WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1183 - Scott Glenn

Episode Date: December 14, 2020

Scott Glenn is convinced that every good thing that's ever happened to him has been an accident. That includes serving in the Marines, getting his start in acting, meeting his wife, finding religion, gaining Lee Strasberg as a mentor, moving to Idaho, and getting the part in Apocalypse Now that kickstarted his confidence as an actor. Scott tells Marc about the serendipitous circumstances behind those moments in his life, as well as stories from the sets of The Right Stuff, Nashville, Urban Cowboy and Training Day.  Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global bestselling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series, streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply.

Lock the gates! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck sticks what the fucking east does what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast welcome to it if you're new here i I appreciate you coming by. How's everybody holding up? Yeah, there's still a massive amount of anxiety and panic and isolation going on. And I just wanted to acknowledge that at the outset here. I know that many of you are homebound and locked in and things are more terrifying. It is here as well in california it seems that uh fucking covet is out of control and uh i know there's a vaccine on the horizon i don't know

when i'll be able to get it but for some reason i don't know my brain i i guess my brain is just fizzled out on it i've hit a wall with the fear and i'm in some other zone i'm in some other zone with it i've crossed over i'm still hyper uh vigilant but man i i i've been on set as you know many of you i i've begun work on this movie and it's uh it's it's been good i'm fucking happy to be working. But more than that, it's not even about the work. We'll talk about it in a second. I do want to tell you that today I talked to Scott Glenn. Well, I talked to him a few months ago, actually. You know him from The Right Stuff, Silence of the Lambs, Hunt for Red October, Training Day, The Leftovers. He was in the Marines. One of his first acting jobs was uh on apocalypse now

he's got a lot of great stories but we did do it a few months ago it was before the election and we held it we have to hold on to things sometimes because he's got this movie coming out called greenland and it will be released on demand this friday december 18th but i was a little intimidated I didn't know how that would go. I didn't know if he was a big talker, but man, he was fired up, man. Scott Glenn was up where I think he's in Idaho, fired up up there in his bunker. He's not in a bunker, but I like people who get out of this fucking town. Who go out and live a life.

I'm thinking about doing that myself. Would that be alright? I've talked about it before. Can I go live a life somewhere else? But I love my fucking house. Anyways. People. You alright?

How's the kid? Alright? How's the other one? That one okay? They doing alright? Driving you crazy? What's happening? Have you figured out a way to

stay away from each other during the day so you can at least pretend like you like each other later? I'm not talking about your kid. I'm talking about your significant other. Have you guys figured out a way to work it so you can maintain the love and not just be stripped down to the bare essentials and wondering whether or not you'll be able to tolerate each other on the other side of this? I got to assume, folks folks and i don't mean to be sad or negative or bum anybody out but man if you make it through this as a marriage as a parent and you come out the other side of this with nothing but deepened, more in-depth love in your heart for all involved, you have graduated into decent humanhood. I'll tell you that, man.

I got to assume that some people are just ripped raw and stripped bare and wondering what the fuck they're doing with everybody involved. Who are you? Why are you here? I never wanted you to see this. Get away from me. Get away from me. You don't know me. You don't know me. I do now. You're the person that yells, you don't know me at me. That's right. That you don't know me. I do now though. And I love this part of you. I love the part of you that's screaming, you don't know me at me. Where are our children? What have you done with our children? What is happening?

Who am I talking about? You know what helped me the other day? I actually had to throw away some ice cream. I know it sounds harsh. It sounds crazy. But I had to do it. I had to throw away some ice cream. Shit was getting crazy. had to do it i had to throw away some ice cream shit was getting crazy clementines and st louis sent me all this fucking rich amazing ice cream and uh it turned on me it did i couldn't taste

the difference between anything anymore and all i could taste was that just a spoonful of self-hatred every time i ate it and i don't think that's a good promo it's like a warm spoonful of self-hatred every time I ate it. And I don't think that's a good promo. It's like a warm spoonful of self-hatred with each bite. Isn't that most fucking good food? Hey, look, whatever. I made it through. I'm back on it. I worked out yesterday.

Went on my hike. Dodging masquist Armenians both ways ways what did i do on the hike yesterday that you know what i listened to a lot honestly not that they need any promotion but i'm just saying that if there are any top 10 top 20 rock record lists that don't include aerosmith's first record then there's something wrong with that list the fucking guitar sounds on that what am i just being an Aerosmith fanboy right now? I don't like Aerosmith for the whole arc, but the first four records, oh, fuck. And it's because I saw, it's list time.

It's fucking list time, folks. The lists are coming. And just realize that a lot of times these lists, depending on the outlet, it's just content garbage. But sometimes they're just put together by one dummy. You know, maybe two dummies with an agenda i saw a like 100 best album list that had like i think like 40 radiohead records on it like radiohead records that no one could even get radiohead records that were only available to

the members of radiohead and i'm like i don't think this list is really objective not that any list can be objective but you know radiohead sessions in the cellar at the place where they were practicing done by the guy who works there. No, no, that's not one of the top 100 best rock records. I'm just saying there's a lot of lists that are incredible, and I guess it's all opinion anyways. I do know that one list I found to be incredibly on point was the vulture best comedy special for 2020 list because that as the number one best comedy special 2020 they had mark maron n times fun and i thought to myself finally finally someone understood it and it was the comedy nerds at vulture thank you thank you vulture i get no

award love i get no general i got you know it was i i just felt i'll be honest with you i'm not just blowing smoke up my own ass because i don't do yoga but i do i do believe that is my best work and I'm proud of it and I'm happy that it was recognized. Take care of yourselves, right? Use whatever options you have at your disposal to maintain your sanity without hurting yourself or others. So I'm on set and it's a very safe set. I'm shooting this film. It's called To Leslie. The director is a guy named Michael Morris. I'm working with Andrea Riceboro and Andre Royo primarily. I did not really know Andrea Riceboro or know what a fucking, you know, inspired acting genius she was. I know Andre.

He's great. We're hanging out a lot, having some laughs in our masks. Having laughs in our masks. So out of squirting and wiping on set all the time, they got a whole crew of squirters and wipers. And this is not, I don't want it too easy a joke. I'm not going to do that. But it's, you know, when you're shooting a small movie, the way it works is the only people that ever don't have a mask, it's the actors.

We're getting tested three times a week, which is a beautiful perk because I enjoy testing, as I've established over the time on this show. Over the COVID times, I've established that I do like to be tested. I've established that I do like to be tested. But, you know, I am not as confident as I'd like to be in general or as an actor. But it's funny being alone and not being sort of engaged in some sort of codependent relationship or or even in a day to day relationship of love and intimacy and all that, where there there seems to be almost a constant need for reassurance. I think that's part of a healthy relationship. Maybe not constant, but the occasional need for reassurance, or at least knowing that they love you. Lynn's been gone a while now, and I carry her with me. I carry her sense of who I was with me. I carry her faith in me as an actor, her belief in me as an artist. I carry that with me. I carry her sense of who I was with me. I carry her faith in me as an actor, her belief in me as an artist. I carry that with me because she gave me those gifts of making me feel like I was good. And, you know, after 40 years or 30 years, however long I've been doing comedy, you know, I know I'm good and I know I've gotten better.

