Only a few actors can have their career chronicled in a single line. Danny Glover will always be associated with the character of Roger Murtaugh in the four Lethal Weapon movies, even though he is too old for it.
The irony is that both of his works came out within a year of each other. At 75, he is still working hard. The roles that carry from the art house to the movie house are listed on his page on the Internet Movie Database. Go through the list. Roles are jumping out in a photo album.
It is easy to overlook the activism of the man. He is a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Program, focusing on poverty, disease and economic development in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.
There is only one cause that Glover embraces on his website. The co- founder of production company Louverture Films has a history of being a humanitarian and activist, as evidenced by the films that will be featured in a Film at Lincoln Center retrospective in December.
The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award will be given to him in January of 2022, because of his dedication to recognizing our shared humanity on and off the screen.
In the low-budget drama, "The Drummer", he plays Mark Walker, an activist attorney and Vietnam vet who helps two young Iraqi War soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder. It is a humane performance that provides a glimpse into the dark side of patriotism.
The film has something valuable to talk about and for us to think about, says the film's executive producer.
So does the man. I was told I had 15 minutes to talk. We talked for more than an hour. Most established actors treat media interviews with a reserved warmth, as if a journalist will ask for their agent's email address at any moment. Their publicists are always wary of running tape recorders, so they want to leave.
The intellectual rigor that Glover came with was a bit intimidating. The topics ranged from Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln's correspondence to China and South Africa's modernization to Martin Luther King's approach to social justice in America. The talk was more about his journey through this world.
The interview was edited for clarity and length.
A passion for activism is what Danny Glover has.
I know activism and acting are your passions, but who are you?
My parents came to the post office in 1948. They became involved with the postal union. There was a lot of employment of African-Americans. My parents became activists in their own way. My mother was a member of the NAACP.
There were conversations and meetings around my house when I was a kid because they were members of the postal union and active in the NAACP.
I am the oldest child. I was close to them becoming politicized, not only with the civil rights movement, but as a local post office. I thought the two were related. I didn't wear a union jacket or emblems, but it was a part of the conversation.
Some of my dad's best friends were the guys who worked at the post office. It is a different responsibility for my father to be unionized and to have accrued everything that he would not have had he not worked at the post office.
My grandmother was a nurse. It gave my mother different opportunities than her first cousin. My grandmother said that my kids wouldn't pick cotton. My kids are going to school. When the sharecropper came around with the wagon to pick them up, he asked my grandfather where the kids were. It is not raining outside.
My kids are in school. My kids don't work in the fields when there's school. The overseer told my grandfather to teach his woman how to talk to white people.
My mother graduated from college. Her siblings went to college as well. That is a paradigm shift.
My parents lived in the world. They ended up in San Francisco. My dad said they were going back to Detroit. I have a job waiting for me there. My mother told me to find a job here. We are not going away. This is God's country.
To use my mother's language. It was the best decision my dad could have made, and he didn't have to make it. She made it.
I am descended from strong matriarchal lines. The major decisions were made by the women.
The recent announcement that there are more veterans suicides than soldiers killed in Iraq makes the film "The Drummer" more timely than ever, how did your brother shape your views?
My brother was in the army. Nineteen years old. My brother died when he was 50 years old. His life was affected by it. He would wake up in the middle of the night with nightmares. I didn't talk to him about what he saw. He would tell me stories about guys he knew who would not leave their barracks when they got home. I don't know what that experience is like. How do you carry that level of fear?
This 38 year old man emerged from deep poverty to become a multimillionaire landlord in his 30s.
I remember someone telling me that my brother saw things so we didn't have to see them. I carried that with me through my character in the film and the men I was trying to save. I think that is a way of looking at that, because you don't know. You don't see it. We don't know what war is. We can make movies about it, but we don't know.
Wanting to make a difference.
Do you think that the plight of soldiers with post traumatic stress disorder gets lost in the shuffle in terms of current events and what happens every day?
Historically, we have shown that we are not caring about troops. In the past we have had to go to war, but we don't have massive mandates. Some of us are trying to figure out what the war was about. War is a tool for expansion.
How can we reverse the ideas that have been institutionalized, such as how many of us see the military or treat the environment?
I believe we understand our limitations. How do we make this place sustainable not just for a few, but sustainable for everything? Is that possible? You have to believe it. If we fail, we have no place to go. You are going to have a lot of disruption.
I am here to be the best example I can be as a citizen, and that is to recognize injustice and be a part of changing that. I hope we all live our lives in order to create a better world.
Why do you think people don't recognize it?
They do it every day. I think we do. In every single way, we try to teach our children about their responsibilities as humans. All of these movements are environmental or justice.
In November 2021, there are a lot of things to stream: 'Cowboy Bebop,' 'Hawkeye,' and much more.
I want to believe that people around me are doing that. I feel good. I don't know what the future is, but I do know that doing something causes a reaction. The chain reaction makes us human in many different ways.
Pete Croatto has appeared in a number of publications, including the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, Publishers Weekly, the A.V. Club, and Good Housekeeping. His first book, "From Hang Time to Prime Time: Business, Entertainment, and the Birth of the Modern-Day NBA," will be released on December 1. PeteCroatto can be followed on the social networking site, #PeteCroatto.
The article is a work of NextAvenue.org and Twin Cities Public Television, Inc.
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