Crispin Glover

Glover at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.

Glover began acting professionally at the age of 13, his first role being Friedrich von Trapp in a theatre production of The Sound of Music at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion with Florence Henderson.[9] He appeared in several sitcoms as a teenager, including Happy Days and Family Ties. He appeared in a main role alongside Nicolas Cage in a television pilot titled The Best Of Times (1981) which aired on ABC, but was never picked up by the network. His first film role was in My Tutor (1983), which he subsequently followed with roles in Teachers and Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (both 1984).[10] He then worked with director Trent Harris on the third chapter of the Beaver Trilogy, entitled The Orkly Kid (1985).

His breakout role was as George McFly in Robert Zemeckis's Back to the Future (1985), an international box office success. His character was the father of Marty McFly, despite being three years younger than Michael J. Fox in real life. During filming, Glover vocalized his objections to the film's ending, believing it to be too capitalistic and materialistic in intent. Zemeckis ignored his complaints.[11] Due to these initial disagreements and a salary dispute, Glover did not return for either of the Back to the Future sequels.

After the success of Back to the Future, Glover sought to star in films that "questioned" the status quo and contained themes that aligned with his own interests. This pursuit led him to star as Layne in River's Edge (1986). Struggling to find any other films that reflected his own interests, Glover sought to work with film directors he admired. These include David Lynch on Wild at Heart (1990) and Hotel Room (1993), John Boorman on Where the Heart Is (1990), Dennis Hopper on Chasers (1994), and Miloš Forman on The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996). He also became the first actor to portray Andy Warhol in a widely released film, Oliver Stone's The Doors (1991).

Beginning in the 2000s, Glover chose the funding of his own films as a filmmaker to be the primary factor in deciding what films he would act in. After this decision, Glover would feature more prominently in more mainstream films, starting with Charlie's Angels (2000), playing the role of The Thin Man, a role he would reprise in the 2003 sequel.[12] The character had initially been written as a speaking role, but Glover, noting that the lines as written were exposition, convinced the producers to eliminate the lines to create a precise image for the character. He would go on to portray the titular character in Willard (2003), his first time portraying the protagonist in a studio-funded film. Glover appeared Beowulf (2007), as the creature Grendel, playing the part through performance capture technology. The film was his first collaboration with director Robert Zemeckis since the original Back to the Future. In 2010, Glover played Ilosovic Stayne/the Knave of Hearts in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland and the one-armed bellhop Phil in Hot Tub Time Machine.

Glover portrayed his first series regular role on television as Mr. World in American Gods (2017–2021), while continuing to still act in films like We Have Always Lived in the Castle (2018) and Roger Avery's Lucky Day (2019). He reunited with River's Edge director Tim Hunter on the Bret Easton Ellis-scripted slasher film Smiley Face Killers (2020), as the main antagonist. In 2022, he appeared in the Netflix horror anthology series Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities in the episode Pickman's Model (based on the H. P. Lovecraft work of the same name), as the title character.

Glover in 2008

Glover made his directorial debut with 2005's What Is It?, a surreal film featuring a cast of actors with Down syndrome. He considers it to be part of a trilogy he has dubbed the "It?" trilogy. It premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. With a budget of only $150,000, it took almost a decade to complete, and was originally intended to be a short film. Most of the primary footage was shot in 12 days, stretched over a two-and-a-half-year period.[13]

Glover's second film and second part of the "It?" trilogy, It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine., was written by Utah writer and actor Steven C. Stewart. Stewart was born with severe cerebral palsy and had been confined to a nursing home for about 10 years. The film is a fantastical psychosexual retelling of life from Stewart's point of view. Production was mostly funded by Glover's salary earned from Charlie's Angels and other films. It premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.[14]

Aside from select film festivals, Glover has not screened either film outside the confines of his live performances, which have taken place at theatres and venues around the world. The films have received accolades from associations such as the Ann Arbor Film Festival and Sitges Film Festival. In 2013, Glover was recognized for his directorial work when the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City staged the series It Is Crispin Hellion Glover. The program consisted of screenings of all of his directorial work, live performances, and speaking engagements.[15][16][17]

Glover has completed shooting his third feature film as a director, which he developed as a vehicle for his father Bruce Glover and himself to act together. He shot the film on his property in the Czech Republic. This film is not part three of the It? trilogy.