I know I'm comfortable. But sometimes it's nice to be showered with the love and support but now for the first time in my life i'm self-generating that what an interesting new experience hey hey mark you're doing all right you're doing okay mark who the fuck are you i'm you man are you sure that you're doing all right. You're doing okay, Mark. Who the fuck are you? I'm you, man. Are you sure that I'm doing all right? Yeah, dude, you're doing okay and you're working hard and you should feel proud of yourself. Hey, go fuck yourself. I mean, you're bullshitting me, right? No, man, I'm you. Yeah, that's what you say, but are you me? Yeah, I'm you and I'm proud of you. Oh, gross, gross. What does that even mean? It means I'm proud of us. Oh, now we're together. Yeah. Finally. Oh, really? You think so? Yeah. Okay.

Okay. I'll hang out with you. We are doing a good job. So, but I got on set, you know, and I was nervous, nervous but here's here's the beautiful thing about being present being in scenes is that when you're doing these movies these smaller movies and even you know uh tv shows with without big budgets there's no read through i mean you got to show up ready for work ready with your choices ready to engage and you usually kind of rehearse on set, you know, in the first couple takes. But we're shooting on film and it's intense. And, you know, Leslie, I'm calling her by her character's name. Andrea has to really put a lot of things together before each take. You know, she's a professional and she's got to get in something deep. But there's not a lot of time for us to engage as each other or we're on set as the characters. There's sometimes when I'm in a moment and we're having, I need to be received emotionally when I'm acting. And I think that's part of it.

And she's such a good actress that I don't know if she's pretending to receive me or she actually is. But either way, it's fine because I'm feeling it in my heart. And sometimes on set when I'm watching her work or she's going through emotional things, I get choked up, but I realize the character shouldn't be choked up, Mark, so you're going to have to shove that shit down. So I don't know if that reads like, oh, look at this poor man who's struggling with his heart

because the guy I'm playing definitely does that, and maybe that's exactly what I need to do, but I do know I shouldn't be squirting out tears, so I got to hold that back. And I guess that's just part of being in it in the scene you know she we had to do a scene that was very engaged and you know you got to get your lines together and you got to get ready you know and it's a quick day it's a quick shoot and there's not a lot of takes because you are shooting on film so you got to be you know you got to be in it and you know we had not really ever you know this is got to be in it. And, you know, we had not really ever, you know, this is like Friday and we'd been working together five days and we had not

really rehearsed together. And she was just sort of like, can we just do this? And I'm like, yes, please. Anything you need. You are the star. However I can help us do this, let's do it. And we just kind of hold up and rehearse for the first time, like going through the lines and going through the scenes and getting it right and kind of connecting as people. And it was very moving to me. She's an amazing actress. And I didn't feel like I got to know her at all until Friday when she's like, can we run this? And I'm like, let's run it all day. Andrea, I'll run it all day long with you. I don't know. And I have a hard time admitting this, but I think I am doing pretty good work.

But more than that, I'm excited that I know how to do it, to be on a set, that I've achieved some sort of experience with working as an actor. And I'm kind of proud of myself. And I hate saying that. I hate it. But I'm kind of proud of myself and I hate saying that. I hate it. But I'm proud of myself and I hope I don't die of COVID or get it first. Okay? I'll tell you one thing. In the last few days, I felt very at peace with a lot of things and I don't really know why. I don't know what to attribute it to. But I've been very at peace with a lot of things.

And I have very little control over almost anything. And it's okay. So Scott Glenn is a great actor and intimidating. Until you meet him. And then he's just a little less intimidating and very engaging. His new natural disaster movie, Greenland, will be available on demand this Friday, December 18th. And we recorded this talk before the election. But, man, did I like talking to him.

This is me talking to Scott Glenn. the election, but man, did I like talking to him. This is me talking to Scott Glenn. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talked to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising.

Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+.

18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. I'm still new to doing this shit, so... Hey, yeah, how many have you done? You just started? I did, I think, for... What was it? For GQ, it was called.

Oh, yeah. Iconic parts of the actors who played them. That was what I was doing. Oh, nice. And which role was that for? It was for a whole bunch of them starting where i think they they began with um urban cowboy right stuff punk red october silence of the lamb silverado blah blah blah yeah i think that one of my uh i think a childhood memory i came upon

this morning was that uh you playing with that worm in your mouth in Urban Cowboy? Yeah, that was an accident. Was it? Yeah, we finished shooting for the night, and it was mezcal con sucosana, with your worm. And I said to Jim Bridges, the director, you know, I know how to get the worm out of this bottle. Why don't we shoot it and gross everybody out in Daly's?

And he said, great, we'll put it on a macro lens. How do you do it? It's a game I played in another part of my life down in South Texas, where everybody puts a hundred bucks in the table, right? They pass the bottle around, the first person gets the worm, gets all the cash.

And what typically people gringos people are unused to doing that kind of shit is they try to get the worm and they pass out from drinking too fucking much mezcal right and what you do is you stick your tongue in the neck of the bottle hold it up wait for the so you can feel the worm hit your tongue then take in as big a gulp as possible and what i did was i held the worm against the roof of my mouth swallowed the mescal and used my tongue to shove the worm back out and then chewed it back into my mouth to really be totally fucking disgusting but the but the plan was just to fuck with people in the editing room not to put it every our our dailies that they used to do this with movies all the time

everybody involved didn't matter if you were a caterer driver cast everybody came to dailies and so it was just it was just a it was just a joke for dailies. And Jim saw it and he said, that's going to be one of the most memorable scenes in this movie. Stuck in it. You know a movie is on your side when a lot of the best stuff are accidents. Yeah. I mean, it seemed to have scarred me.

So it's stuck in there. Well, good. Where are you from? mean it it's it seemed to have scarred me so uh it's stuck in there well good where are you from i grew up in albuquerque new mexico family's from jersey but i grew up in albuquerque how about you pittsburgh really yeah how long did you live in pittsburgh uh i lived in pittsburgh until i uh until I joined the service. Wow. As a six-month reservist, and since it was in the 60s, I was briefly activated a couple of times

and got my discharge November 27th, 1967. So you just missed it, huh? Kind of. I don't talk a whole lot about that oh really but nevertheless uh was and will be past the grave uh united states marine so there you go yeah it's a big life changer i guess i mean i i don't know well how where where what was your dad doing in Pittsburgh? What was the family business? Snap-on Tools. Oh, really?

Yeah. And he was a salesman and then worked his way up through the company. And for me, Parris Island was probably the best three months of education I ever had in my life because I was really a pretty much of an arrogant cocksucker and I needed the discipline of those three months and then what came afterwards was some of it was great and some not so great. And so were you one of those cases where like if you didn't go into the service you might might have ended up in jail. I mean, what was the childhood like? Yeah, I could have.

You know, that future was always a looming possibility. And also, the part of Pittsburgh that I came from, nobody was drafted. that I came from, nobody was drafted. So if you were smart, you could either join the Coast Guard or become a pilot, either in the Air Force or the Army or the Marine Corps. And if you weren't smart, the options were 101st, 82nd Airborne, United States Marine Corps. And I'm just going to go with the 101st until someone told me that I could join the Marines and also be airborne.

