Scott Glenn makes authority convincing without fuss. We value the toughness and assurance he brings to supporting parts, though the writing can leave him with a rank and a duty where a fuller character ought to be.
Fi1m perspective
Scott Glenn's Commander Bart Mancuso seems to have work to do and little interest in making a performance of it. In John McTiernan's The Hunt for Red October (1990), that quiet authority helps make the submarine thriller convincing. We found his presence reassuring because he made the responsibility look routine, even under pressure. He gives us a reason to believe in Mancuso before the screenplay asks us to care about him.
His part as Lieutenant Richard M. Colby in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979) was an early major film credit, followed by the breakthrough as Wes Hightower in Urban Cowboy (1980). Alan Shepard in The Right Stuff (1983) belongs to the run of prominent supporting parts that followed through the 1980s and 1990s. The frequent casting as officers, law-enforcement men and officials makes sense: Glenn brings toughness without needing to insist on it. But his work includes sympathetic and antagonistic characters, so that authority should not automatically be mistaken for kindness.
The Hunt for Red October also shows the limit of relying on such assurance. Glenn and James Earl Jones, as Vice Admiral James Greer, make the professional exchanges credible, but Larry Ferguson and Donald E. Stewart's screenplay is less persuasive when it tries to give the men lives outside their duties. We believe in the officers more readily than we feel for them. That is a writing problem, though a dependable actor can make it easier to overlook. Glenn does enough here to earn our recommendation; he cannot supply every detail the script has left out.
Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) is another substantial supporting part, while Training Day (2001) and the Bourne films carried that character-actor career onwards. The later television work includes The Leftovers (2014–2017) and Daredevil (2015–2016). He has remained largely a supporting actor, and we see no reason to regard that as a failing. The Hunt for Red October is the place to start, provided a submarine full of men discussing their work sounds like a promising evening.
Biography
Scott Glenn is an American actor. Born Theodore Scott Glenn in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he studied English at the College of William & Mary and served in the United States Marine Corps Reserve before training at the Actors Studio. He made his screen debut in The Baby Maker (1970) and appeared in Robert Altman's Nashville (1975).
Glenn played Lieutenant Richard M. Colby in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979). His other film roles include Urban Cowboy (1980), The Right Stuff (1983), Silverado (1985), The Hunt for Red October (1990), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Training Day (2001), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) and The Bourne Legacy (2012). On television he has portrayed Stick in the Marvel series Daredevil (2015–2016) and Kevin Garvey Sr. in The Leftovers (2014–2017).
