[A-List] Danny Glover

[Michael Keaney]

Danny Glover: No more Mr Nice Guy
The actor Danny Glover is famous for playing an amiable cop in the Lethal
Weapon series. Sholto Byrnes discovers why he would far rather be known as
'an obnoxious radical'
The Independent, 14 September 2004

"A liberal," says Danny Glover, quoting the poet Langston Hughes, "is a guy
who talks about how bad segregated trains are. Yet he rides in the
whites-only section. Liberals are apologists. And if Tony Blair and the
Labour party are considered liberal - well, come on, give me a break!" By
now Glover is animated, in contrast to when we first meet in one of the
ornate drawing rooms of Home House in central London. Ostensibly he's here
to talk about his being honoured in the "outstanding contribution" category
at last week's Screen Nation Film and TV awards, billed as "the UK black
Oscars". But as he sprawls in an armchair, patting himself down after a
session in the gym, Glover betrays little interest in discussing his films,
which include The Color Purple, Witness and the Lethal Weapon series.

"I've got a whole closet full of awards," he says. "I think they all have
some relevance. But in my own mind I've always treated my career as not
being just mine. I don't think any success is yours alone, particularly if
you've come out of the kind of historic experience that I've come from. The
success is not yours, it's the embodiment of what people before you have
struggled and done, of how they fought and sacrificed to make changes. Fifty
or 60 years ago, men of colour, and particularly black men, weren't able to
do the things I've been able to do in my profession."

Such serious language may be a little surprising springing from the lips of
a man who so often comes across on screen as amiable and good-natured,
sometimes even rather put upon. Think of his Roger Murtaugh, constantly
exasperated by the irresponsible antics of Martin Riggs in the Lethal Weapon
films, or as Henry Sherman, the accountant whose ineffectual wooing of
Anjelica Huston in The Royal Tenenbaums is disrupted by the return of Royal
Tenenbaum himself, played by Gene Hackman. Glover's face has a wonderful
ability to convey innocence and naivety, which is possibly why audiences
warm to his characters so readily. It doesn't strike one as the face of a
fiery radical.

Unbeknown to many in this country, however, Glover is and has always been
highly political. Amnesty International has given him a lifetime achievement
award; he is chairman of the TransAfrica Forum, which was very active in the
fight against apartheid (he was a guest at Nelson Mandela's 80th birthday);
and, two weeks ago, he was arrested on the steps of the Sudanese embassy in
Washington while demonstrating about the situation in Darfur.

Even when musing on films, Glover brings in political references. When I ask
him about Gibson's controversial The Passion of The Christ, he replies by
wondering what Martin Luther King would have thought about it. "He often
said that Jesus was a true revolutionary," he says. Gibson was the butt of
much criticism over his ultra-conservative religious beliefs, I say to
Glover. Does he worry that his own political activities will interfere with
his box-office appeal? As an example, I cite an American website that lists
"the 20 Most Annoying Liberals in the US"; Glover isn't actually on the
list, but he receives an "honourable mention".

"Well, I wouldn't consider myself a liberal, first off," he begins, rapidly
emerging from his post-workout lethargy. "I consider myself a progressive. I
don't like the word liberal. I have problems with liberals. I'm someone who
talks about progressive issues." How does he differentiate between the two
terms? "I think it's about time we started differentiating," he replies
heatedly. "I don't question my opposition to the war in Iraq. I don't
question my opposition to neo-liberal policies. I don't question my
opposition to the WTO and the World Bank, or the form of globalisation
that's happening at the moment. I don't question this at all. But liberals
may. Liberals may think that globalisation as it exists is fine. If
anything, I'd be happy to be seen as the most obnoxious radical. Radical
changes need to happen in the economic system, which is dominated by
multinational corporations. I don't believe that creating more greedy
capitalists is going to change the world."

I'd thought that as a vocal opponent of George W Bush he might be quite
pleased to appear on this website. But even the fact that he's down only as
an "honourable mention" riles him. "I'm not on the list," he says, "and one
of the reasons I'm not on the list is because they don't take anything that
black people have to say seriously. They think black people can only talk
about civil rights. Not human rights, and not about the way the world
exists."

That's a serious charge, I say. Does he really think that's true? "You have
your anomalies like Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell, but look what they
talk about." Did he agree with Harry Belafonte's comments on Powell,
likening the secretary of state to a "house slave" serving his master?
"Absolutely. Without a doubt."
The young Glover was raised on such strong political meat. Born in 1947, he
lived in the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco, where his parents were
postal workers and members of the NAACP (National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People). "They were very much involved in their
union," recalls Glover. As a child, he spent summers in Georgia with his
grandparents, who were poor farmers. There he experienced the segregation
that still existed in the South. In restaurants, for instance, they had to
dine in a different area from the whites. What was that like? "It made me
feel different things at different times," he says. "I wasn't aware of it at
eight years old. But I remember being in Georgia aged 15, aged 18, and I had
a different feeling then - anger. And by this point I was at a very
progressive, radical college and was in the black student union. I was
involved in a major strike at San Francisco State College in support of an
ethnic studies programme and a pair of schools that were also out on
strike."

