the film is shot on sixteen.

Nick: And the second one?

Crispin: The second one is also shot on sixteen. I used a CP 16 for the second film. I’m having my CP 16s, I had one of them already converted to Super 16. And I’m gonna get the second one converted to Super 16. So whatever I shoot next will be on Super 16, which will make the aspect ratio more similar to regular 35-millimeter film. The grains and the emulsions, the grain patterns of today’s 16-millimeter films are so fine that when it’s done, goes to a digital intermediate, which is what I did, and then blown up to 35-millimeter, on some levels, it has a similar grain pattern structure to older 35-millimeter films. It’s really very beautiful.

Nick: Leaving Las Vegas was shot on Super 16.

Crispin: Yeah, I know, yeah.

Nick: It looks beautiful.

Crispin: Yeah. It’s also really, when you're shooting on Super 16 and blowing up to 35, it is difficult to tell. Somebody has to be pretty expert to know. So that is the cheapest way still to make a feature film. It is far less expensive to shoot on Super 16, go to the digital intermediate, an HD intermediate and out to 35. It is more expensive, when shooting on HD. I acted in the first, for the first time in a film that we shot on HD. I did a film called Simon Says, last year.

Nick: When will it come out?

Crispin: I think they're about to show it in Texas. I think next month or something. I actually had a really good time on that. The role, I played two different characters: Simon and Stanley. And it was actually quite enjoyable. But, that was shot on digital….[When researching formats] I saw various formats that had been converted into 35 millimeter. I saw mini-DV. I saw regular 16 millimeter. I saw 35 millimeter, and I saw HD under different circumstances. I saw HD shot with no controlled lighting, basically people in a room blown up to 35. And I saw it with incredible controlled lighting, also blown up to 35 millimeter film. And the stuff that was shot with the HD, just people standing in a room with I don't know what kind of fluorescent lighting or whatever, looking extremely electronic. And it had the quality of looking at a video. When the stuff that had the controlled lighting, that you could tell it had a big budget, and that the lighting was perfect, you couldn’t tell for a second that it was a digital technology. It looked beautiful. You wouldn’t even want to change a thing. It was gorgeous. That’s the key to shooting with HD. If you have a crew, a big crew and big, good lights, good lighting situations and you're gonna go to film eventually, basically at the point of having a one million dollar budget, then you're saving money at that point because you don’t have to spend the money on the film. You put it into the crew and the people and it’s a good point, a savings point at a million dollars. Before that, if you're making a two hundred thousand dollar film, a hundred thousand dollar film, five hundred dollar film, Super 16 to a digital intermediate, out to a 35 millimeter print is by far the cheapest way.

Nick: Do you think the third film will also be Super 16?

Crispin: Yeah.

Nick: Okay.

Crispin: But I don’t know when I’ll make that one. It could be a while, 'cause I…

Nick: Yeah, 'cause you still have to finish the second one.

Crispin: Yeah, I have to finish the second one. I would like to get back into The Backward Swing, and I’d like to shoot another film that has nothing to do with these movies at all. And then maybe then go back. I don't even know. I just shot the Steve Stuart film before finishing What Is It? because of his health and I’m glad I did because he died within the month of finishing the shooting. I would not have done that if that wasn’t the case. But I mean I’m glad I was forced to do it and it’s gonna be a great film. But I want to take a breather away from that theme. There is a theme on some level that connects the three. They actually are going to all be very different films from one another. Particularly the Steve Stuart film. His film is quite different.

Nick: Will you put out these films on video?

Crispin: I don’t, well you know, technologies are changing so much. I mean does anybody put anything out on video now?

Nick: I’m sorry. A home viewing format.

Crispin: Right, I don't know. And I tend toward believing by the time that I have exhausted my touring with What Is It? and Everything Is Fine, probably DVD will not be the format that is [prevalent.] There are so many questions about piracy. You know, it really puts fear into my heart every time I hear, you know, like you said you had a bootleg, it’s a horrible feeling 'cause I put a lot of money into it and I need to continue touring with it in order to make my money back. And if that was posted on You Tube, that would be horrible for me. So it’s very difficult. But the one benefit is that the bootleg that is out¬—which I can’t even say it’s out in great numbers, but I’m sure it’s spread a bit—but I would know that anything out there would be really poor quality.