He lists Luis Buñuel, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Stanley Kubrick and Werner Herzog as influences on his filmmaking.[18] Glover was a co-interlocutor with Norm Hill and Werner Herzog for the special feature commentary for the DVD of Herzog's Even Dwarfs Started Small[19] and Fata Morgana, in which he spoke of their influence on What Is It?.[20]

Glover, himself, reports to have published between 15 and 20 books.[21] Oak-Mot, Rat Catching and other titles he has created are featured prominently during his live show presentation entitled Big Slide Show, where he reads aloud and performs sections of the books while visual art from the books are projected behind him.

He constructs the books by reusing old novels and other publications that have fallen into the public domain due to their age (for example, Rat Catching was constructed from an 1896 book Studies in the Art of Rat Catching, and Oak-Mot was constructed from an 1868 novel of the same title). He rearranges text, blacks out certain standing passages, and adds his own prose (and sometimes images) into the margins and elsewhere, thus creating an entirely new story. Six of his books have been published to be bought publicly so far, through his publishing company, Volcanic Eruptions. Other known titles include The Backward Swing and A New World.

• Billow and the Rock (1983)[21]
• Rat Catching (1988)
• Oak-Mot (1989)
• Concrete Inspection (1990)
• What it is, and How it is Done (1992)
• Round My House (2016)

* The publishing years listed above may not represent first-edition publication dates, but subsequent available editions.

He also wrote a short essay for Adam Parfrey's book Apocalypse Culture II in 2000. Sharing a title with his directional debut, "What Is It?", the essay is an overtly provocative questioning of the cooperate restraints on American contemporary media and society.[22]

In 1989, during a hiatus from films, Glover released an album titled The Big Problem Does Not Equal the Solution, The Solution Equals Let It Be through Restless Records, produced by Barnes & Barnes. The album features original songs such as "Clowny Clown Clown", odd versions of Lee Hazlewood's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'", and Charles Manson's "I'll Never Say Never to Always" (sung in falsetto), and readings from his art books Rat Catching and Oak Mot. Sample pages from these books are featured in the album's liner notes. He also directed a music video for "Clowny Clown Clown".

Glover recorded a version of the Michael Jackson song "Ben" to coincide with the release of his 2003 film Willard; the song had been written for the sequel to the original 1971 version of the film. In the music video for the song directed by Glover, he sings to a rat named Ben in front of a crowd of aroused women.

Several songs using Glover's name as the title have been recorded by various artists, including shoegaze/gothic rock band Scarling., Chicago outsider musician Wesley Willis, and a New Jersey-based band called Children in Adult Jails.

Glover appeared on Late Night with David Letterman on July 28, 1987, to promote River's Edge.[27] To the surprise of Letterman and the audience, Glover appeared wearing platform shoes and a wig. During the interview, Glover behaved erratically and nearly kicked Letterman in the face, causing Letterman to walk off the set, to get the "Top-10 List" ready.[27][28] Four years later, the film Rubin & Ed premiered, in which Glover has a starring role as titular character Rubin Farr. After the release of Rubin & Ed, some speculated that Glover was acting in-character as Rubin Farr during his appearance on Late Night.[27][28][29][30] Glover has refused to go into detail about the reasons for his behavior on the show, other than to mention that he was flattered that fans are still speculating on the performance decades later.[31] The character Rubin Farr also appears in Glover's music entitled "Clowny Clown Clown" and in the song's videoclip.

In Back to the Future Part II, Zemeckis reused brief footage of Glover that had been filmed for the first film. Glover was billed as "George McFly in footage from Back to the Future" in the closing credits. The older footage was combined with new footage of actor Jeffrey Weissman wearing a false chin, nose and cheekbones, and various obfuscating methods – in the background, wearing sunglasses, rear shot, upside down – to play George McFly. Because these methods suggested that Glover himself had performed for the film, he successfully sued the producers on the grounds that they had used his likeness without permission, as well as not having paid him for the reuse of the footage from the original film. The case was resolved outside of court and Glover was awarded a reported $760,000. As a result of the lawsuit, clauses in the Screen Actors Guild collective bargaining agreements now state that producers and actors are not allowed to use such methods to reproduce the likeness of other actors, effectively putting to the end of the decades-long use of the Fake Shemp technique among living actors. Despite not setting a legal precedent, the lawsuit is often evoked in cases for actors involving the misuse of their likeness through digital recreation and other technological methods to replicate their appearance without their permission.[32][33]