Crispin Glover, who is perhaps best known as playing Marty McFly’s awkward and nerdy dad George in “Back to the Future," is currently starring alongside John Cusack, Rebecca Da Costa and Robert De Niro in the crime thriller “The Bag Man.”
“It really has been great fun,” Glover said of his illustrious career. “It’s been great to get to work so long in a medium that’s so expressive and artistic.”
The film, a freshman effort from first-time writer/director David Grovic, follows Cusack’s Jack, who spends the majority of the film waiting for his boss at a seedy motel after killing men for him and picking up a mysterious bag. Glover plays Ned, the motel’s manager.
“I never had to audition for the film, David just offered me the part,” Glover said. “I was in the Czech Republic working on one of my own films when I got the script and I just thought the dialogue was fantastic. There were just so many layers and interpretations of the things the characters say to each other that it fascinated me.”
Although sometimes working with first-time writers and directors can be a treacherous task, given they may not know their way around the set or may have difficulty keeping tabs on their cast and crew, Glover says that was certainly not the case with Grovic.
“I was a bit hesitant at first, because I have worked with first time directors who didn’t really know what they were doing, so I did have some bad experiences there in the '80s at the beginning of my career, but David was great,” Golver said. “He really knew what he wanted from his film; he had a real clear picture of it in his head, and he really understood the politics of a film set."
Glover says that Grovic allowed the actors to interpret the lines as they wished rather than tell them how he thought the lines were meant to be said as some writer/directors have been known to do.
“He let us really put our own spin on the dialogue,” Glover said. “There was one scene where as we were shooting it, we realized that there was an entirely different subject that changed the conversation on every level and the entire meaning of it, so we finished the take, talked with David about what we thought the scene meant, and he said, ‘Go for it.’”
The film marks Glover’s second time co-starring with Cusack, following 2010’s “Hot Tub Time Machine” in which Glover played Phil, a bell clerk at the hotel Cusack and his friends frequent.
“It’s really funny when you look at it, because our relationships in the two films, although they differ greatly in genre, are very similar," Glover said. "In ‘Hot Tub,’ I work at a hotel, and John stays there, and we interact that way. In this film, it’s pretty much the same thing, except for I’m a manger this time and he’s a criminal. Working with John though is great fun. He’s a great guy and a well-trained actor.”
Glover is currently working on his third directorial effort, which he is filming at his property in the Czech Republic.
“It’s the first time I’ve gotten to act with my father (actor Bruce Glover), and it’s really been great so far. I look forward to people getting to see it.”
Reach the reporter at seweinst@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @S_Weinstein95
