Danny
Glover is a film icon. That much is undeniable. And while the
name alone should ring a bell, if it doesn't, trust us, you
know him! Best known for the Lethal Weapon franchise,
Glover has 126 titles listed on his IMDB page, making it nigh
impossible not to know him.
So when PCM had the opportunity to chat with him, we jumped
at the chance! He's always surprised us with his movie choices
and his newest endeavor is no exception. Glover stars as the
lead role of Ahab in Syfy's "Moby Dick" adaptation
called Age of the Dragons, where Ahab and his crew
hunt a Great White Dragon rather than whale (premiering June
30 at 9 p.m. on Syfy).
Given that "Moby Dick" is a literary pillar, we
asked Glover what was the biggest challenge associated with
doing a remake of a classic.
His answer was not only extremely thoughtful, but also showed
how serious he took the task of adapting the actual story
to a film. "Well, Melville's theme in the story is a
tragedy; it's Shakespearean in some ways. It's such a great
tragedy of man against nature, of man against beast, of man
against himself," Glover began.
"Finding himself, and responsibility because there's
a responsibility too as someone who's taken his role,"
Glover added, "but the obsession with this dragon or
obsession with the whale itself, you know, clouds his degree
of responsibility."
"And it really announces his madness now - this is one,
as the beast he is conquered by the beast. He isn't conquered
by the beast, it's the beast in himself basically and that's
what man is always having to deal with, the beast himself,"
he expands. "It's the beast in himself, that part of
him where he teeters on the edge of madness and sanity, or
stability."
"Or chaos, all of that; all of those are kind of the
emotion - the human emotion and great classics come out of
that," Glover broached the topic of classics. "So
whenever you're trying to remake them or reconfigurate them
in some sort of way; it's always interesting. You find it
in every single one, you can do it - you get a classic, every
single one."
"Everyone - whatever generation you put Macbeth in,
it still works because [its] the same human emotion; it could
be post the [original period] or it could be as its own period
in time. Or it can be in a modern time - in modern time it
all works, the same emotions come up there," Glover rounded
out. "So I think trying to find the connection between
those emotions, that humanness in it; that human frailty is
a challenge."
Glover had much, much more to share about the film, the experience
and his career! Check it out below!

Can you talk about what it was like to play Captain Ahab
and how you identified with his obsession?
Well first of all, there's so many who have read Melville's
book or we saw the performance greatly affect, you know, it
seems like eons ago. It's a film classic.
Certainly, the idea of not simply just playing someone who
is physically mantled or dismantled, or physically just torn
apart, the idea of it is emotional part of it which is what
- which really attracted me to it, the idea of the kind of
emotional torture as opposed to the physical - I'm trying
to find the word - I'm going to say, it's just that he's crippled
by that; he's crippled emotionally.
So all those kind of things that were important to me. And
bringing that back to his childhood, Melville's book certainly
focused on his obsession with the whale as a result of the
fact that he has been - this is who he has been and the whale
was his obsession, kind of need to kind of conquer this whale.
The same with him as a boy; he had panicked - the idea about
him being afraid and panicked at a moment of crisis and trying
to redeem himself as a result of that.
I think those are the kind of things that I think were enjoyable
for me in trying to find a center for the character in the
story.
What you found most challenging for you or was there something
else that you found really challenging for you about that
role?
Well the combination of the two things; certainly the physical
part of that and the finding the kind of physical language
for the character. There's a physical language for a character
and finding center and yourself in it.
And the emotional language behind that, because as a point
was revealed at the end was not only the obsession itself
with the reason why and all the fear that is masked by the
kind of - I guess you would say ugliness of the physical scar,
the ugliness in the scene of that part of it.
And the fear evoked because of that; his authoritativeness
comes from somewhere else that is centered his emotional pain.
Always hiding his emotional pain is the one thing that I focus
on and because there is the physical danger that we have of
the beast itself - there's that physical danger of the beast
itself.
And certainly in trying to find it where the deeper part
of his emotional pain beyond the scars that were left from
not only his - this attack on him as well as the scars left
by the fact that his sibling had been murdered by the beast;
all those things and he is his own fear and his own pain.
All of that was the rich part that you have to play with,
you know, and the script allowed you - the story allowed you
to most of that - to find that too.
You know, obviously if we looked at your career; if we
just look at two roles in particular, Leverage and this movie
Age of the Dragons, I mean the characters couldn't be more
different. What would you say is the key to your versatility
as an actor?
Well I don't know, maybe I don't take myself seriously -
could be part of it. And I think when I see the play mapped
out on the board and the Director and Writer, Athol Fugard.
Athol Fugard said that the one thing that he appreciated about
me was that I gave whatever I had to give to the moment itself,
to the truth of the story; that's what I gave, you know, all
of that.
And that simply means that the story exists in itself and
the story is bound by the character's relationship, emotions,
et cetera like that; his relationship with himself and his
relationship outside out that.
What I try to do is find as the story - the story's art
focuses on that essentially through the characters and who
they are, who they think they are who they are in real life
and the relationship between each other; so that made the
story and certainly redeems itself. So the idea is that I
fit in to what that is, you know, I don't try to be bigger
than the story, I don't try to dominate the story, I don't
try to use myself in some sort of way in which it now circumvents
what the story is about; I try to be right within the story
itself whether it's "Sergeant Murtaugh" or whether
it's "Mister" in The Color Purple or whatever it
says.
Or whether it's Leverage or whether it's been the "Captain"
in Age of the Dragons. So those are the kind of things that
I think when I think about prying myself to think about who
I am as an actor; those are the kind of things that focus
on me whether I've been able to work, whether my face is the
kind of face that is manageable in many situations, many characters
or whatever it is.
But there's some part of it that - and I think that comes
out and Sammy Davis Jr. said, "You remind me of the guy
who lives next door to me" which killed me. I don't know
whether it's a compliment or a compliment to my versatility
or my ordinariness.
So we were wondering how you actually got involved with
this particular project?
Well they came to me; they came to me and I read the script
and an actor likes to work and an actor likes to feel that
he's capable of needing the test of many challenges and everything
else so I said, "What about this?"
It's kind of deformed - and that's the word I was looking
for - deformed, mad; was not only deformed physically, but
deformed emotionally, and some of those characters within
stories themself are really dynamic to me.
So this deformed man; he's defined to some sense by his
physical appearance of this deformity, but there's another
emotional deformity as well. Fear - all those things are part
of it. Fear, guilt -all those things of my part that I'm allowed
to explore in this role; so that's how I got to it, they came
to me.
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