So I thought, oh, that's cool, and I'll do that. I did not avoid the draft five times from fucking bone spurs in a foot. So let me see. Oh, I can't remember which foot I had my fucking bone spurs in that was not yeah yeah no it does not seem like it and uh and yeah it these fucking uh these cowardly rich kids right well you know i mean not not to be too serious or i don't give a shit if I am serious. John McCain was a huge, was and is a huge hero of mine. When I heard the douchebag calling and saying, I don't like people who are caught,

wait a minute, multiple, I think it was 20, I don't want to over exaggerate, combat runs, overhand noise, shot out of the sky, beaten up, busted over 30 bones to your body. And then when your incredibly influential dad, when the, when the NBA found out that he was Admiral of the Pacific and you were offered a ride home to say no, you know, and the next day they hung him up by his, by his, by his, by his wrist. day they hung him up by his by his by his by his wrist and uh you know week week and a half later disrespect a gold star family i guess because they're muslims i don't give a shit if you're a three-headed fucking martian you lose a son or daughter fighting for this country you're owed all the respect i think for the rest of your fucking life and then stick a dagger in the heart of the kurds while we were fighting isis four brave special forces operators died and 11 000 kurds and um

how did we get on this subject it's like he's a fucking monster dude it's like i was thinking about it today you know about the new movie like about uh about greenland and it's like he's a fucking monster, dude. It's like I was thinking about it today, you know, about the new movie, like about about Greenland. And it's like I'm watching this movie and like all these movies are being made, you know, like a couple of years ago with apocalyptic themes and they're being released. And I'm like, I can just look outside, dude. My fucking state's on fire. You know? Oh, man. Are you in L.A. now?

Yeah. Yeah. Holy shit. I said, yeah, man. Are you in L.A. now? Yeah. Holy shit. Yeah, I saw pictures of it today. What's going on up there? You're in Idaho? Yeah, our air is caroling. What's the air like today? It sucks, right?

Yeah, it sucks up here, too. Not as bad as you have it, but there are numbers. I think we're at 70-something. Not good. So the Marines, I can feel the impact. Like even when you were just talking about service, I got kind of choked up. And I think that, yeah, I guess that's where you kind of develop the depth of your character as a person. You know, I guess so. It's really a good experience, I think, even briefly to be in a spot where you take orders and go for something bigger than yourself.

One of my best friends, also no longer alive, didn't believe in the military on any level. So he joined the Peace Corps. Same deal. Right. Just had the experience of thinking about, for half a second, about somebody else and trying to take care of them for a while. That's all.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's what's supposed to make humans different than other animals, in a way. Yeah. I mean, you're talking about the apocalyptic. I mean, in California, holy shit, you've got coronavirus and climate change both smacking you in the face at the same time. Yeah. Now I've got to wear a mask just to breathe.

It's not just about. I went on a hike today because I can't not get physical or I'd go crazy. I put an N95 mask on. I kept it on the whole fucking way just because of smoking. You keep in fucking solid shape. What did you eat for breakfast there, Scott? Oh, God. I had a... shit i had a protein drink and a

yeah a couple pieces of toast and about like half a gallon of coffee nice yeah i do a half a gallon of coffee too it's good i mean we're in it we're in it carol and i my wife and i are in a quarter kind of still in quarantine she's a potter and a brilliant potter. So her work hasn't stopped at all. She's in her studio throwing pots and firing and glazing. I'm a big pottery fan. I want to know. Tell me, how can I look at her stuff?

I like buying pottery. You know what? I'll send you. I'll work it out with the producers, but I'll send you a link where you can check out her stuff. She has a book. She's brilliant. She's easily the best artist in this family. What's her name?

Carol. Carol Glenn. Oh, that's great. Was Carol Schwartz, but now Carol Glenn. I'm a huge, I don't know why. I've taken, I love pottery. I buy a lot of pottery. I was just up in Taos.

I bought some pots. I'm a big fan of it. Yeah, me too. Yeah, I guess you would be. How long has she been throwing pots? She's been throwing pots for 50 years. 50 years. Yeah, we've been married.

This will be our 52nd wedding anniversary. Holy shit. Wow. Yeah, so she's been, since just right around the time we hooked up, she started throwing and firing and still is doing it. It's interesting to me because it seems like there's, you don't, I don't know you obviously, but to come out of the Marines and then, you know, choose a life of the arts. I mean, that seems, it seems, it's not counterintuitive, but it's unique. And also to have this, to have a wife who's an artist. I mean, how did, how did that happen? How did you come out? My life is, it's a terrible lesson for other people.

And I wouldn't, I tried not to even give it to my two daughters, but for me, the best thing I can do is walk outside, see how high I can jump up in the air and find out which way the wind blows me. Because every really good thing that's ever happened to me has been an accident. And that's just the truth. From meeting her to, I never planned to be an actor. I took acting classes in New York. I wanted to be a writer, poetry and short stories and shit like that. And I was talking to a friend of mine and she said, and I,

I'd gotten a job on a sports desk of a newspaper in the Virgin Island. It wasn't. Yeah. And I thought, you know, go to the Virgin Islands, hang out with a lot of hot babes and bikinis and live a good life and write poetry and the great American novel. And she said, why don't you go to New York and take an acting class? And I went, for what reason?

And she said, I'll be honest with you, Scott, your description of your places and action and ideas is not bad. It's okay. But your dialogue essentially sucks. And it's stiff. It's not real. The minute you put words in anyone's mouth, whether it's a poem or a short story or whatever,

you lose it. She said, you're not doing anything for six months. If you get up in front of people and say words, it'll kick you in your ass to listen to the way people really speak. And if you're dealing with theater, you'll be dealing with arguably the best dialogue ever written. So, you know, after I got over maybe 30 seconds of being hurt and angry at somebody telling me the truth.

I thought, you know, she's right. So I drove to New York and I got a couple of jobs. One is a bricklayer turning a burlesque house into a rock theater, the Fillmore East. You were laying bricks for the Fillmore down on the Lower East Side? Yeah, yeah. And then a job briefly as it sounds like bullshit. Well, they called it a bouncer.

What I got really good at because I'm a skinny guy, but I got really good at buying people drinks and stopping fights. So I got a couple jobs and the first day I looked up acting in the Village Voice, nothing under A, under B, Berghoff. I didn't know anything. Called it Berghoff Studios. I got a hold of this guy. I don't know if you know Bill Hickey, his name was.

Yeah, Bill Hickey. He was famous. You almost had his voice for a second. Bill Hickey. He was, yeah, yeah. You almost had his voice for a second. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bill Hickey. He was nominated for an Academy Award. Pritzy's Honor. Exactly right.

Yeah. And I got him on the phone, and he said, he gave me a monologue to work on. He said, come by Wednesday. So like 11 o'clock in the morning, Wednesday, in the basement of Bank Street, I walked out in front of probably seven or eight people yeah and literally this is true literally before i opened my mouth for the first and only time my life was like a light bulb went off between my eyes and i thought holy i'm an actor like that fast it was like and it wasn't oh i love this i want to express myself

or anything like that right it was like my life made sense to me for the first time ever really i like instantly thought you know i daydream all the time i live in these fantasies i this is this is what i'm meant to do and i Bill saw it, and he looked at me. He started to laugh and said, that's right. You're one of us. And then he turned to the seven people who were trying to still wake up, probably. And he said, Scott's not going to finish this scene.

