Scott Glenn is the ultimate “that guy” of American cinema. The journeyman actor has built a five-decade career out of disappearing into the margins—rarely the lead, but always unforgettable. He’s shared the screen with Marlon Brando, Laurence Olivier, Denzel Washington, Gene Hackman and Jodie Foster, and worked under the directing top tier: Francis Ford Coppola (Apocalypse Now) and Robert Altman (Nashville), Clint Eastwood (Absolute Power), Ridley Scott (The Keep), Ken Loach (Carla’s Song) and Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs).

When Glenn walks into frame, he makes an impact. Many of his roles amount to just a few lines of dialogue, yet they sketch entire lives in miniature. A Glenn character feels lived in, tough, scarred, unshakably authentic. Glenn brings the same commitment and obsessive research to a role, however small the part. For Urban Cowboy, he practiced a bull rider’s glove ritual thousands of times until it became instinct. For The Shipping News, he gutted cod nightly in a Newfoundland kitchen. For The Silence of the Lambs, he immersed himself with FBI profilers and listened to tapes so disturbing they still haunt him.

That discipline comes from the Marine Corps, where Glenn served before becoming an actor.
“You learn a degree of mental toughness in the Marine Corps for the rest of your life,” he says. “Failure is not getting up when you get knocked down. Success is getting back up.”

That toughness has sustained him into a late-career resurgence. Glenn’s scene-stealing turn in Mike White’s The White Lotus as mysterious resort owner Jim Hollinger — another barely-there role — earned him his first-ever Emmy nomination. He has a recurring role, as Vince Vaughn’s hippie dad, in AppleTV+ series Bad Monkey.

With Eugene the Marine, which opens this year’s Oldenburg Film Festival, Glenn finally steps into the spotlight. He’s in nearly every scene of Hank Bedford’s indie drama, playing a retired soldier battling irrelevance. At 86, it’s a role that cuts close to home.

“Everybody wants me to think my best years are behind me,” Glenn says. “But I still got a lot of gas left in the tank.”

Oldenburg is honoring Glenn with a career retrospective, a fitting tribute to a character actor’s character actor — an uncompromising talent who has left behind a gallery of indelible performances without ever demanding the spotlight.

Glenn spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about getting his first break from Gene Hackman, (possibly) saving Francis Ford Coppola’s life on the set of Apocalypse Now, and the Marine Corps discipline that has guided him through his life and career. “I was, am, and will be past the grave, a United States Marine.”

Am I correct that you were an actual Marine—you served in the Corps?

Yeah, I was a reservist in the Marine Corps. Did active duty. When I got hired for this part [in Eugene the Marine], though, the producers had no idea that that was true. But I was, am, and will be past the grave, a United States Marine.

What did that training give you, either in your craft as an actor or in your life?

That failure is not getting up when you get knocked down. Success is getting back up. You learn a degree of mental toughness in the Marine Corps that lasts for the rest of your life.

Being in the Marine Corps got me my first start in acting. I was in New York and I’d started acting but I didn’t know how to go about having a career. I was working as a stage manager in an off-Broadway play, running props. I was with a couple of friends — he was a model, she was a dancer — having a couple of drinks at the bar. When I walked in, they were talking to a guy sitting there, who was obviously in a bad mood. As he talked, he kept looking at me, and finally he said: “What do you do?” And I said: “I’m trying to be an actor.” He said: “What did you do before this?” I said, “I was in the service.” “What branch?” “United States Marine Corps.” “Officer or enlisted?”

I said: “I worked for a living—enlisted.” He laughed. He took out a notebook, wrote something down and handed it to me. “The number is Bob Barry. He’s an agent. He’ll start sending you to things. The second is [acting teacher] George Morrison. Go to his class.” He looked at me, said [the Marine motto] Semper fi, and walked out. That was Gene Hackman.

He started me on my career and we later became friends. When I was doing this film, I found out the name Eugene the Marine came, in fact, from Gene Hackman. Every now and then, stuff loops back on you in ways you never expected.

Looking back, what do you see as the turning points in your career?

The film that changed my life, for sure, was Urban Cowboy. Jim Bridges, who had directed me in the first film I ever did in my life, a thing called The Baby Maker, called me up and he said, “I’m doing a movie in Texas. Paramount doesn’t know who you are, and they don’t want you in the part, but you’re perfect for it. I want you to do it. Debra Winger wants you to do it. John Travolta wants you to do it. So come to Texas and do this thing. You’ll never have to audition again as long as you live.”

And I thought in my mind, “yeah, right.” But he was absolutely right. After Urban Cowboy, people started sending me scripts, and I think I only auditioned two more times in my life.

I was watching Urban Cowboy the other day, and I realized that a lot of the stuff that happened in that film were accidents. There’s a shot of me on a bull in the Huntsville Prison Rodeo where the bull tries to get out of the chute by jumping over it. It’s an amazing shot. You see me get thrown out of the chute and hit the ground. I got a concussion and a cracked collarbone, but I jumped back on the bull. That wasn’t planned, but it’s a part of the film.

Another super memorable scene was me drinking the worm out of a bottle of mezcal. It was a joke. Debra and I were doing the scene at the end of the night. I said to the director, Jim Bridges, “In another lifetime, I learned how to get the worm out of a bottle of mezcal. Why don’t we put it on film, and we’ll gross everybody out in dailies?” And he said, “Love it.” It was done as a joke, but he put it in the film, and it’s a scene that people still talk to me about.