Nick: I couldn’t even watch it. I had to turn it off, 'cause I figured, what's the point?

Crispin: Right.

Nick: I mean the sound was terrible.

Crispin: Yeah, I’m sure what you got was many generations removed from the original copy.

Nick: Yeah, it’s probably like, the eighth or ninth. I don't know, I have no idea, it just looked bad. And I’d seen the trailer online. I’d much rather see it for real.

Crispin: It isn’t the film.

Nick: Opening credits, the whole opening structure was really different.

Crispin: Yeah, it was quite different. And I toured around with it while I was editing. And I was getting feedback and then I locked the film and I did not want to tour around with it again until I had a 35 millimeter print and that was quite a struggle.

Nick: Yeah, the benefit I think for I guess DVD or a home format is just more people can see it, since it’s going be very difficult for you to hit every city. You know what I mean?

Crispin: On some levels it’s true. I could probably put some kind of commentary on it which is similar to the question and answers I do. But there’s a monetary reason for me to do things as well. If I manufacture the DVDs myself, seems like DVDs sell for about twenty dollars now. I know David Lynch was selling his for a bit more for a while, but then he finally put Eraserhead for a more…

Nick: It’s actually being distributed now outside of just his website.

Crispin: Right. I bought it when it was on his website. It was pretty expensive. Yeah. And now I think you can get it for 20 or 25 dollars.

Nick: Twenty-five, I think. Then you lose the cool box…

Crispin: Yeah, and I am glad I have it.

Nick: Eraserhead was supposedly one of [Stanley] Kubrick’s favorite films.

Crispin: Yeah. That was, I had heard that when [George] Lucas and [Steven] Spielberg visited [Kubrick], [Eraserhead] was the film that he showed them, which I always found quite amusing.

Nick: Well you know Lynch was offered to direct Return Of The Jedi.

Crispin: I do know that, yeah.

Nick: And he turned it down to do Dune.

Crispin: Yeah. But what was the other thing I was going to say?

Nick: Home video and DVD.

Crispin: Oh, right. Oh, and specifically having to do with Eraserhead, I went and saw that film over and over again when I was 16. And after that, while it was playing at the Nuart midnights on Friday. And it was every Friday it was Eraserhead and every Saturday I think it was The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Oh no, Pink Flamingos. Pink Flamingos is what it was. Actually I never saw Pink Flamingos when it was at the Nuart. I thought it was a film I wouldn’t be that interested in for some reason. I saw it years later on video and I did like Pink Flamingos. But that was the other film that was playing there and I always went and saw Eraserhead. And I remember when I first went to see it, well the first thing I ever saw about Eraserhead was when I was 14. I was going to school, a private school off of Mulholland drive. I went there from first to ninth grade. It was a really good academically inclined school. And we would read books and there was a program at the Nuart that after school children finished reading a particular book, it is correlated so that they would show the movie. Like, I remember seeing, it was an earlier version of 1984. They made one later on, more recently. But there was one that had been made in the ’50s or ’60s that we watched after reading the book. Lord Of The Flies I saw at the Nuart. And it was all done during matinee times. But for whatever reason, they showed the previews, the coming attractions before these [matinees]. And they had the coming attraction for Eraserhead. And I was 14 and I didn’t know what it was. I thought, is this an old movie from the ’50s that was obscure? I was confused. But the imagery was just absolutely fascinating. I never forgot and I thought as soon as I learn how to drive, I want to go see that movie. And that’s what I did. When I was 16, I learned how to drive, I went and saw the midnight show of Eraserhead. And it was early on and you know, now certainly there’s an understanding of Lynch’s work, but at that time, it was something where people got angry. The audience would get kind of quiet. And then I remember people getting up yelling and walking, saying expletives and then walking out of the theater. Then it would get really, really quiet. Now if you go see it, if it’s projected, people will laugh a lot and it’s a different kind of experience. I really loved that. But seeing it on home video is not the same thing. I still love the film no matter what, but that is a film that deserves to be seen on a 35 millimeter projection system with really good sound, 'cause it’s just a great movie that way. And it is not the same thing when you watch that on video. Some films, like Night Of The Living Dead, I first started seeing that on television when I was a kid, and that works on television. I went and saw it in the movie theater and it really didn’t make it that much better. Now there’s something about the people watching television in the film. There’s things with cameras where it almost works on television. Even Videodrome, I saw that projected once, and something about that, it’s about television, if you watch Videodrome, I like that movie, but if you watch it on video, something about the medium works. But Eraserhead really should be seen projected as a 35 millimeter print.