He's got to go outside, walk around the block a couple times and think about things. And he was right. I went to, I got around the block a couple times and think about things and he was right i went to uh i got on the phone called my mom and dad up i said i'm not going to the virgin islands i'm they thought maybe i was going to go back into the side so i'm not going to go back into the marine corps i'm going to be an actor and my dad said the smartest thing any father could say about something like that. And, and very few ever would.

He said, I don't know anything about what you're telling me, son. The only advice I can give you is don't give yourself any deadlines. Don't say if I haven't made it in four years, he said, that's like starting a race with a lead weight hung around your neck in for a penny in for a pound.

You love it. make it your life. Holy shit. And I did. But that's what an amazing thing for that guy to say. Yeah. You guys, you were tight? Yeah. I, you know, I mean, I grew up in a disgustingly functional family.

My mom and dad loved each other to the very end. Long marriage. functional family my mom and dad loved each other's to the very end long marriage uh got along with them great it was all good yeah well that well that well that's some testament that would be why you are also uh you know still married and grounded right Yeah. I'm lucky to be with, uh, I'm lucky to be with a woman who's not only amazingly beautiful and talented, but you know, has a, on her mom's side of the family, she's how many generations, Carol? 22? We're around 22 unbroken generations of Orthodox rabbis. to unbroken generations of orthodox rabbis. So there's a rich background that this woman comes from. Wow. I just come from Jewish tailors in Russia. That's cool. Where do the orthodox rabbis go? What part of Eastern Europe is she from? Hungary.

orthodox rabbis go what what part of eastern europe is she from hungary oh yeah we my family goes back into into the pale of settlement in russia so you're you're jewish now is that true yeah i converted uh a good a friend of mine uh amazing guy i went to see him as it turns out he was a rabbi with a shul on the Upper East Side. But he had been just a very amazing, interesting kind of activist guy. And I said, make me a Jew. I want to be a Jew. And he said, schmuck, I'll lie for you. I'll tell her parents I didn't do it.

You don't want to do that. And I went, yeah, I really do. And and and and I don't want to do it for her parents. I just make me make me a Jew. And he said, you know, he said, I'm a conservative rabbi, Scott. And I don't really hang with conversions that much, but no other rabbis don't do it. So I'll get a hold of one of them, but I just would assume not. I went, okay. And I started walking on the shore. He said, hey, wait a minute, asshole, turn around. And I did. He said, it's not for her parents. It's not, he said, what do you know about the Talmud? And I said, if a man teaches his son no trade, it is as if he taught him highway to Roburn. And he said, you've read the Talmud. And

I said, a lot of it I have. He said, do you accept it as the word of God? And I said, no. I said, it's a lot of wisdom, but if you ask me what resonates with me more than any other of those kind of works, it's probably Lao Tzu's The Way of Life. And he said, Ben, why do you want to be a Jew? And I said, honestly, if there was no such thing as anti-Semitism, we wouldn't be sitting here talking. But I love this woman, and I don't know how long it's going to last or what's going to go on but we both like to travel and i just simply don't want to be anywhere in the world where somebody's going to be pointing a gun at her and not at me for the same reason and he said he looked at me he said sit down so i sat down and he said after me all of that dimpled dollars i said what are you what are you doing he said i'm converting

i said why and he said i've never had that answer to that question and he said you want to take a target and put it on your back i am obligated to convert you so he did there you go and now And now you're just two happy targets. Two happy targets, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Welcome to the club. Thank you. So now, so you studied with Hickey and you went back to the class, I assume. And that was the beginning, huh?

Yeah, that was the beginning. And it was, in a lot of ways, the late 60s, early 70s, I think was a much easier time for actors to learn their trade in New York than, say, right now. off-Broadway happened. If you wanted, back then, if you wanted to work at, say, La Mama, if you were willing to run props and paint flags, you had a part in the play. Yeah, and I imagine the third thing on that list would be, you know, be naked and paint yourself red as well. Well, there's that too. Yeah. Yeah, and, you know, that didn't happen to me until later on when I did Killer Joe. I didn't have to paint myself red, but I did have to walk around in front of people for a while.

What's Killer Joe? Oh, Killer Joe is McConaughey. Killer Joe was originally, and in its best form, not a movie, but a play. It was a play by Tracy Letts. Exactly right. Right. And Friedkin made it a digital movie. Yeah. Got it. lutz exactly right right and friedkin made it a digital movie yeah yeah and i and i never it was

you know it's one of those deals some some pieces are really meant to be what they were originally nothing else and killer joe we did it in a theater that held a little less than 200 people with very low ceilings so it was fucking claustrophobic and the people that came to see that play were it was like they were all jammed into a trailer on the outskirts of dallas where the thing took place and there's just no way you we had a fight scene at the end of the play that was not choreographed it was improv every single night and so you know amanda plumber threw her neck out three times i think she broke her wrist i had a crap collarbone it was it was a crazy crazy experience that there was no way you could duplicate any of that stuff on screen

you originated that play with tracy uh it no it was originated in chicago there was tracy comes from steppenwolf and they were doing it was either an experiment you know i can't remember whether it was stepping proper or one of those experimental offshoots but yeah he brought the play from Chicago to New York with Michael Shannon, with a couple of the original people from Chicago and then the add-ons

were Dottie that were two different actors who played that part and Amanda Plummer and myself. And it was a great experience because it was comedy, which is fantastic because it ain't working if they're not laughing.

Yeah. And you needed circus skills. You had to be able to do pratfalls and all that kind of stuff. Right. And willing to be naked both emotionally and physically in front of people. And so I remember when we started doing the thing, I said to Amanda, this is great training, but this, you know, this play could potentially kill us. And she said, you know, it's such an extreme play. We'll probably split the critics down the middle,

and you won't have to worry about it. We'll be here for, we'll do our long, our endless previews. In our case, it was, I think, a couple months of previews. We'll open, and we'll close in a week or two. What happened was we got great reviews and we're essentially adopted by the New York Times magazine section. And I remember right after it came out, I was walking to the theater and three blocks away from the fucking theater, the limos were lined up. I walked in and Amanda was there and she said, who whoops we're going to be doing this for a while and that was uh six months we did it and then i went to uh new zealand to make a movie so you're

saying in the mid 60s that it or the late 60s it was a good time for actors if they were willing to sort of you know do everything yeah there was a ton of work. There was improv. I mean, I remember we did one play. We started on the streets. We started at Battery Park and worked our way up to the George Washington Bridge. And that was the actual play? No,

these were theater games, improvs. Just picking up on things and trying to either make something happen. Number one, what you go to quickly is humor. Right. And if you've had the chops and you thought you could pull it off,

you could also take improv can go in other directions as John Cassavetes has proven. Sure. Yeah. Improv can go in other directions, as John Cassavetes has proven. But doing improv when you're doing it for things other than laughs is tricky business. You worked with Altman a couple times. What was it like on Nashville? Was that improvised? Nashville was not improvised.

