Crispin Glover On 'The Bag Man,' John Cusack, Picking His Parts

The movie definitely does give you a concept of a backstory. Primarily what I concentrated on was the dialogue because the dialogue was well-written. You do get a sense that something else is going on other than what the dialogue is saying, and that's the exacting point of good dialogue. It was clear to me when reading it that was the case. I think that it sits in the genre of mystery and that I tend toward liking things that let questions happen. Part of what was nice about the dialogue is you can interpret it in different ways even with speaking it. We did, for most of the scenes, multiple takes. We played on certain scenes with a fair amount of interpretative differentiation which was enjoyable to do. You don'€™t always do that on a film.

Well, we worked together before on Hot Tub Time Machine. I only did one film in between those, so I almost worked with him twice in a row. He'€™s a good trained actor, and he understands good material. I play a similar position because in Hot Tub Time Machine -€“ I play a bellman at a hotel and this time I was playing the receptionist at a motel, so there was a similarity in the relationship. But the characters are quite different and the tone of the material was quite different.

What'€™s nice about the script is it does let you, the viewer, interpret things in your own head. I'€™m not the filmmaker, so I can give my own interpretation. It wouldn't necessarily ruin it for anybody because I'm just a player in the film. But your own thought process is going to bring much more to whatever art you'€™re experiencing -€” whether it'€™s painting or a radio show or a film -€” if it'€™s something that the audience can participate with their own thought process, then it'€™s much more evocative.

Well, the year that I got this I hadn’t acted in a couple of years. I was in Alice in Wonderland, which was the largest grossing film I’ve ever been in. I expected a lot of offers, and I did get a lot of offers. But there was something that I was getting offered that I really didn’t like and it happened like at least four projects in a row, and they were good money too.

I don’t really want to say what it was because I don’t want it to continue. I didn’t work for over a year. I prefer to work. It’s not like I’m somebody that doesn’t like working. I prefer to bring income in. It’s hurtful to me to turn down work. Between the years 2000 and 2010, I did 99 percent of what I was offered. I turned down very little work in that decade, but for whatever reason in 2010, I just had to. The last couple of years, I’ve had work, but I’ve had to [turn work down] for various reasons. I’ve had to be relatively selective, especially compared to the previous decade.

No. It wasn’t a type that I’d seen before. It was actually kind of a new thing, but I didn’t like it. I don’t want to say what it was because I don’t want it to continue. Luckily, I just got three independent things that I’ve just seen in the last week. Independent films you don’t really know until you’re essentially on the set and shooting whether they’re real or not, but there have been some interesting things. I also did one other film in the same year which is a Polish-language film. It’s set in 1918, and I play a German-speaking telepath, which was very challenging because I don’t speak German. It was very complex dialogue and that was quite a difficult memorization path. I’ve seen that film as well, it’s also an interesting movie.