Nick: You know he’s working with DV now, Lynch is.

Crispin: I’m sure he will do a great job with it, 'cause like I said, that controlled lighting thing, he’ll have the budget and the crew that he will. There are things you can do with HD once you're in digital and it’ll look beautiful.

Nick: I saw him interviewed, they had a 20th anniversary screening of Blue Velvet a while ago. And he did a Q&A before the film. And they asked him what he thought of HD or the DVD, how does it look? And he goes, “Well it’s terrible.” But he goes, “But it’s a fantastic terribleness.” He also said he has abandoned film as a medium altogether and that his new canvas is digital.

Crispin: Yeah, it’ll look great with him doing a digital film.

Nick: So that was kind of interesting.

Crispin: Yeah.

Nick: So there’s DVD. I have to bring up your infamous David Letterman appearance. When I was looking you up on You Tube last night, that’s the first thing and second thing and third thing and fourth thing that comes up are different people that have posted up your Lettermen ’87 appearance.

Crispin: Right.

Nick: I also found the 1990 appearance.

Crispin: Okay, oh, interesting.

Nick: Where you were promoting your album. And it was great, 'cause he pulls up a vinyl copy.

Crispin: Oh, right.

Nick: Which was cool, since there’s not so much vinyl anymore.

Crispin: Yeah, that was toward the end of the vinyl.

Nick: Yeah. Letterman was kind of an ass, I thought, even more in ’90 than he was in ’87.

Crispin: Uh-huh?

Nick: You've never gone back on the show.

Crispin: No, I’ve been on that show many times.

Nick: Oh, really?

Crispin: I’ve been on the show— I was actually on for Willard but he was out because he had…I think he had the rickets or something?

Nick: That’s right.

Crispin: Will Ferrell was the guest host.

Nick: I think I watched that.

Crispin: Which was a shame. I’m not banned from that show by any means. It just, you know, those shows really do cater to big corporate companies and they finance films. And if I’m in one, I don’t feel that they won’t have me on. But, like, they won’t necessarily have me on for What Is It? But if I was in, I’m assuming in Beowulf…

Nick: Will other shows resist having you on as a guest? And will they have you on for What Is It?

Crispin: No, they won’t, no. 'Cause I was on for Conan O’Brien for Willard. I had a contact there and I did that to go on and they said they didn’t feel that [What Is It?] was right for their late night audience. [Laughs]

Nick: Really?

Crispin: That’s what they said to me. So no, Conan does not want me on for What Is It? But I did go on with Tom Green the other day.

Nick: How was that?

Crispin: Which was actually really, I really enjoyed that. Because when you go on those late night talk shows, really, those are entertainment shows and it is about the cult of the personality of that talk show host. And older ones, you know, The Tonight Show probably in the 1950s, ’60s, in the ’70s, it was more about actually talking. But now it’s, you know, five, ten minutes is a long thing. And it’s scripted and I mean you can vary a little bit. But it’s very important that they get their particular laughs and that’s what those shows are about. So it’s nice being on with Tom Green where we really did talk for over an hour, actually.

Nick: This is on the internet, too.

Crispin: Yeah, it’s tomgreen.com and what I like about it is that it is readily downloadable and it’s permanent. So you can get views from it. The internet is a very interesting thing and You Tube in particular is a very interesting thing. When did you look me up on You Tube?