Joan Tewksbury wrote that script. She called it her patchwork quilt. But the way that you did things, I have had a tiny part in Nashville. And I remember that it was a scene in a hospital. And I went over to Bob and I said, how do you want me to do this? I mean, I could I think I could actually be funny and or i could hopefully have some pathos maybe break your heart maybe be sad i where do you want me to go with this and he said you're the fucking actor not me i have no idea he said you know scott you're doing the only job

in this movie that i can't do i I can wipe better than the lighting guy. I can cook better than the caterer. I don't know. You do it. And I said, what do you want? And he said, this is what I want. I want to see your performance in dailies and say, yes, that that happened i said that's it he's like yeah but you chose that like that part even though it may not have been big the choices you made

were were kind of uh uh you know powerful because it's a memorable little part because you were so the the obsession or whatever you felt for that singer, it seemed to kind of reveal itself as something genuine, like love. And it was sort of a moving thing. Well, thank you. It was. And that was kind of what I was going for. I mean, I was telling you that my good luck is really the name name of my life and yeah good accidents my masters uh when i moved to hollywood uh both of whom were thought of at the time as outlaws were bob altman and francis

coppola right and um you know with francis i played really a tiny part, but in the most amazing movie, American movie I think ever made, Apocalypse Now. Yeah, you were there on the shore, right, as the boat pulled up. I was the guy that went up the river ahead of Martin Sheen. Colby. Yeah, exactly right. You know, it's weird, dude. I was just in New Mexico.

I spent a couple weeks in Taos, and I visited Dennis's grave. Oh, did you know him? I didn't know him at all, but I, you know, I'd heard he was buried up there in this little weird kind of like Mexican cemetery that wasn't even attached to a church because he loved it up there. And it was such a moving thing. I went twice and just spent time over there because, know with those kind of um rough kind of mexican cemeteries where you know it seems like people keep contributing to the grave that you could there was sort of a celebration to it it wasn't morose yeah and uh and just being there i i felt i was i thought i was very connected to him as an actor i didn't know him he was uh know him he was uh he was uh god i don't know i just i loved him he's crazy really crazy i mean i had that i had a chance francis told because of a bunch of events that happened that francis thought i'd saved his life which i hadn't really and but at any rate he he he said you know you've

got a decent i i was going to play a part of the Doolong Bridge, the guy who has M79 grenade launcher. It's in the movie. It's a bigger part than what I wound up playing. Anyway, he said, I'm a great writer because I think you maybe saved my life and helped out. We were hit with a typhoon in in the philippines and yeah screwed us up a lot and i and i helped out son so he said just tell me a part you want you

want me to write and i'll write you a phenomenal part of this movie i said i want to be in the end of the movie and he said that's the only part i can't. I can't do that, Scott. It's completely cast. It's Dennis Hopper. It's Marlon Brando. It's the people. He said, I mean, if you want to play Colby, the guy that went up the river ahead of them, you can do that. But I don't even have any lines right now. Maybe I could give you a line.

But, you know, essentially, you'd be just a glorified extra. But if you want to do it, it okay it's not going to start we won't even get to that part of the movie for certainly at least four or five months and I'll have to figure something else for you to do here in the Philippines in the meantime do you really want that and I I said, yeah, I really, truly want it. Because I realized that acting is like serving an apprenticeship. And you don't learn it out of a book. You're an actor and a comic. Do you learn? Is there any school other than stand-up that can teach you what stand-up can teach you?

No, definitely not well i was going to get to work with marlon fucking brando dennis hopper at the end of this movie in the middle of all of this insanity and i realized i had to and it was the smartest thing I ever did. Three or four months ago, Francis may have even been five or six. I'm so screwed up with time now because of this pandemic. But he released the final cut of Apocalypse. Another one. And I went and saw it. And I told him, I said, you know, I've never said this before, but I really owe, you gave me the greatest gift that anybody can give, certainly a performing artist, if not any artist.

And he said, what's that? And I said, the gift of self-confidence. Before I'd gone to the Philippines, I'd go, and, and I'd audition for some TV show. And, you know, and they would say, you know, you squint too much, and you don't, you don't do this enough, and you don't do that enough, and you're not going to get the part. But, and I would get kind of angry, but I'd walk out thinking, shit, maybe I should go back to New York. And maybe I'm just can't do this in front of a camera. And, you know, and and then after apocalypse, I'd have the same exact experience. But at the end of it, when they would tell me about what a shitty job I'd done, I'd say, who the fuck are you?

I just finished working with Marlon Brando and Dennis Hopper, Victoria fucking Storaro, and Francis Coppola. And by the way, you can't direct traffic. How's that? And then they said, you're not coming back to Universal. And of course, a month or so later, I was back in Universal, even making more money. Right. It's a gift to not give a fuck. It's a gift to be able to say, fuck you.

Right. It's a gift to not give a fuck. It's a gift to be able to say, fuck you. And it's a gift to realize that these people are talented at almost nothing. Very true. I asked Bob Towne. I said, also, I noticed, I said, why? These people wouldn't let me get in the front door to their office. And now I live in Idaho, and they're all offering me, you know, big parts and big films. And Bob said, that's because when you come into an office now, you bring the Sawtooth Mountains in with you and they are all fucking jealous they all want that that's wild do you talk to him still is he still around i you know i'm gonna have to call him up in the next day or

two because i yeah the the i don't know if you've had this experience or not, but it's like when you're making a movie or working on a TV show, you get so tight with the people. It's kind of like your best friend in fourth grade was going to be your best friend forever. And then three years later, you can barely remember their name. It's a weird thing. It's a weird secret little... It's almost like you have this life that you spend a life with them from birth until like almost like death in a six-month period.

And then you walk away from it. And you don't miss them really. And it feels like a complete thing. But it's another universe or something. It's a very weird experience. Because you're on to the next one. And you're on to the next one. Yeah.

And investing whatever that part of your personality you're on to the next one and you're i guess so yeah investing that whatever that part of your personality you want to turn the volume up on and however you work so did were you there on the set of apocalypse when kytel came and went yes oh man like that that must have been an entire lesson in in show business of all levels. Yeah, it was. Yes, it was. I know Harvey. Harvey and I are brother Marines. We'll be for our whole life. Right.

Really a good guy, and I like him a lot. With Apocalypse, God, I better not say it okay um what was how did francis think he saved his life when i got uh to begin with uh uh the way i got a part in apocalypse was um they cast all of the all the major parts everybody in the boat and all of that. And they were casting all the, I don't know, 30, 40, 50 smaller parts that were going to run throughout the film. Yeah. And what they did was they had a bunch of maybe,

I think it was probably around 50 actors, come over a long weekend to a soundstage in Hollywood. And there were folding tables all around in the center of the room and and then folding chairs around the side and everybody would sit there and wait to be called and Francis would with the ADs would run improvs and first two days nobody called on me so it was the final day was a Sunday I went in I sat up against the wall again and Francis came over and he put up a card table right opposite where I was, but did not pick me, picked four guys. And he said, okay, this is what you're doing.

You're floating down the Mekong River in a boat. The engines are off and you've got Playboys, Playboy magazines, and you're having an argument, the four of you, over who should be Playmate of the Year. So go. So these guys start doing improvs on, you know, I'm an ass guy. No, I like this woman. And they're doing great work.

But I guess what I did was roll my eyes to the sky. And Francis stopped the work right away and he walked over to me. He said, excuse me, I know I haven't called on you. I don't even really know who you are. But don't make comments on people's work like that. These guys are doing good work. They're really. And I said, no, no, I'm not commenting on their work.