It was also at college that Glover met the woman who was to become his wife.
Having spotted Asake Bomani, Glover was too shy to approach her properly.
Instead, he stood outside her English class, waited for her to come out,
said "Hi, how're you doin'?", and then walked on. This scenario was repeated
several times, until eventually he called her up and asked her out. "Yeah,
yeah," he says, bashful now, "I couldn't get too many words out. Put me in
front of a microphone and you'd get more words out of me. But I was just
blown away by this woman." It was Asake, with whom he has a daughter,
Mandisa, who first encouraged him to pursue acting as a profession.

In the mid-Seventies, Glover joined the Black Actors' Workshop of the
American Conservatory Theatre. After television appearances on series such
as Lou Grant, his first film role, as an inmate in Escape from Alcatraz,
came in 1979. This was followed by larger parts and acclaimed stage
performances in New York, particularly in two plays by the South African
writer Athol Fugard, Master Harold... and the Boys and The Blood Knot. In
1985 he appeared in three of the year's most successful films - Witness, The
Color Purple and Silverado - and by the next year he was reading through the
script of the first Lethal Weapon film with Gibson. Glover concedes that his
appearances as Murtaugh overshadow his other, more serious, work. "Yeah, I
imagine it always will," he says. "But it's been a big part of my career,
probably a bigger part of my career than of Mel's, because he's done other
things. It was probably the most successful buddy-action-comedy series, and
that's a testimonial to the sheer generosity between two artists and the
director."

A gun-toting cop on screen, and an anti-war protester off. Isn't there an
incongruity there? "Look, I'd be lying to you if I said I don't think about
what effect these decisions are going to have on my career. I do think about
that," he says. "But I'm still going to take a position, because it's the
right position. Whatever my career is, has been, will be, might be, there's
always some consistency in who I am and who I try to be as a human being.
That runs much deeper. The other stuff I don't really control. I may do a
film and it makes a zillion dollars. But it doesn't mean anything, other
than it made a zillion dollars."

Glover looks totally blank when he says these last two sentences. No, I
don't think it means anything to him at all. His passion is politics, and
that's what he keeps coming back to. He may have been a supporter of Dennis
Kucinich, a left-leaning congressman who stood for the Democratic
presidential nomination, but he has no great fondness for the winning
nominee, John Kerry. "What I was trying to do with Dennis was to work
through rank and file labour unions to talk about real issues. They support
Kerry, but they also understand that he is part of the system as well. They
know that their benefits and healthcare will be under attack whoever's in
the White House. So they're organising for a much bigger pitch than just
getting Kerry elected."

Glover's minders are hovering; they want him to leave to be interviewed on
Richard & Judy. But he wants to continue expounding his views. "Give us 10
more minutes," he says, brushing aside their protestations. "What we should
be talking about is the fact that we had a recovery that created no jobs;
that real income for workers is still falling; that there has to be some
kind of universal healthcare system; and that 45 million Americans are
without healthcare. Those are the real issues if you deal with the people on
the ground, not the select, privileged few."

Glover is roused further by contemplating the political career of one of his
Hollywood contemporaries. "Here's Arnold Schwarzenegger. He says he
represents immigrants, but he's not representing Haitian immigrants, or
those from the former Soviet Union who work in hotels for very low wages, or
Hispanic farm workers. He's just one privileged immigrant worker who hit the
lotto. He fuckin' hit the lotto. He came in here, he mumbled a few words,
and he brandished his muscles. So it's very different for him."

Those about whom Glover speaks admiringly include Edward Said, Noam Chomsky
and Martin Luther King. When I ask him what it's like to be arrested and
detained, an experience that most people would find quite frightening, he
says: "It's on principle. Dr King always used to say: 'If you're going to
jail for something, then you're going for what's right.' Dr King did a lot
of jail time, and so did a lot of other people in the civil rights movement.
I've been arrested around issues and done some time. But often the arrest is
symbolic, to draw attention to the issue."

Is this ability to bring public focus on to matters the main purpose of his
fame? "Well, there are certain other benefits," he says, referring to the
40-acre vineyard he owns in Sonoma County, California, bought with the
multimillion-dollar rewards of his film career. "But I've always had the
attitude that this fame doesn't belong specifically to me. I mean, I didn't
invent the wheel. I'm probably trying to be a spoke in it within the history
of human struggle. The weight I have to carry is that I have to do what I
think is right."