Role Recall: Danny Glover

Danny Glover tells stories about filming "Witness," "The Color Purple," "Lethal Weapon," "Predator 2," "The Royal Tenenbaums", "Saw," and his new movie "Almost Christmas."

Video Transcript

DANNY GLOVER: I remember the bathroom scene, first of all.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC]

- What the [MUTED] you doing, man?

- Washing my hands, man.

- What? Come on, man. Let's get out of here.

- Hold tight.

DANNY GLOVER: He says, "Hold tight." With the line does is represent who the character is in that moment because it gives you a larger sense of how he's methodical, or how he's calm in the moment, and how all his senses are working. And he's scoping. He's going through all-- all the things that are happening at that moment and to make sure that he is as specific and has done the job he wants to do.

You know, that's the wonderful, beautiful thing about a character. It becomes one moment where one action identifies who the character is, and we begin to understand him through that action and how he either excels or disintegrates.

- Until you do right by me, everything you think about is going to crumble.

- Don't do it, Ms. C. Don't trade places with what I've been through.

DANNY GLOVER: First of all, Whoopi is so phenomenal, her persona and her extraordinary gift. I just felt that she was destined to go on to do something special.

And I think Oprah was already on her path. "The Color Purple" did not propel her on the path that she was on. She was already on that path. And I think she would have been who we know her as, even without "The Color Purple."

- B is, I'm supposed to tell you you're breaking in a new partner on this.

- Partner again?

- Yeah, some caddy's on loan from dope. A real burnout, on the ragged edge.

- Oh, perfect. Gun!

[SHOUTS OF PANIC]

- [GRUNTS]

- Rog, meet your new partner.

- I'm too old for this [BLEEP].

- Who would have thunk it, a line like that would be so often used? Man, if I'm signing autographs, I say, what do you want me to put on that? And they say, I'm too old for that, or, for my dad, tell him you're not too old for this [BLEEP]. It's one of those lines that's become this phenomenon. And I hope it doesn't define my career. [LAUGHS] In the enunciation of it, I'm thinking, I hope I'm not too old for this, what I love doing, you know?

[GRUNTING, CLANKING]

It was the first and only time I've ever done upper-body weightlifting and all that kind of stuff, because I'm usually someone running on the beach. And there was a different kind of feeling there. There was a feeling that I'm the toughest guy on the block, you know, and I'm fighting the toughest guy on his-- on his block, and both of them were fearless. It had some of the greatest lines in it, too. "You're one ugly mother."

[CHOKING]

- Mother [BLEEP].

- It would probably be advantageous for your marital status to be legally established to single, in light of the circumstances.

- What do you mean?

- I mean for tax purposes.

- But I thought--

- Etheline.

- Yes?

- Will you marry me? I-- I love you, man. Did you already know that?

- No, I didn't.

DANNY GLOVER: I just so happened to come into town and talk to Wes. Wes says, "Where you going? What you doing?"

I said, "I'm going to the UN. You want to come with me?" I was a Goodwill Ambassador with the United Nations Development Program and-- and there was a big event that I was going with Kofi Annan, so I introduced Wes to one of the most important men in the world. And Wes comes up to me and says, "Man, that's the look I want for you in the movie."

And at that moment, after him coming to me-- coming to me, asking me to do this role, I said, "I got to do this movie." This guy was able-- if he was able to deduce from that meeting right there that this is the way he wants me to look-- look at this movie, I said, let me go be part of this thing.

- Hold it right there. Don't move!

- Put your [BLEEP] hands in the air!

- [WHIMPERS]

[ELECTRICITY SOUNDS]

- Now you'll make a choice. In 20 seconds, the life of this man will be ended.

- Shut up and get down here!

DANNY GLOVER: The producer told me that the director had seen me in an infomercial in Australia and wanted me to be in the film. Something about this detective, at this particular point, that attracted me to it within this particular framework, this structure within the film. And not that I thought that I was going to make a killing in terms of financing, but there was something about that and everything else that made me want to be in it. And I had never done a film like that before.

- I wasn't expecting you for another day or two. Your room's upstairs.

- But the liquor's in the dining room.

DANNY GLOVER: I'm probably repeating something that everyone else has said, but it was something around that dinner table for more than a week, that we'd spend every day, hour after hour, around the dinner table and the relationships became enriched. Those relationships in terms of the characters in the film, but also, I think the relationships with people, others who've known each other and followed each other's careers and everything else.

So that was, I think, the moment, which essentially was central to this wonderful feeling that we had in working on the story and the film itself.