Interview with Crispin Hellion Glover

Still from "No! YOU'RE WRONG, or: Spooky Action at a Distance"

By CLAUDIA November 30th, 2025

Whitehot Magazine: “Spooky action at a distance” is a term coined by Einstein to explain quantum entanglement; the phenomenon of connected particles that remain linked across vast distances, to the point where even the measurement of one affects the properties of the other. Without giving too much away, how would you say the concept of quantum entanglement influenced this film?

Crispin Hellion Glover: There are things that happen when working in any art form that feel as though life is affected outside the specific art piece. Many people have reported it. It can feel more than just life imitating art. There are so many coincidences that it can feel as though there is an entanglement at a bizarre level. The title of the film uses the term poetically, but it is the term that first came into my head in describing the uncanny feeling, and I have not thought of a better term since then.

My feeling is that when someone is making any artwork and attempting to get to some aspect of truth, seemingly intangible things are picked up on, and there can, for lack of a better word, be a specific vibration that leads to other things aligning that were not initially intended.

Still from "No! YOU'RE WRONG, or: Spooky Action at a Distance"

WM: I love the 1960s early 70s feel of parts of the film. Especially the scenes with Mika Mae Jones. What inspired you?

CHG: Interestingly, you mention the 1960s and early 1970s. Various parts of the film (shot on 35mm negative) were color-corrected to reflect different eras of early film color. There are five eras in the film: 1868, 1888, 1918, 1948, and the contemporary era.

The 1868, 1888, 1918, and 1948 eras were all shot on Fuji 35mm color negative film stock (now sadly discontinued).The contemporary scenes were shot on Kodak 35mm negative.

For the 1868 and 1888 portions, during color correction, we reshot those scenes with a hand-cranked camera (originally owned by the great filmmaker Karel Zeman) off a 4K monitor, using 35mm black-and-white film negative. Then the 1868 portions were hand-processed in chemical vats, which we knew would leave decolorized chemical deformities resembling the way film ages over many decades. A professional animator used dyes to hand-paint portions of the film frame by frame in the same early color technique used by filmmakers such as Méliès in the first decades of the 20th century.

Still from "No! YOU'RE WRONG, or: Spooky Action at a Distance"

For 1888, after reshooting with the hand-crank camera, the negative was processed by a traditional film laboratory, and we used different techniques to emulate a slightly later process called stencil color.

The 1918 portion of the film I originally wanted to resemble three-strip Technicolor via super-saturating in the color correction, while keeping certain flicker and high contrast that occurred when we scanned the material using an early digital film scanner from the 1990s that I had purchased used in Los Angeles in 2008. We replaced its original sensor, and it captured images in a way that caused flicker, which we removed from the 1948 and contemporary eras but retained in 1868, 1888, and 1918.

After many months of the first color correction pass, and watching the whole film, the 1918 section did not look like Technicolor (which was not a photochemical process), so we instead desaturated much of the 1918 portion, which resulted in certain scenes feeling highly saturated by contrast to the other sections— something I wanted.

1948 was the simplest process: we just turned down the color channels to render it monochromatic, as many films in the 1940s were. The contemporary era was color-corrected more naturally.

I believe some of the production design — antique furniture, wall colors, and wardrobe visible in the behind-the-scenes portions — along with the 35mm capture, may be what leads to a slight 1960s/70s feeling.

Still from "No! YOU'RE WRONG, or: Spooky Action at a Distance"

Mika Mae Jones was a painter and illustrator and referred to herself as a muse. In the case of this movie, she definitely influenced things in the film, so her reference to herself as a muse was accurate. Multiple people I worked with, such as my father, also influenced the work. However, my father would never have called himself a muse. My father's influence and Mika's influence were distinctly different.

Still from "No! YOU'RE WRONG, or: Spooky Action at a Distance"

WM: The eye, and three links are interwoven throughout the entire film. The Society of Oddfellows seems a very apt choice for the film, out of all the Masonic symbolism available. The eye and three links meshed so well with the story. Can you tell me a bit about why you chose it and what it means to you?

CHG: The all-seeing eye, the three chain links, and the crescent moon were all Masonic symbols that I was able to fit into the space allowed for the engraved gold watch. This watch is passed from character to character. I took the graphic line art of the three symbols, placed them together in Photoshop, and sent the design to the company that engraved the watch.

I have always liked graphic symbols — I began using them in the early 1980s while making books, which I tour with in my slide-show, dramatic narration performances. There is something compelling about obscure symbols whose original meanings may be lost; new interpretations arise naturally. What I ascribe to the symbols is just one interpretation — others may see something else entirely, and that is valuable. I used some of these symbols in my first film as well.

Although No! YOU’RE WRONG. or: Spooky Action at a Distance is not part of the It trilogy, like the first two films, it exists in a Surrealist realm that encourages individual interpretation rather than a dictation as to what to think from the filmmaker. I am cautious about defining the symbols because doing so could restrict an interpretation that might be perfectly true for someone else.

Still from "No! YOU'RE WRONG, or: Spooky Action at a Distance"

WM: I also loved the scenes that cut back to behind the film and where your character interacted with Mika Mae Jones and your father in the 'real' world. They were a great balance and anchor for the rest of the film. It reminded me a bit of The Princess Bride. It added a fairytale aspect to the film. The miniatures were also just magical. All your work honors spectacle which is such an integral part of entertainment. How important is spectacle to you when you work on a project?

