AT THE MOVIES - Unusual suspect - Whatever the project, maverick Crispin Glover finds a way to stay out of the mainstream.
In director Robert Zemeckis' film adaptation of the Old English epic poem "Beowulf," Crispin Glover portrays Grendel, certainly the most strange and hideous character of his 26-year acting career. Which is really saying something if you're at all familiar with Glover, a guy known for his bizarro behavior, indelibly weird performances and aesthetic of elaborate hideousness. He has, after all, filled his underpants with cockroaches (in David Lynch's 1990 film "Wild at Heart"), shepherded murderous rats (in the oddball 2004 horror flick "Willard") and tortured snails (in Glover's controversial 2005 directorial debut, "What Is It?"). Although "eccentric" is the description that comes up most frequently in describing the writer-director-author, who is currently in the midst of a career transformation.
But more on that later.
Glover's animated Grendel comes kicking and screaming to life in ways most comparative literature scholars acquainted with the original 5th century "Beowulf" text could never have imagined -- courtesy of the same kind of performance-capture technology Zemeckis used in his 2004 Christmas hit "The Polar Express." The monster is a menacing giant with razor-like claws, decomposing flesh, a grotesque underbite and a habit of flying into murderous rampages -- hated and feared by the ancient Norsemen whose mead hall he repeatedly destroys (prompting the king to put a bounty on his head, compelling hero-for-hire Beowulf to come to the rescue).
But as played by Glover, Grendel also comes off as a kind of developmentally disabled outcast, a naif urged to extreme violence by his coldly calculating mother, portrayed by Angelina Jolie. "Grendel is a character with a certain amount of physical dilemma," Glover explained. "He's living in a cave with this supernatural being. He's a shut-in."
After shooting his scenes surrounded by 240 cameras, his face and body covered by reflective motion-capture discs, the actor feared that the "essence" of his mannered physical performance would be obliterated by animation. To Glover's relief, however, his humanity survived the digital transfer.
"I was worried they wouldn't get the nuance I put into it or that it would just look like some alien CGI animation that's in one of those video games," Glover said, hunching forward in an antique chair in his baroquely styled, gargoyle-laden Silver Lake home. "But I can see my performance. Every single movement you see Grendel doing is what I did. The animators didn't make choices for the actors. They were pretty careful about that."