Nick: Last night.

Crispin: What else did you find? Anything?

Nick: There was a clip from Tom Green already.

Crispin: Oh, okay, good.

Nick: And it was just basically you setting up the trailer. And then they showed the trailer.

Crispin: Okay, that’s all right. There are some other things that are new actually, I’m curious…

Nick: Oh, the “Ben” video.

Crispin: What was that?

Nick: The “Ben” video.

Crispin: No that’s been on for a while. There are some other things. You should look some more, you'll see. I won’t tell you exactly what it is, but I would think you would have mentioned it but take a look some more, you might find some more things. [Crispin was in fact referring to a bit he did with minor You Tube sensation littleloca.]

Nick: Is your number still working, the 213 number [Crispin used to have an answering service that would promote his books]?

Crispin: What happened was 213 area code changed. I think it’s a 323 area code. And I have kept it. I don’t think I get a lot of calls on that any more. I’ve had them start printing up. They've actually been pretty nice about it, where they, now they put www.crispinglover.com. The reason I put the telephone number on was, you know, there was no such thing as the internet at the time and so it was a way of basically advertising people being able to find out about the books

Nick: When I first moved here in ’94, I think we looked up your number in the yellow pages.

Crispin: Yeah, I had that, I think it might even still be there.

Nick: And we called, and we heard all the advertising.

Crispin: Right.

Nick: And it was a thrill.

Crispin: Yeah, good. Good yeah, I wish the internet had been around all of this time, because it’s a great thing for that kind of thing.

Nick: We were talking about Mister Density [an early ’90s fanzine about Crispin] earlier. You had nothing to do with that, right? It’s just other fans?

Crispin: I think they must have sent me a copy somehow. And that’s how I found out about it. But I thought they really did a very creative job with it. And one of the guys who had done some drawings for it, I have a show in Syracuse, and he showed me the drawings. I guess he’d worked on the zine as an artist, I guess, do people make zines now? I guess they do, I don't know.

Mark: Some people do, yeah.

Nick: Tower Records has like, a little section of fanzines.

Crispin: For Zines? So I was thinking the internet would maybe replace the zine thing. But I guess not. But I wish they'd put the collection of those things on some kind of website, 'cause I really liked that. I thought it was done creatively and intelligently and it was a lot of fun. And of course that, it’s good for me that it happened like that. But I think they should show off their work, 'cause I thought more than just it being, having to do with me. I thought they did a good job with it. I thought it was well put together.

Nick: You have a unique sort of status in the acting world and sort of pop culture in a sense. What do you think is the greatest misconception about you?

Crispin: Well I mean it’s like, some things are annoying that are misconceived and get repetitive and really are old and not terribly interesting to me personally. But at the same time, a media perception of a person, there’s a business aspect to it that, I think it’s a healthy thing to understand the removal of it. You know, that that’s a business persona. And it isn’t me. I mean I have had something to do with it, there’s no question. But to mix myself up with this other thing that's out there, I mean I can see it, I can look at it, I can see what the perception would be. And sometimes it’s irritating to me. It’s like things that are not about how I really think about. It’s how other people have interpreted things and it’s different. But you can easily drive yourself crazy with that, too. Then sometimes you really want to control things. Like, I’ve just had something happen that is driving me crazy, just this last week. I went online. There’s a movie that I did a couple of years ago that’s finally coming out on DVD [Drop Dead Sexy]. I just saw the artwork for it, which I had approval over, and it was never given to me to approve. And they put my head on another person’s body. A repetition of the Back to the Future thing [another actor was made to look like Crispin Glover for Back to the Future Part II]. And it’s like this guy with kind of a fat gut. He’s wearing like, torn, ripped blue jeans. It wasn’t what I wore in the movie. But those kind of things can really drive you crazy. And then at the same time it’s like, it will— I mean I don’t like that specifically because I wasn’t in that shape that this person was in. I was in good shape. I know how much I weighed, I was particularly thin at the time that I made the film.

Nick: What film was that?

