Whatever audiences attending Beowulf this weekend are there for, it's hard to imagine many having staggered in with their Nachos to support the ongoing multimedia career of one of cinema's last true iconoclasts. But that is, delightfully, exactly what they're doing - that figure Crispin Glover, currently frightening children as the monstrous Grendel, but beyond such blue-screen antics an immensely gifted actor, and one with an unrivalled line in extra-curricular weirdness.
For Glover, the CGI-laden epic hasn't only meant a useful paycheque - the collateral attention has also been vital in helping him publicise his second film as a director, It is Fine! Everything is Fine! A (how best to put this?) confrontational psychosexual horror movie co-written by its late star, Steven C Stewart - a sufferer from cerebral palsy who died a month after shooting - the film would, in normal circumstances, have struggled for attention outside the most marginal venues; with Grendel as his calling card, Glover's been able to plug his work via MTV, the LA Times, and any number of points between.
A satisfyingly unlikely aspect to the tank-like success of Beowulf - but then there's a satisfyingly unlikely aspect to the very existence of Crispin Glover, a performer of precise diction, rare intensity, and matinee idol looks - just a matinee idol from 1926, his Roman profile and gangling physicality less the stuff of modern movie stardom than a peer of John Barrymore and Conrad Veidt, the ideal casting choice for a silent-era Dr Jekyll or Jonathan Harker.
Given such an out-of-time presence, it always seemed fitting his breakthrough came with Back to the Future, a slick 80s confection knee-deep in that decade's anachronistic fixation with the wholesome Eisenhower 50s. Cast as geek patriarch George McFly, Glover stole every scene he appeared in, loomed over the rest, and appeared set to become a mainstay of big-league character-acting. But, of course, he didn't - not least on account of the furore that erupted when the inevitable sequel rolled around. While Glover thought better of being involved, undeterred director Robert Zemeckis "cast" him anyway, blending shots of his performance from the first film with new footage of another actor to Frankenstein up a familiar George McFly. Rightly outraged, Glover sued and won - a victory for justice, but not perhaps the ideal way to win friends in the industry, given that the defendants included producer Steven Spielberg.
By then, however, he'd already begun moving into more interesting areas - delivering what remains his signature role in the proto-grunge River's Edge. A masterclass in jittery suburban-teen amorality, it was the stand-out performance in a film years ahead of its time. And yet still, off-screen goings on dominated; appearing on David Letterman's US chat show to promote it, he arrived, for reasons obscure to this day, dressed in stack heels and ranting wildly before performing an impressively limber roundhouse kick that only narrowly missed the host's head (you can see this glorious moment for yourself by hitting play on the YouTube player above). The moment has gone down in popular culture folklore as the American equivalent of Grace Jones assailing the hapless Russell Harty.
Tom Hanks he was never going to be. By the early 90s, Glover's drift from the mainstream had turned permanent - although, crucially, for all his notoriety, that exile always seemed as much his decision as Hollywood's. There were occasional head-above-the-parapet roles (an enduring turn in Wild at Heart; a gig as Andy Warhol in The Doors; yet more scene-stealing in Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man). But for the most part, Glover appeared content to use his screen career as an occasional bill-payer while diverting his energies into brilliantly deranged CDs and art books (early editions of which now go for serious money), a riot of creativity out of which came the beginnings of his first film as a director, the insanely taboo-busting What is It?
That the project eventually saw the inside of a cinema owed a lot to another implausible source - the 2000 version of Charlie's Angels, its one genius move casting Glover as the non-speaking, villainously gymnastic Thin Man. Afterwards, his bank account fattened up by the project (and its even worse 2003 sequel), he was able to release both What is It? and It is Fine! - each film skirting the conventional business model completely by being wholly self-distributed, in a manner some degrees more hands-on than David Lynch managed with Inland Empire. After all, for Glover the term means travelling to cinemas with the 35mm reels held in rolling suitcases, splitting the eventual proceeds down the middle with the owners - and introducing every screening with "The Big Slideshow", an hour-long, Vaudeville-ish array of readings and performances, followed by a Q and A.
And now, of course, his old legal spat with Robert Zemeckis healed enough for the director to cast him in Beowulf, the coffers are full again. Just as well - What is It? and It is Fine! are only intended as the first two parts of an eventual trilogy, with the last, It is Mine, apparently waiting in the wings. You, I, and the audience of Beowulf have been warned.
