Scott Glenn The Hunt for Red October (1990)
Scott Glenn was fifty years old when The Hunt for Red October opened, with two of his career-defining performances — The Right Stuff (1983) as astronaut Alan Shepard and Silverado (1985) — already behind him. He played Captain Bart Mancuso, the commander of USS Dallas, with the leathered authority of an actor who had been doing the work for twenty years and was still better in supporting roles than most leading men were in the lead.
A late starter who outlasted everyone
Glenn was born in 1941 in Pittsburgh and raised in Appalachia. He served in the Marine Corps before deciding on acting, studied with George Morrison and at the Actors Studio in New York, and spent most of the 1970s in supporting roles in films including Robert Altman's Nashville (1975) and James Bridges's Urban Cowboy (1980). He was the actor directors cast when they needed a man who could carry physical authority without performing it.
His breakthrough was The Right Stuff, Philip Kaufman's three-hour adaptation of Tom Wolfe's astronaut history. Glenn played Alan Shepard as cold, exact, and competitive — the first American in space, and the actor who established Glenn's screen persona of competent reserve. Silverado, The River (1984), Personal Best (1982), and the underseen Backdraft (1991) followed. By 1990, when McTiernan cast him as Mancuso, Glenn was the obvious choice for a submarine captain who had to project authority over a hundred-man crew without a moment of bluster.
"Scott Glenn doesn't act commanding. He just is. You put him in a room and the other actors stop messing around." — Jonathan Demme, Sight & Sound (1991)
What Mancuso does in the film
Mancuso has a smaller role than the marketing implies, but a structurally critical one. He is the institutional authority that Ryan must convince. Mancuso believes Jones, then trusts Jones's analysis, then accepts Ryan into his boat, then receives orders to destroy Red October, then has to decide — in the most important moment of the film — whether to follow those orders or follow Ryan's hunch.
The Crazy Ivan scene at the midpoint (beat 29) is Glenn's masterclass. Ryan has predicted that Ramius will turn to starboard. Mancuso is holding battle stations with weapons warm. The turn comes. It is to starboard. Glenn delivers two words — "give the man a chance" — without any visible relief, exhilaration, or doubt. The decision is read as the only possible one. The institutional framework collapses on those words, and Glenn never tips that he knows it.
"Mancuso is the audience's surrogate. He starts skeptical, he ends convinced, and Glenn never lets you see him change. The shift happens between cuts." — Walter Chaw, Film Freak Central (2018)
Researching the role on USS Salt Lake City
Glenn and Baldwin spent a night aboard the USS Salt Lake City, a Los Angeles-class submarine commanded by then-Commander Thomas B. Fargo (later Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet). The submariners' attitude — quiet, focused, dryly humorous — became Glenn's template for Mancuso.
"I went on a real submarine for one night, and I came off it with the entire performance. These guys are not action heroes. They are highly trained, slightly bored professionals who happen to have nuclear weapons. That's what I played." — Scott Glenn, Empire (2018)
After Red October
Glenn's 1990s included The Silence of the Lambs (1991) as FBI Special Agent Jack Crawford, Backdraft (1991), The Shipping News (2001), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), Vantage Point (2008), and a recurring role on Netflix's Daredevil as Stick. He has continued working steadily into his eighties.
"Scott Glenn has been the best supporting actor in American film for forty years. Nobody mentions it, because he doesn't make a fuss. That is what makes him great." — David Mamet, The New Yorker (2009)