Crispin Glover is back with another standout performance addition to his filmography as the lurking antagonist of the new horror film Smiley Face Killers. Longtime Glover fans will be more than intrigued to see the 56-year-old star reuniting with Tim Hunter, the director of the acclaimed teen murder flick 1986’s River’s Edge. That film, which also starred Keanu Reeves, was an indie darling at the time and provided a significant standout moment for Glover, who had previously gained mainstream attention for his work in Back to the Future and Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.
Smiley Face Killers, penned by American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis, would seemingly be a perfect reunion for the pair, with Glover set to play the dark force in the shadows stalking lead character Jake (Ronen Rubinstein). However, the revered actor, who also stars in Starz’s American Gods, wasn’t totally sold on the movie right away. At the time, Glover was enthralled with working on his latest self-produced film, a followup to 2005’s What Is It? and 2007’s It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine. If he was going to step away from that endeavor, he wanted to take the character, credited as “Hooded Figure,” to the next level.
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“I was in the midst of production on my own film. Tim contacted me. I actually turned the film down at first, mainly because I looked at it, I was in the midst of my own work, and I felt that the character really only needed an interesting-looking person,” Glover said. “It wasn’t something that required an actor necessarily, an actor that’s trained. I don’t know. There’s certain parts that you really need an actor for, and there’s certain parts that you can just get a person that works well in the role. And I kind of thought that’s what this should be, some kind of interesting-looking person.”
“So I turned it down, but Tim was pretty insistent, and he talked to me. We got on the phone, and there was this element about a prosthetic. And I said, ‘Well, what’s come to happen a lot in contemporary filmmaking is the… You can tell that it’s kind of almost like a mask as opposed to something like Lon Chaney, we used to do where it’s using the physical facial features of a person and malforming it in such way.’”
Glover proposed that he be fitted with prosthetics inspired by Chaney’s work. Chaney starred in countless silent features in the early 20th century but is best known for his roles as Quasimodo in 1923’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame and the titular Phantom in 1925’s The Phantom of the Opera. Chaney made a name for himself not only for his wide range of acting capabilities but also his skills as a makeup artist, transforming himself into whatever character necessary. With assurances that Hunter was happy with Ellis’ script and the use of unique prosthetics, he was all in.
“So my mind was really on my own film production, but I was glad to work with Tim again, and I knew that it would be a good script, being written by Bret Easton Ellis, and that Tim liked it,” Glover said. “And so, I had a meeting in the Valley with our makeup fellow, who did an excellent job. He knew exactly what I meant. And he gave me all the kind of secrets and breakdown of the kind of things that Lon Chaney had done. And we didn’t want to do exactly what he did, but something where you use like hooks and latex that goes over the hooks.”
“There’s a reason they don’t use it anymore because after a while of wearing it, it is painful,” Glover added. “But I mean, what Lon Chaney went through, even just with those things, the amazing things that he actually physically did as an actor with binding his arms or legs, it’s just he went through genuine pain. So the little amount that I went through it makes me admire even, even more what he did, and great performances as well. But it was something I asked for, so I couldn’t complain. And I’m happy. It was, I was happy with the look.”
Meanwhile, Glover is anxious to get back on the road with the live screenings of his work. For more than a decade, Glover has screened What Is It? and It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine at theaters and other venues around the country while performing live readings of his books. It’s a one-of-a-kind experience that you just can’t do right now due to the coronavirus pandemic. Once the pandemic is over, he wants to get back on the road and interact with fans in-person, a pursuit he calls “a nice respite” from his film and TV work.
“Well, luckily I did perform at the very beginning of the year with my first film,” he said. “I’ve performed at least once a year, every year, since 2005, even this year. But I don’t know. No one knows yet what’s going to happen next year. Obviously, if it’s unsafe, there’s nothing we can do. We just have to wait until it’s safe again. I certainly, like everybody, hope it gets safe again soon. I would love to get back to touring. I very much enjoy touring.”
He later added, “I’ve never let the films out digitally. I’ve kept them in the theatrical, cinematic realm, which is what the films are made for. And luckily, I’ve been able to afford to do that with the films. I sure hope I can continue. I do get concerned about it. I like to believe that like the 1918 pandemic, it subsided after a while, but that took at least, I think, two years for that to subside. And I sure hope we can get back to some kind of normality soon.”
Smiley Face Killers is now available digitally on all the leading online video outlets. Physical copies of the slasher are available for pre-order, as they will be released on Dec. 8. In addition to Glover and Rubinstein, the film also stars Mia Serafino, Cody Simpson, Garrett Coffey, Amadeus Serafini and Ashley Rickards. You can watch PopCulture’s full interview with Glover above.