You went to the Actors Studio for a while, famously for its method. What is your approach to developing characters?

The first thing I try to do is find out what does this guy do for a living? What’s his history? How does he get from the beginning of his life to where we are in this film? What is there that he would do as a knee-jerk reaction that I can train myself to do? Usually just one or two things.

So for Urban Cowboy, I realized that bull riders learn to wrap a thong around the gloves they’re wearing with one hand and their teeth. It’s a complicated process. So I did that at least 100 times a day, maybe 1,000 times. When the time came to do it on screen — and it’s only in maybe two shots in the film — it’s instinctive. I’ve had more than one bull rider come up to me after the film and say: “We knew that the director had hired a real bull rider, because nobody else does it that way.”

For The Shipping News, I played a fisherman. There was a scene where I’m gutting cod while talking to Kevin Spacey. Lasse Hallström gave me a job in the hotel kitchen every night, gutting fish for an hour or two, so by the time we shot the scene, I didn’t have to think — my body just did it.

What was your ‘in’ for this character, in Eugene the Marine?

For Eugene the Marine, it was the theme of ageism. I’m 86 years old—so ageism is something that I’m very familiar with. Before I did that part, I’d been offered I think it was five parts, all of which I turned down. Four of them the characters were dying of Alzheimer’s. Three walked with a walker. One was in a nursing home.

Playing Eugene wasn’t hard because that’s my life. The Marine stuff is also part of my background. I knew instantly how to play somebody who says, “Everybody wants me to think my best years are behind me, but I still got a lot of gas left in the tank.”

And I haven’t done a part that big in a long time — maybe ever. The script was 98 pages, and my character was in 96 of those pages. I realized I couldn’t be physically ready to work every day and still spend nights learning lines. So I’d only read the scenes we were going to do the next day and then train or do martial arts, then rest.

What happened on that film was similar to what I did on The White Lotus. I realized that what gave my work its juice or magic is spontaneity. The more I can really be in the present, the more alive everything is. So with Eugene, every take for me was a one-act play called Now.

The White Lotus was your first-ever Emmy nomination. Do you feel there’s been a lack of recognition for your work?

Number one, I’m always amazed that people pay me to do something I love so much I would pay them to let me do, which I’m sure my agent doesn’t want me saying. But I feel so lucky and grateful. Being nominated for awards is something I never really thought about. I’m just doing what I was born to do.

So many of the films I’ve done have been not only fun to do but real adventures. In Vertical Limit I fell in love with ice climbing, climbing with Barry Blanchard, one of the greatest mountaineers in the world.

Doing Apocalypse Now, I lived with a tribe called the Ifugao, learned their language, and in a three-day ceremony they gave me a name. The work changed me.

Is it true that on the set of Apocalypse Now you saved Francis Ford Coppola’s life?

I’ll tell you what happened in Ulugan Bay. I don’t know if what I did really saved Francis’ life, but here’s what went down. When I got to the Philippines, we were shooting on a beach on the South China Sea. Everyone was supposed to get two weeks to adjust to the time difference, but I was thrown right into it. I was meant to do a bridge scene, but when Friday came and most of the crew flew back to Manila, I decided to stay with a few people, including Martin and Janet Sheen.

That night Typhoon Didang — the worst storm since 1932 — tore straight through us. It turned the isthmus where we were staying into an island. Francis had climbed into a dugout canoe which was tied to a rope on shore. From 50 yards away, I could see exactly what was about to happen: the current would pull the boat downstream, the rope would snap tight, and the stern would go under. Instinct kicked in. I sprinted, pulled out my Marine knife, and cut the rope just as it went taut. The boat drifted downstream, but they made it back. That night Francis said, “You saved my life.” I told him, “I cut a rope.”

Francis looked at me and said, “I owe you. Pick any scene, and I’ll write you something better than the one you came here to do.” I told him, “I want to be at the end of the movie.” He said the only thing open was Colby — silent, practically an extra. I didn’t care. I wanted to be near Brando, Hopper, all of them. So I took it. Best decision I ever made.

Has there been a role you found particularly psychologically challenging?

I haven’t really told a lot of people this, but yes. I still get nightmares at times from the preparation I did for The Silence of the Lambs. Jonathan Demme called me and said, “You have to do this part.” He sent me to Quantico to hang out with the FBI profiler I was playing.

At the end of the week, he pulled out a tape recorder. Without saying too much, what I heard were tapes of men abducting, raping and murdering children, recorded as it happened. I still can’t get those thoughts out of my mind. Is that an answer to your question?

Looking back on your career, how would you like to be remembered?

In my life as the best friend or the worst enemy in the world. Sorry, that’s a Marine Corps saying. The real answer is: Reminisce as little as possible. I don’t wake up thinking about what I’ve done. I prefer looking ahead rather than going through life over my shoulder. I’m way more interested in what’s coming next than what I did.

What’s coming next for you?

I just found out that Apple/Warner Bros. bought a second season of Bad Monkey. If I’m going to play Vince Vaughn’s dad again, this shaman who speaks to the manatees in the wind — it’s a crazy, fun part we do with a lot of improv. Then whatever else comes to me, like Eugene, something I have no idea about at all that’s going to smack me between the eyes and say, “You gotta do me.”