That's not why. He said, why did you roll your eyes? I said, you're floating on the Mekong River, engines off, and you're shouting like that. You're going to have a mortar in your fucking lap in five seconds. Okay? You're dead. You're going to have that fight. You have it have that fight and he looked at me he turned to the ad and he pointed me he said I want him in my movie so I got to

so I get to the Philippines and they're all in a place called the sand valley in I think was called on the south it was called. It was a Japanese bunker that turned into some kind of a motel. And everybody in the film was staying there, but it was the weekend. So they were all going back to Manila. Most of them went back to Manila. I think Marty stayed there with his kids. He lived away from the hotel at any rate they went back to manila uh in in the morning late that afternoon the worst typhoon to hit the philippines since 1932 came rolling in directly where we were we were on an isthmus that was

turned into an island they thought we were dead for the first wow two days because there's no communication yeah we had uh you know there was a woman thank god she didn't but she was gonna she was pregnant with twins and so you know as anybody here delivered a baby i had to raise my hand because i did my second child i had in our bedroom in topanga canyon so on purpose huh on purpose yeah okay hippy dippy yeah yeah on purpose so uh so uh i set up an operating room for you know had the generator we had no fuel i said can we run this on Lamanook, which is a coconut moonshine? They said, yeah, but you burn the generator up after two hours. I said, fine. It's all I need is two hours, but we'll do that.

And we just sort of myself and a PA who had also a former Marine kind of got the place together. Two and a half days later, they flew back from Manila, and Francis came in with the insurance adjuster. Because of the force majeure, you can't just say, look, this is the worst typhoon to hit the Philippines since 32. Give us our money. All of our sets are destroyed. We're going to have to close down for a while and start again. That's not the Philippines since 32. Give us our money. All of our sets are destroyed.

We're going to have to close down for a while and start again. That's not the way it works. The way it works is an adjuster has to see you try to continue to shoot and in fact, see that it's impossible. So they went down to what was a shot that was going to be at a very shallow, gently meandering stream that because of the typhoon, it turned into whitewater. And so Francis got in the boat with the insurance adjuster. And I think Enrico Amatelli, who was a camera operator, I'm sure I can't, but I like four guys in the boat and they tied a rope to the back of the boat to let it out into this whitewater.

So, it started getting away. They could pull it back. And I'm a baby 25 yards away, and I'm seeing this whole thing happen. I'm thinking, this is a disaster. Because what's going to happen is the tide is just going to take that boat straight downstream. The rope is going to go taut, pull down the back of the boat, and it just going to take that boat straight downstream. The rope is going to go taut, pull down the back of the boat, and it's going to sink. So the minute they let it go, being a Marine, I always had a knife on me. I pulled out a knife, ran, and cut the rope, and the boat sort of went downstream a bit,

and they eventually got in. And Francis said, who cut the rope? And they said, he did. Scott did. So he thought potentially, you know. And all he did was run and cut a rope. And then the next day, the helicopter pilot was ready to leave to go back to Manila. And it was still raining sideways.

go back to Manila and it was still raining sideways. And he said, we can't, we can't go back because to fill this chopper up with jet fuel, if we get any water in it, you know, we'll go down on our way back to Manila. And I said, no problem. I've, you know, filled a million of these things up. So I ran out and all you do is you shield the where you're putting the gas in with your back you shield you shield yourself being a block from the ring and you shoot into the into the opening where the fuel goes and some of it bounces back on you and I didn't have a shirt on. So I fill it up and top it off and I go back and I say, okay, you're good to go.

There's no water in the fuel. I guarantee you're not going to crash. But meanwhile, the front of my chest looked like I had a triple case of measles because of all the fucking jet fuel that was on. At that point, Francis said,

I'm a good writer. What do you want? And at that point I said, I want to be in the you want and at that point I said I want to be in the end of the movie that's what I want and he couldn't deliver it he couldn't deliver it well that I mean like it sounds like that thing not unlike the Marines just being on that set was a life-changing you know year i mean that was yeah it was and it kind of gave you all this uh confidence it planted you in the business you've got to spend time with these guys who you respected i mean jesus that's a great experience

so francis wanted he essentially wanted every each one of us to dive as deeply into our own personal lunacy as we possibly could. So for me, that meant living with, there were probably a couple hundred thousand of them altogether. We had about 500 people from a tribe in northern Luzon called the Ifugao. And I lived with them in the longhouses for four months. I learned their language. They took me into the tribe, gave me an Ifigao name, Kimayong. And so for me, that was the side adventure of that was wonderful, but it also was a lesson on really immersing yourself in parts and finding the, not necessarily the lunacy, but the place in whatever character you're playing where the volume is really turned up.

The truth of the character? Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So like when you do something like, how do you carry that when you do the right stuff? The right stuff is one of my favorite movies because, you know, when you realize it's kind of a comedy, it becomes an amazing. It's like it elevates it somehow that there's definitely the tone of that movie outside of being sort of heroic and amazing about the astronauts. But there's so much humor in it and it's so cleverly done,

but you were great in that. So when you try and like in, in, in the quest for truth of Alan Shepard, did you, were you able to spend time with him? No, I didn't.

I thought I was, I was given the option and I turned it down and I, and it, it's my observation that when you're going to play somebody, and I turned it down. It's my observation that when you're going to play somebody and they know their image is going to be exploded onto a screen the size of a four-story building, they will, maybe without even intending it, edit themselves. I didn't do this.

I didn't do that. I just didn't want. So I wanted every bit of footage on Alan Shepard that I could possibly get, including home movies, anything. And I wanted to talk to everyone who knew him. I didn't want to talk to him myself, partly because I didn't want to be edited and partly because I wanted whatever that inside to be mine.

It was Phil. Phil sent me the script and he said, here, pick your part. And he thought I was going to say Chuck Yeager. He thought I was going to say Yeager. And I said, I want to do Alan Shepard. He said, that's really a comedic part. And I went, yeah, I know. know and he said can you do that and i'm like yeah and uh he said okay well i promised you uh he said i'm good to my word you want to so so i a lot of that the exterior was actually admiral shepherd you know probably the hardest thing was actually Admiral Shepard. You know, probably the hardest thing.

And then the humor, you know, a lot of the, you're quite right, came from the script. It was just implied in the script. And then the vibe on the set was somehow, I mean, how can you miss when your scene involves not being able to keep from peeing in your space? I mean, how can you miss? With the joke, you mean? Yeah.

And the thing that you realize also about these guys, they're all lunatics. They were so squeaky clean and short hair. But the odds were then that they were going to die. That's what happened with most of those rocket ships. They went up and they exploded. So what kind of a person really wants to do that? A crazy person. Right. And my favorite review I ever got in my life i got actually from

then admiral shepard he saw the movie and he wrote a letter to phil kaufman he said tell scott glenn when you see him from me congratulations he did a phenomenal job he got me almost perfect there's just one thing he, and that is he isn't anywhere near as good looking as I am, which I love. He didn't disappoint me. somebody else so that crew of guys they when you were coming up in new york and in acting you studied with hickey but were you also uh did you also were you uh study anywhere else yeah i got um a friend of mine called me up and uh he was doing his final audition for the actor's studio yeah the scene partner had gotten sick and it was from a scene from uh long day's journey at the night and right and he was playing jamie who has a huge monologue and my character edmund was just essentially listening to him talk knowing i was going to go into a hospital for consumption the

next day so i'm just sitting there. And he said, asked me if I'd do it. He said, you don't really have to do anything. It's my audition. I said, sure. So three days before that, I was in a traffic accident in the back of a car with a bunch of dogs, a station wagon that got, everybody was hurt except for me and I had to get people to the hospitals and stuff like that and I got a bad cold so I was

coughing and wheezing and then right before the the audition a friend of mine called me up and he said my girlfriend got sick and I've got one ticket light heavyweight championship of the world madison square garden you want to come with me and i said uh yeah i'm sure i'll make it because the audition is early and of course it wasn't early and by the time we did it all i was thinking was i want to fucking out of here i want to go to madison square garden to see this fight and meanwhile i'm coughing and wheezing i was the character okay next morning i get a call wheezing. I was the character. OK. Next morning, I get a call from Liska March, who was the Lee Strasberg secretary. And she said, I don't think this has ever happened before, Scott, but congratulations.

