William Earl Scott Glenn was so charmed by his “Eugene the Marine” co-star Jim Gaffigan that while filming a particularly wild fight scene, the 85-year-old modified a stunt so he didn’t accidentally kill the comedian. “All that I was concerned with when we got to the end of this scene was making it physically as real as possible, but also as safe as possible,” Glenn says, during a Zoom conversation with Gaffigan for Variety. “For instance, I don’t know if Jim knows this, but at one point I put something called a ‘naked choke’ on him.
I always made sure that my bicep was not really next to his carotid artery, because if you squeeze that thing wrong, you can very quickly halt blood going to the brain and hurt somebody permanently.” For Glenn, it was just another day at the office — “You think about things like that,” he deadpans, as Gaffigan laughs, fully understanding that his life was literally in his co-star’s hands.
Glenn is booked and busy these days, with roles on the Apple TV+ crime comedy “Bad Monkey” and a part in the upcoming season of “The White Lotus.” Yet “Eugene the Marine,” an action-thriller co-written and directed by Hank Bedford, shows Glenn in a new light, one that harkens back to his early years, three of which were spent in the United States Marine Corps.
In the film, Glenn stars as Gene Lee Grady, a lonely military man mourning his late wife and living a quiet existence in his tidy house.
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