Crispin: It’s called Drop Dead Sexy. And it’s coming in DVD. I think there’s eighty-thousand copies that have been shipped with this thing that I did not approve. Those kind of things can really get to you. I think it’s damaging for myself. I feel like people will look at it and they'll go, “Oh yeah, looks like Crispin’s really getting heavy,” or something.

Nick: So what happened? Not to go over a sore subject again, but Back to the Future II and III and the subsequent lawsuit, did you choose to not be in that film or was it something in the script?

Crispin: We did not come to a financial agreement. And I will say…

Nick: Michael J. Fox had become a huge star.

Crispin: Well I’ll say something about that, there is an unfair thing that happened. There are those commentaries on the DVDs. And Bob Gale specifically says things that are untrue.

Nick: He says them in person, too.

Crispin: What’s that?

Nick: He says them in person, too, I’ve been to a screening of Back to the Future.

Crispin: Yeah, no, I know. And I investigated, you know, I’m very interested in slander and that kind of stuff. But the way laws work, it’s difficult. But the things that he says on those DVDs are not true. They're not what happened and they're inaccurate. As much as he says, he has many Back to the Future fans, because I don’t address stuff, I don’t have the voice and of course having that voice on those DVDs gives him this ultimate authority as to what is accurate and it isn’t. It’s just a lie. The way Robert Zemeckis phrased it was a little more calculating, because what Robert Zemeckis said was that I asked for too much money. But that could be anything, I could have asked for two dollars and well, that was too much money. The fact of it is, is I was offered not just a little bit less, but far less than anybody else that was coming back in the film because I had done River’s Edge, I did River’s Edge for scale. And they were doubling everybody’s money from their [last movie] that they had made. And I had not [made a lot of money on River’s Edge], and Leah Thompson had made Howard the Duck. And Tom Wilson had made some other movies that he’d made some money. So they were getting paid a hell of a lot more money, which was unfair and unacceptable to me. And they never went up. And I just said no.

Nick: Had you seen the script by that point?

Crispin: There were several steps of things that happened. When they first approached me about it, I really didn’t want to be in it. It wasn’t of interest to me. And my concept of money was a very different thing. Right now I need to make money to make my films. I wasn’t thinking about it in those terms at that point. I wanted to do interesting things, and I wasn’t really interested in repeating that. Working on the film was not necessarily that easy, it was just whatever. And I was 21.

Nick: You shoot it twice in a sense the first time.

Crispin: Yeah, I was 20 when I made Back to the Future, but I was 21 or 22 maybe when they came to me about [the sequel]. So you know, you're young and thinking about different kinds of things. And I just, I knew…well I don’t want to go into too many details. But there were things that, there were discussions that had been had about conceptual things on the original film that I don't know— it’s not something that I should really bring into—some day maybe I’ll write about it or something.

Nick: ’Cause there’s a large argument that George McFly in a sense could be considered the lead character of Back to the Future. In the Castro Theater ad for your upcoming film festival that’s coming up, they mention that. They say that as fact. That they say this is one of the best films of the 1980s, and it’s even cooler when you consider the fact that George McFly is the main character of the film.

Crispin: Well it’s not the main character, but it is a character that has a strong character arc.

Nick: Yes.

Crispin: There is a protagonistic character arc for the character. But there’s also a protagonistic character arc for the Michael J. Fox character. And the Michael J. Fox character is the main character, there’s no question about that. But [George is] a significant character, no question. And the thing of it is, I do like the work that came through in it.

Nick: You're fantastic. It’s a very iconic role.

Crispin: It was a good role and I was just out of acting class, I was very on top of certain things. I felt good. I haven't watched it since it first came out. I purposefully avoid looking at it again. Like I say, there are just things [about the experience]. And then it was immediately followed by these other things that happened. And it does make you think about a lot of stuff.

Nick: Well going to Layne in River’s Edge afterwards, those are two phenomenal performances.