CHG: Thank you. I have only seen a few clips from The Princess Bride, so I will have to watch the entire film to fully understand the comparison. A 1926 film by F.W. Murnau, based on the Molière play Tartuffe, uses a framing device I was familiar with, but I didn’t rewatch it during production.I am very pleased with the miniatures Huy Vu created for the film. They were present in the script for No! YOU’REWRONG. before Spooky Action at a Distance was incorporated, but they were not built or filmed until we began shooting the Spooky Action at a Distance material.

I am comfortable with formalist cinema — films in which the audience is aware of the constructed nature of the work.A couple of favorite examples of formalist spectacle are Fellini’s Casanova (1976) and Karel Zeman’s The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1962).

Spectacle is a crucial word for me. If something is not visually expressive, then the story could exist as another art form, such as a book, radio drama, or stage play. When making a film, there should be some aspect of spectacle, or it probably would be best to use a differnt art form.

Still from "No! YOU'RE WRONG, or: Spooky Action at a Distance"

WM: Your father Bruce Glover co-wrote and starred in the film. He was an actor who had roles in Diamonds Are Forever, Chinatown, Mission: Impossible, Adam-12, The Mod Squad, Gunsmoke, My Favorite Martian, Dukes of Hazzard, Barney Miller, CHiPs, Perry Mason and many more. This film was his last role. Could you share some lessons he imparted on you regarding life and being an artist?

CHG: My father was an excellent painter. I plan to publish a book of his paintings. Children absorb things from their parents without formal training. Visiting art museums as a child had an enormous influence — stronger, in retrospect, than I could have realized at the time.

The first exhibit I remember was at LACMA in 1971, which included Mud Muse by Robert Rauschenberg — a vat of bentonite clay bubbling in response to sound. It was shown alongside work involving technology and aerospace, including Claes Oldenburg’s Giant Ice Bag (1969), which inflated and deflated rhythmically. Another gallery was navigated in near-darkness, with rapid flashes revealing suspended monochrome line art — an eye, a triangle. The flash imprint lingered optically as one moved forward. The experience remains vivid 50 years later.

I also remember seeing Salvador Dalí’s Rainy Taxi with snails in the interior of the rainy car at an outing with my parents at LACMA, and that had a strong impression.

In 1971, we lived temporarily in London for the summer while my father acted in Diamonds Are Forever. We didn’t usually travel solely for vacations, but when his work took him abroad, my mother and I would join him at certain times. We visited museums, and he sketched paintings in sketchbooks. I was given a sketchbook too. By age seven, I had an understanding of both traditional and conceptual art, but this was not done formally; it was just something I'm sure I was aware of by exposure.

My mother was a ballet dancer who understudied Gwen Verdon in Damn Yankees on Broadway and later toured in the role. My parents met while auditioning for a play in New York; I was born there, and my earliest memories are of the city. She had many ballet LPs — orchestral recordings remain my listening preference, and this has influenced the scoring of all my films, including No! YOU’RE WRONG. or: Spooky Action at a Distance.

When I tour with my films or travel in general, usually the first place I will try to visit is the art museum, whichever city I am in, and my preference for music listening is orchestral music. So the museum viewing is mostly from my father, and the orchestral music listening is mostly from my mother.

Both my father and mother appear in the film — they also appear in It Is Fine. EVERYTHING IS FINE. dancing together to orchestral music. This film is dedicated to their memory, and to “all the parents that have led to us,” which resonates with its themes of lineage and generational karma.

Still from "No! YOU'RE WRONG, or: Spooky Action at a Distance"

WM: Your father was wonderful in the film. He was also an accomplished actor and you both had some similar roles, along with a very similar look. How did that idea of continuity and replication play into your writing of this film together?

CHG: Thank you. The film was conceived after a screenplay I had written for an actress I was dating, in which she was to play multiple roles. That actress is no longer living. The concept of two actors playing multiple roles was then refocused on my father and me, in which we would play multiple characters, and all other characters would appear only in silhouette. But as soon as I began writing the female roles, it became clear that they needed to be played by visible humans, and not be shadow figures.

The idea of my father and me portraying the same characters at different ages existed from the beginning, but the interactions and structure evolved dramatically after he became involved in writing. My original outline was a tableau of three eras connected only by being different generations of the same family, each containing a scene involving a bridge, a train, and familial violence. There was far less interconnection between the eras in the original outline than in the finished film.

My father did not initially understand the conceptual approach I presented, and his resistance drew him into the writing — exactly as I expected. Some of these tensions are dramatized in the Spooky Action at a Distance portion, where our debates appear with a humorous aspect. It made sense thematically to include this layer, as the film's initial theme involved generational karma, and the reality of aspects of the making of the film fit well against the formalist architecture of No! YOU’RE WRONG.

WM: Do you have an idea of what your next film will be, and are there any other projects we can look forward to seeing you in?

CHG: Yes. I began shooting my next feature in 2024. On average,  my films take about ten years to complete, so I don’t yet know when this one will be finished. I am exploring production approaches to shorten that timeline.

I have acted in a number of films in recent years. Mr. K (shot 2023) is now in release. A Blind Bargain and Skinemaxwere shot in 2024. In 2025, I worked on The Third Parent and Death of a Brewer.

I toured with my first two films What Is It? and It Is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE. from 2005–2020. The pandemic paused touring, and I decided not to resume until the new film was complete. I am now touring with all three, and last week they screened together at the Mayfair Theatre in Ottawa — the first time I have seen all three sequentially, having not watched the first two for a number of years while I was touring with them before the pandemic. I have curated thebooks for the live performances tailored to perform before the films. WM

Film Tour continues across the US including these stops:

Nov 30 Parkway Theatre, Minneapolis 

Dec 4-6 Sun Ray Theatre, Tampa (It is fine! What is it? on December 4)

Dec 12-13 Texas Theatre, Dallas by(What is it? on December 13)

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