You're a member of the actor's studio. And I knew so little about it. I said, you know, that's really great, but I don't have that much money now. And, you know, I'm joining and paying by the month. She started to laugh and she said, wait a minute. The next voice came on Wesley. He had been in the place that he said, I was there last night. He said, so listen, he said, this is for free for life. I saw you last night and you really have something. for life. I saw you last night and you really have something. So work on a scene. Come on by. Let us be rude to you. And I worked on a, so I worked on a scene, two giant, two longest monologues I could find of Iago's from Othello. And I put them together with costumes and props and everything and brought that into the acting studio.

And I did the scene. And Lee, talking in the royal we, he said, we don't know what to say to you. He said, bring in something simple, something like tying a necktie. This is too much, Scott. And I got criticized by a bunch of the people in the in the audience and I thought fuck this I you know I feel bad and everybody everybody and I waited till everybody left because I didn't

want to walk out and you know with everybody who just see me you know essentially screw up and when I walked out, Lee was standing on the sidewalk by himself. And he said, What do you drink coffee or tea? I said, coffee. He said, for me, it's tea. Come on, I'll buy a cup. And we sat down. And he said, you really have something Scott, but I work on smaller things on. He said, I'll give you suggestions and I'll work with you myself. He said, but when we go back in that building, don't expect me to be polite or let you down easy or anything to change. So for a period of time, again, just an accident, good luck. Again, just an accident.

Good luck. I had Lee Strasberg as like a private coach. And did it change the way you saw acting? What he told me from the, yeah, it did. But what he told me about all studied acting, especially if you work from the inside out and begin with what started at the Moscow Arts Theater, excuse me, is, and he said this himself. It wasn't, this wasn't my idea. He said, basically what you're learning from me and from Bill and George

Morrison and theater games and all this stuff is how to get yourself out of trouble when you've got a really shitty director or when you've got a part that's really not working yeah he said if you're in the throes of inspiration if it's playing you just leave it alone that's not what this is about this is about getting yourself out of trouble and making something work anyway And did you have to use that quite a bit? Yeah, more than I'd like to. Yeah. I've only done three parts of my life that actually played me. I would wake up in the morning and say,

Scott, your only job today is just stay the fuck out of the way. Don't get in the way. Just leave it alone. And now there's Killer Joee on stage urban cowboy yeah and then much later on uh tv show that i did you know and with all credit to the brilliant writer damon linloff uh the leftovers. Where I just said, you know, Damon has given me an amazing gift. And my only job, essentially, is not to fuck it up. That's great. The reason I asked you about the Actor's Studio is like,

because it seemed like the right stuff. All those guys in one place seemed almost like a generation of actors. Quaid and Harris and Fred Ward. Sam Shepard. Sure. I remember when we were doing the right stuff, somebody came up from Variety, and they asked us about the competition.

All you guys are starting. Your careers are all beginning. You must be trying to steal scenes from each other and what what kind of friction is happening on the set and they got really pissed off at me and the anyone else that was asked that question because the answer was we all love each other and we're all getting along really well uh i remember i told the the the reporter from variety i said today i did the scene where i was uh gonna i was in the rocket ship and i was gonna have to pee in my space suit yeah dennis and fred ward and ed all showed up on the set to help me out. They weren't working that day. It was their fucking day off.

It was just like the movie. It was just like the movie. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I just watched Silverado recently again to sort of check it out. You know, I feel like that's a,

I feel like there's like four westerns in one western in that movie it's yeah larry casden and his brother tried to include their favorite scenes from every western they'd ever seen and the only part that had to be cut out because of budget were the indians there was a giant thing where the indians saved the wagon train from the back yeah we had to yeah that part was written for me so again that was a gift that and the fact that i can't ride at all and luckily the horse that i wound up with fell in love with me yeah and with me do pretty much anything with him that I wanted to. But you were great in it, and it must have been fun doing that.

Yeah, it was. New Mexico. Where did you shoot it? Santa Fe. And outside, we would leave. We were shooting in New Mexico in the winter, which meant we had maximum four and a half to five hours of decent light a day to work

with. The good news was it was all magic hour, all five hours. The light was low in the sky, and it's just the most beautiful place in the world. But we would leave, having had breakfast, leave for work every day between 3.30 and 4 in the morning. There's something so magical about northern New Mexico, man. It's so fucking pretty. Yeah. Is it pretty in Idaho? Gorgeous.

Yeah? How long? You've been up there forever? Yeah. Carol and I have been here for 37 years. When you went, was it one of those things where you were getting out of Hollywood? Yeah. Nothing was going right.

And I just thought, you know, we was by invitation only, kind of the most prestigious ceramic workshop in the world at the time of America's greatest potters. And so she was coming up here with our two daughters who were little babies. While she was throwing pots, I went up north with a group of people for a little over two weeks of high traversing on snow and ice and then rock climbing. When I came back, the whole family had kind of fallen in love with each other again. We moved back to L.A. and we all get to blues again. And I'm sitting in our living room in Topanga Canyon, watching myself on television on a, on, on a Beretta that I had done. And Carol walked into the, into the living room. She said, what's wrong, babe?

I said, what do you mean? She said, you're crying. And I'm pointing at the screen. I said, you're supposed to get better when you do no worse that's the worst piece of shit acting I've ever seen I was way better you know on the streets of New York what's going on and I realized that living in LA for me was I had stopped thinking about what makes this person tick and how do I make this person understandable and and uh to uh what party can I go to to meet who what's my billing and I turned into a show business politician I wasn't any good at that at all and I thought you know my dreams

of acting are you know right on the edge of dying. And I can't go back to New York because my kids are, I can't subject them to the life of a New York street actor. And so we moved up here and I didn't really know what I was going to do. I thought, you know, I can do Shakespeare in the Park and Boise, and I'll get a job up here doing something, and I'll somehow make it work. And I still have this love when the kids are older, I'll move back to New York. So we've been up here just a few weeks, and I got a small part in a film called catalanian little britches that only because rupert hitzig the producer i was a friend of mine from the marine corps got the part

came back up here and they wanted me i remember uh jim bridges we dropped by on our way up from mexico to see him and he said you're perfect for this part of the movie i'm doing up from Mexico to see him. And he said, you're perfect for this part of the movie I'm doing. Wait around town for three days, meet the producers, the star of this cast approval, and I can make this happen. It's a great villain. And I said, fuck that.

I don't do that anymore. I don't walk into people's office like a piece of meat. I live in Idaho. I just made $4,000. I'm flush. I just wanted to tell you I love you and say goodbye. Goodbye. We came back up here. Two weeks later, the phone's ringing. It's Jimmy. He said, now I'm flush. I just wanted to tell you I love you and say goodbye. Goodbye. We came back up here.