Crispin: Yeah, it was a very different role. I was interested in trying to find different kinds of things. So my concept of going and repeating that character wasn’t that interesting, especially when they first approached me. The way that I went about it probably was not the, I probably, well…in any case, I let them know that I didn’t want to do it. They came back to me, though, and the negotiation process actually went backwards. They offered me a certain amount of money the first time when I said no. And they actually offered me less money when they came back the second time. These are the things— I really haven't said this before. And so it was purposely torturous. And I just couldn’t, I couldn’t do it. And then you know, Bob Gale comes out and says these things on the DVD, which just have nothing to do with reality. And of course they know I don’t have the kind of audience that they're going to have on that DVD. I didn’t participate in the DVD, so that their point of view will become the truth.

Nick: Did they come to you to participate on the DVD?

Crispin: They asked me to give permission for a makeup test. But I never give permission for anything for that film for any clips when people ask for permission. I just don’t. I just avoid it. All of those things added up together does not make me feel particularly kindly about the whole thing. Which it is too bad.

Nick: There are millions of people that love that film.

Crispin: I know, and on top of it, because of those statements that were made on the DVD, which were specifically— it’s not like they're stupid people, they know what they're doing when they say those things. They were specifically designed to make people angry at me. And they were angry at me, I’m sure. And then, and but that’s the weird thing is they were angry at me relatively early on and I felt it while we were making the movie, which also didn’t make me feel that comfortable. If you look at outtakes of the film, I’ve been told, I’ve not watched it, somebody that’s a friend of mine watched the things. And he said he could see that the way people were acting around me, I think there was something he said there was an outtake from throwing something down the [diner counter], like a milkshake. Give me milk or something that…

Nick: Chocolate milk.

Crispin: Chocolate milk there. There was somebody, it’s like I was supposed to catch the chocolate milk. It was something that was actually being done, and a number of takes were took. And he said somebody off camera is like, making a face like, it didn’t work again or something. I can’t remember but there was a feeling on the set that was, I don't know, I did not feel particularly liked. But it’s an interesting thing, though, talking about Back to the Future. The fact that I just worked with Robert Zemeckis almost frees me up talking about it. I haven't talked about it a lot over the years. But the fact that I actually had a good experience now working with Robert Zemeckis, I somehow feel a little easier for some reason talking about it, even if some of those things are not necessarily positive things.

Nick: Zemeckis didn’t participate on the DVDs either, if I’m not mistaken.

Crispin: I think there were question and answers that both him and Bob Gale are in.

Nick: But I don't think he was on the commentary.

Crispin: I don't know. I really haven't watched them. I know that I would not be comfortable doing it. But I’ve talked to people that have, and I believe he and Bob Gale. And I’ve looked at transcripts to see exactly what was written. Bob Gale does not tell the truth. He just absolutely says things that are untrue. What Robert Zemeckis said was that I asked for too much money, but like I said, I could have asked for…

Nick: You could interpret that…

Crispin: Yeah, I mean if they offered me less than half of what the other people that were coming back were getting, for them, that was too much money. That was wrong. I just, but I think the fact that that kind of bitter guile is brought out all of these years later on this DVD is really a pretty small kind of thing to do.

Wendy: It wasn’t necessary for him to say that.

Crispin: Yeah. And then of course on the internet there are people that write negative things about me specifically having to do with that. Saying I’m this greedy guy. And it’s like…

Nick: Have they looked at your career? You’re not a greedy guy!

Crispin: Well I mean, I am interested, and I am specifically picking things right now to make money which I hadn't been, especially at that point. It wasn’t about that. But you know, there is such a thing as things that just aren't right, and that wasn’t right.

Mark: Right, and after you made Back to the Future, that was such a big hit, did you have a lot of offers to be in big Hollywood movies that you turned down?

Crispin: There, well there was a lot of interest. But if you look at the movies that were being made at the time, really there were a lot of Spielberg films. And there were a lot of would be called the brat pack films. And they made me uncomfortable for various reasons. And River’s Edge, I did like that script, and that is one of the few movies that I made really in the wake, that really is the only film that I really had a choice to do right after. That’s the first film that I did after Back to the Future had been released, was River’s Edge. I didn’t make money on that film. I really did like that role.

Nick: There’s the prestige factor.

Crispin: Yeah. The film ultimately did well. It made its money back. I looked, I didn’t know how much it had made. I think it was somewhere between four and five million and the film cost a million and something. So it actually made money in the box-office. Now it’s on video. It was Hemdale that had made the film. And they went out of business and they owed me quite a bit of money and I didn’t get that. Now MGM owns it, and I do get statements from that deal. But I did have some points because I got paid scale for it.

Nick: Do you still get checks for Back to the Future?

Crispin: Yeah. They're not very large, but I do get checks for it, yeah. It goes down over the years.

Nick: Are you completely soured on Back to the Future?

Crispin: Yeah, again, it’s like I don’t want to say anything a hundred percent negative about Back to the Future, because I’m not. I feel good about the fact that that original film exists. And even you know, with the things that happened in the negotiations, if the other stuff hadn't happened that ended up being part of the lawsuit, you know, and they just made a film with another actor, they just put another actor in the role and didn’t intersplice it with stuff from me, fine, that would have been fine. Or if they had just taken the original footage of me from the film and left that alone, fine. But the fact that they were fooling people and then saying all of these kind of negative things about me later, it just, it really isn’t right. But I had a very good working experience just now with Robert Zemeckis on Beowulf. So it’s interesting.

Nick: I think one of the most incredible moments in What Is It? is when a character calls your character “McFly.” I think it’s going to elicit laughs. Was that improv’d?

Crispin: No, I wrote that.

Nick: Okay.

Crispin: Yeah. I’m reacting to a lot of things that I was talking about being corporate, corporately funded filmmaking. But, some of my experience with that film started me thinking about these things and seeing how some of these elements work and thoughts behind things that were going on. It’s a reaction to that. There’s no question about it. And I feel like when I show [What Is It?] in Los Angeles, I feel like I’ll actually get the most kind of reaction when I’m having the question and answer periods than anywhere. Because it’s specifically reacting to this city. At least it is in my mind.

Wendy: The Arnold Schwarzenegger line is funny.

Crispin: That was an improvisation. Adam Parfrey, who plays the minstrel, he’s a publisher, he published Apocalypse Culture and it’s right there, which I have an article about the subtext of What Is It? in Apocalypse Culture II. He plays the minstrel in the film. But his speech, when he says, “free of this human form, free of this opposable thumb, the primate,” that’s an improv. But it was several takes in. We were working on several things. There were certain things I wanted him to get across, there were certain things he was kind of going for. And it’s a really good improv.

Wendy: Yeah.

Crispin: But it wasn’t in that one main portion, it’s kind of like, his monologue, but one of the takes he did start talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger and that did— of course it was shot many years ago.

Mark: Before he was governor.

Crispin: Before he was governor.

Wendy: It feels like you want to watch it again, because I know that I missed stuff.

Crispin: Yeah. And people that see it a second time do have a different experience from the first time that they watched it. And, 'cause the first time I’m sure it is, there is a lot of information.

Wendy: Well it’s like you never know what’s next. What are you going to see now, you know?

Crispin: Right. So it’s the second time, people have already had that experience and then they can start concentrating on the story and that, on some level I feel like that happened when I first saw Eraserhead as well. I wanted to see it over and over again 'cause I would get different feelings and different experiences each time, which to me is the mark of a good film.

Nick: What did you think of A.I.?

Crispin: I thought that was interesting because…

Nick: I notice there seems to be a lot of Spielberg in this Apocalypse Culture II piece.

Crispin: Yeah, there’s a lot of Spielberg references in that particular— I think you can find versions of it online. There’s one that somebody misspelled, mistyped, misprinted. But I think there’s a good version of it somewhere. That’s worth reading, actually, that article. I thought A.I. was interesting in that for a lot of reasons. I had known that Kubrick had worked on it for many years, and when I watched it I could tell. There were themes in that movie that were very evidently Kubrickian. The time, the massive time jumps and the abandoned son. When Alex [in A Clockwork Orange] comes back home and there’s the new son sitting in the chair and he has it in Barry Lyndon when the son is abandoned by the mother and then comes back. That one is a case where the main character is Barry Lyndon, but the protagonist is the son who comes in and gives the comeuppance to Barry Lyndon.