Two weeks later, the phone's ringing. It's Jimmy. He said, now I'm in Houston. Paramount doesn't want you to do this film, but I do. If you come down and do this thing, you'll never have to audition again as long as you live. It's going to be the making of you, I promise. I'm sending you a plane ticket.

I said, screw that. They're not going to have their hooks into me. Even for a plane ticket, I'll get my truck and drive down to Houston. So he was right. I didn't have to audition. And after Urban Cowboy, when I came up here, Carol said, I'm going to show you something up to the bedroom and there are two scripts lying on the bed for authors for leads and movies for more money than i'd ever dreamed about making and i thought you know at the time uh i thought all i have to do is not do um a repeating part in in tv I can live anywhere I want. If I'm willing to get behind the wheel of my truck or hop off a plane,

I can live here and have a life. And here I am. That's beautiful. I'm starting to think that too. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing here. I can't even breathe outside. But I like that you claim to have had all this luck, but you fought some of it, which was, I think, pretty interesting. That this guy was telling you he's going to change your life, and you're like, fuck that studio.

Yeah, I mean, arrogance has got its plus and minus side. But the weird thing is, though, it's like it's arrogance to a certain degree, but it becomes impossible. I think what you saw in that moment was, you know, you were going to lose your ability to have self-respect if you stayed there. You're right. Right? Absolutely. And, you know, nothing's worth that, really. Nope.

Yeah. absolutely and you know nothing's worth that really nope yeah i want to ask you a quick about uh the uh like like i've seen a lot of your movies obviously and a lot of them are great but like there's something i've talked to um i talked to ethan hawke about training day right yeah and um and ethan told me this weird thing about how he prepared for that. He said because he knew the nature of Denzel that he watched all of Denzel's old movies like they were football training films. Like he said, if I'm not going to get eaten alive by this guy, I better be in good shape. I got to know how to work this thing. I better be in good shape. I got to know how to work this thing.

And that scene where, you know, with you and Denzel, where you know you're kind of going to die, and he knows you're going to die. I find him to be a very, I think there are guys that can just fill themselves up with something that you can't quite explain. Hackman does it too. That scene with you two was fucking amazing. Now, when you work with an actor that's, you know,

you guys are equal caliber and you're going to do this thing, is that what makes it worth doing? It must have been a great scene to do. No? Am I projecting? It was a phenomenal scene to do. am i projecting it was a phenomenal scene to do and i didn't you know i i had i'd worked with with d once before and um uh on the courage under five all right yeah small part i played a reporter you know yeah talk to him and so we knew each other and got along right away. Yeah. I had done, God, at the point I got offered that film,

I worked straight for two years, and I just wanted some time off. I'd gone from Killer Joe to Vertical Limit to Buffalo Soldier. My way back from Germany, stopped in New York, had lunch with Lasse Hallström, but turned into a whole day. And he said, I want you to do this part in shipping news. Will you do it? And I said, yeah, when's it start? He said, three weeks. Okay. I've got three weeks. And I got home and I get this offer to do training day. And I turned it down. I said, you know, I got to have some time off. I can't do this.

And so Denzel got a hold of me and he said, this is the way it works, Scott. I need somebody, a white guy, to play my best friend who I'm going to kill in the end of this movie. And the whole audience, including the entire black audience, has to be pissed off at me for doing this. He said, you're it. I don't know.

I don't have this relationship with it. You're the one. You're it. So he said, the way it's going to work. And at the time, Hollywood was under the threat of a writer's strike. So everybody was trying to get inventory before the strike happened. Yeah. Which allowed Denzel to make my deal.

And he said, the way it's going to work is going to say, Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke in Trading Day, starring Scott Glenn, Dr. Dre, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. He said, and for this month, and you're going to be paid this much money and you're going to work for maximum five days and i said okay and and just and just went and did it and realized then how amazing that part was and how d and i got just between the two of us to cover so much of each other's unspoken history yeah together there's some real acting man and uh so you know it was just uh it was a pure joy pure joy my my uh my grandkids arekids, my oldest daughter lives in LA.

She's a teacher in LA. Yeah. And her two kids, my grandson and granddaughter, were visiting the set when I was doing that. And my nickname on the set was, well, they heard everybody was calling me dog. name on the set was was uh well they heard everybody was calling me dog and what happened was dray one of dray's uh one of dray's bodyguards uh said something about a pistol that was across the set lying on on a prop table and he said oh that glock over there i said it's not a glock

it's a sick dray said go over and see what it is. He said, oh, it's not a clock. It's sick. Later on, this submachine gun that he had, he was fooling around with snap caps, fake. And it got jammed and they couldn't fix it. And I said, give it to me. And I feel stupid and cleaned it and handed it back to him. He said, dog, is there anything about guns you don't know? And I went, not much. dog is anything about guns you don't know and i went not much and and then denzel said yeah there are sheep there are wolves and there are sheep dogs she said you're a sheep dog so to this day and for the rest of my life with with elijah and chloe i'm grandpa dog it's stuck yeah so when when you went up to Idaho, you were rock climbing? You've been doing that kind of stuff for your whole life?

Yeah, I like those kind of challenges. And, you know, I like things that demand my attention. And if you don't give it your attention. You die. Things won't turn out well and it's very physical when i was a kid i had scarlet fever i wasn't supposed to have lived from it um i still you know talked to my i lied about my hearing to get into the marine corps so you know i've always you know, I've always, you know. Challenged yourself?

Everything felt like kind of a gift since then. So, yeah, I like ice climbing, or I did. I don't, you know, for a while I was an addictive free diver, open water spearfishing, and I don't do that anymore because, although I'm not afraid, I was at anymore because although i'm not afraid and i was at the time i'm not afraid of being in the water at all a lot of sharks are going deeper but i am definitely afraid of skin cancer so i'm not doing that sport anymore yeah i i mean i understand that sort of the the nature of like the type of focus it takes when you engage in that stuff.

It's sort of like you're so you're so in it and you're so alive that sometimes, you know, you don't realize it until after you're out of it. Also, it's a very it's amazing that in some odd way, it's a it's rest. Right. Because even though you've been on this in this high adrenaline space, it's forcing you to live in the present. For that period of time, there's no past that's screaming at you, oh, gee, I wish I'd done that. Why did I do it? There's no future, God, I've got to pay those bills. None of that. It's like free time away from all that stuff. I think that stuff, the past and the future are more exhausting

and debilitating than anything oh yeah yeah because they're just draining you and it's all yeah you when you're looking back at the past if you're if you are of of of strong spirit you don't have any regrets but the future you can't know about so that's impossible to project without a certain amount of dread so yeah, yeah, the present. The future doesn't end well for anybody. So nobody gets out of here alive. That's for fucking sure. Well, I mean, it was great talking to you.

And the new movie, I hope the new movie does well. And but, you know, your career has been a real gift. And I've always enjoyed watching you. And I have a tremendous amount of respect for you. And now even more it was great talking to you scott it was great talking to you too let's do it again okay buddy take care man thank you wow fucking live wire man intense dude what a great guy scott glenn is in new disaster movie. It's a natural disaster movie. Greenland. It's available on demand this Friday, December 18th. Okay, and now get this guitar in your head. Thank you. Thank you. Boomer lives.

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