Nick: Did you get the Taschen Kubrick book?

Crispin: I don’t have that. I want to get that. But it was also interesting that, I mean I am sorry that Kubrick— I would have loved to have seen Kubrick’s version of [A.I.], because when watching 2001 and looking at that, there is a version available of 2001, an early scripted version of it that has a lot of narration and description that Kubrick cut out later on. And you feel like that with A.I., there was a lot of stuff in it that you know Kubrick would have cut out and of course Spielberg has a very different sensibility. But I always feel like there’s a joke in it that Kubrick—the theme did have to do with manipulated emotions. And I don't feel that Steven Spielberg is honest with emotions. I think the way he manipulates screenplays, sometimes they have good structure and sometimes they don’t. And sometimes he pulls out structural truths and manipulates them in order to make a truth that he wants to get across, a propaganda that isn’t the truth. And I’m very aware of it and I don’t appreciate it as filmmaking. I go and see every one of his films that comes out because he’s not untalented. He’s good with lenses, he can have a good art direction. He can do interesting things. But I don’t ever like his movies. There is something about them that genuinely greatly disturbs me.

Nick: But yet keeps pulling you back, though.

Crispin: It’s not that I am pulled back by them, it’s that I know it’s a subject matter that’s important for me to keep on top of because I want to know what it is specifically that I’m not going to like about his work. He is the most successful filmmaker and I think he’s the most influential person in this culture right now. And I think he's doing something very bad for the culture. I don't think he’s doing good things. And I’m adamant about that. And the fact that you know, most people will get very angry at you if you say something like that, which is strange.

Nick: Yeah.

Crispin: It’s like, he’s just a filmmaker. I should be allowed to say that.

Nick: Sure.

Crispin: But I really, I really don’t like what he's doing. I think it’s bad stuff. And specifically with my experience of what happened where there’s this kind of purported element of him being a do-gooder. And that wasn’t necessarily my experience [with Back to the Future]. [Laughs] I mean, but he’s another one, I’m never gonna work with Steven Spielberg. He’s not gonna hire me.

Nick: What if he did, would you do it?

Crispin: I would assume if I’m being paid my quote and that there's a role and all of that. But, you know, there would be certain things that I wouldn’t do, but I’d have to look at it. But I am divorcing myself from the output of things. So I assume I would. It’s a funny thing, because there is that element of like, like I said, I can easily get into a point where I’m thinking this is not the right thing that I’m doing. Because I can be very hyper critical, obviously, with what I just said about his films. I’m hyper critical. And yet if I was appearing in one of his films, what does that make me? It makes me a hypocrite. But I’m utilizing money to make my own films that I’m very passionate about. And I think it’s more important for me to do that at this point than to have an idealistic attitude of what I should or shouldn’t do. So yeah, fact of it is if— I have no delusions that Steven Spielberg is going to be interested in me to be in a film. So, [laughs] it doesn’t really matter what I say. But, I don't know.

Mark: There’s a funny reference at the end credits [of What Is It?] to Spielberg.

Crispin: What it says is this has not advocated the assassination of Steven Spielberg in any way. [Laughs] It’s really worth reading the whole thing. It says [laughs] I really shouldn’t read this right now, 'cause you should read the whole thing. It’s not [laughs], it is funny, I have to say. I mean I’m glad I wrote it. [Laughs] But, well we’ll see, here’s what it says, I might as well read it. [Laughs] Well, I always feel like if I’m going to read it, I’ve got to read the whole thing…

Apocalypse Culture II is published by Feral House.

What Is It? and Crispin Glover are touring around the United States. More information can be found at: www.crispinglover.com

What Is It? is screening at the American Cinematheque at the Eyptian Theatre in Los Angeles December 8th – 10th, which includes a Q&A with Crispin. Find more info here: www.americancinematheque.com

12/2006