Tim Ferriss and Scott Glenn

“If you love it, make it your life. And right along with that, be tenacious. Learn that the most important thing about being knocked down is getting back up. And if you can put yourself in the spot where you say, ‘I don’t care how many times I get knocked down, I’m getting back up every single time and going after what I want,’ that’s the answer.”

— Scott Glenn

Scott Glenn’s acting career spans nearly 60 years. His impressive film resume includes performances in Apocalypse Now, Urban Cowboy, The Right Stuff, Silverado, The Hunt for Red October, The Silence of the Lambs, Backdraft, The Virgin Suicides, and The Bourne Ultimatum. More recently, Scott has appeared on the small screen as Kevin Garvey Sr. in The Leftovers, the blind sensei Stick in Marvel’s Daredevil and The Defenders, and as the retired sheriff Alan Pangborn in Castle Rock. This year, Scott will return to HBO to join season 3 of The White Lotus.

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What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

Want to hear an episode with Scott’s TV son on Apple TV+’s upcoming Bad Monkey series? Listen to my conversation with Vince Vaughn here in which we discussed developing grit, high school trauma, sharpening acting chops through improv, rejection inoculation, finding tone in storytelling, expanding comfort zones, and much more.

#243: How to Fear Less: Vince VaughnSELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODERoom Service Poems for Carol | Carol Glenn CeramicsFriction Zone by Scott Glenn | Carol Glenn CeramicsScott Glenn Prefers Living Away From the Hollywood Hubbub | Deseret NewsBighorn Crags: Climbing, Hiking, and Mountaineering | SummitPostChallis, Idaho | Chamber of CommerceThe Baby Maker | Prime VideoNashville | Prime VideoApocalypse Now | Prime VideoUniversal Studios HollywoodScott Glenn Landed His ‘Apocalypse Now’ Role After Saving Francis Ford Coppola’s Life | The Hollywood ReporterBaretta | IMDbCattle Annie & Little Britches | Prime VideoWild Bunch | WikipediaThe Studios At Paramount13 and a 1/2 | Urban DictionaryNuestra Familia | WikipediaUrban Cowboy | Prime VideoScott Glenn as Wes Hightower | FrostbiteA Look Back at How Gilley’s Gave Us ‘Urban Cowboy’ | Texas HighwaysCollision Course: An Omnibus of Plays at Cafe Au Go Go (1968) | AbeBooksScott Glenn Talks The Defenders, Daredevil, and The Leftovers | EsquireScarlet Fever: All You Need to Know | CDCBenzylpenicillin | WikipediaThe Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) | Prime VideoThis Is How to See if You Would’ve Been Drafted for Vietnam | Military.comSnap-on ToolsApril 2, 1963 | Kenosha News ArchiveOne of the Original Acting Studios in NYC | HB StudioOh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feelin’ So Sad | WikipediaThe Salvation Army USAHow to Convert to Judaism | My Jewish LearningTao Te Ching by Lao Tzu | AmazonPractical Shooting: Beyond Fundamentals by Brian Enos | AmazonMysticism | Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyWhy Do Creationists Keep Saying Carbon Dating Is Debunked? | r/AtheismWhat Kind Of Fish Swallowed Jonah? How Did He Survive? | I Love DocsScott Glenn And Killer Joe: A Perfect Fit | PlaybillThe Leftovers | Prime Video‘The Leftovers’: Scott Glenn on His “Unpredictable, Subversive” Character | The Hollywood ReporterDon’t Shoot the Dog!: The New Art of Teaching and Training by Karen Pryor | AmazonVince Vaughn to Star in ‘Bad Monkey’ from ‘Ted Lasso’ Co-Creator | The Hollywood ReporterEugene the Marine | IMDbStories From the UN Archive: Marlon Brando, the UN’s First Frontman for Water | UN NewsBizarre Things That Happened on the Apocalypse Now Set | LooperRoyal Academy of Dramatic Art | RADAWhat Is Method Acting? | We Are ActorsWhere Was Apocalypse Now Filmed? | The CinemaholicRolling Stones: (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction | The Ed Sullivan ShowSimple 10-Minute Daily Ear Massage & Acupressure | Qigong of TulsaHow to Breathe Properly | BreathwrkHow Humming Stimulates Your Vagus Nerve for Stress Relief | BustlePressing Reset: Original Strength Reloaded by Tim Anderson and Geoff Neupert | AmazonThe Quick and the Dead: Total Training for the Advanced Minimalist by Pavel Tsatsouline | AmazonKettlebells | AmazonThe Most Brutal Push-Up Exercise (Prison Push-Ups) | Victor GasparResistance Bands Vs Weights: Which Gives The Better Workout? | Marathon HandbookResistance Bands | AmazonFeetUp | AmazonScott Glenn is a 75-Year-Old Knife-Fighting, Spear-Fishing Madman | GQWhere to See Manatees in Florida | Visit FloridaMaster Your Inner Experience | Breath Hold WorkFreediving Apnea TrainerThe Actors StudioDecompression Sickness | Harvard HealthLearn to Dive Today | NAUI WorldwideStatic Line Skydiving: Is It Really Safe? | DZONE SkydivingGolden Knights | GoArmy.comEverything We Know About ‘The White Lotus’ Season 3 | Robb ReportKrabi-Krabong: Thailand’s Traditional Martial Art | Fighters VaultWhere to Watch Muay Thai Fights in Bangkok | HeavyBJJOff Limits (1988) | IMDbLesser Vehicle | Tibetan Buddhist EncyclopediaSavate | WikipediaAsia’s Infamous Golden Triangle and the Soldiers Tracking down the Drug Smugglers Who Rule Its Narcotics Trade | ABC NewsThree Pagodas Pass Much More Than A Border Gate | The Lost PassportHow to Increase Your Luck Surface Area | Codus OperandiThe Right Stuff | Prime VideoTosca Cafe, San Francisco: An Oral History | Bon AppétitNatalia Makarova and Mikhail Baryshnikov in “Giselle” (1977) | American Ballet TheaterEasy Writer | Sun Valley MagazineSlow Riding Tips: How to Ride a Motorcycle at Slow Speeds | Harley-Davidson InsuranceThe SVD Dragunov: The World’s Most Prolific Sniper Rifle And Its Olympic Roots | Gun DigestSHOW NOTES[07:10] Idaho vs. Los Angeles.[13:26] Apocalypse Now, self-confidence soon after.[17:26] Burt Lancaster’s movie star lessons.[23:06] The birth and death of Wes Hightower.[32:22] Catching the attention of James Bridges.[35:42] Scarlet fever.[37:29] From Marine to police reporter.[42:12] Berghof Studios and parental advice.[50:44] Converting to Judaism.[53:36] Lao Tzu: the ultimate mystic?[58:16] Letting go with Killer Joe.[1:02:53] “Crazy Whitefella Thinking.”[1:08:31] Getting out of the way and Erwan Le Corre.[1:11:51] Lessons from the “morally phenomenal” Marlon Brando.[1:16:26] How Scott’s childhood bout with scarlet fever informed his life’s course.[1:19:05] Daily routines and exercises of an in-shape 85-year-old.[1:35:12] Securing a serendipitous skill set.[1:42:13] Thailand talk.[1:46:18] Increasing surface luck.[1:47:04] How Scott met and fell in love with his wife.[1:53:04] “Just dance.”[1:53:46] Mistakenly calling Rudolf Nureyev Russian.[1:55:57] Poetry.[2:00:01] What Laurence Olivier knew about the value of tenacity.[2:01:41] Parting thoughts.MORE SCOTT GLENN QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“I understood, because of the way I’ve learned everything in my life that’s important to me, is you learn by apprenticeship, not from a book or going to school. At least I can’t.”

— Scott Glenn

“I did one audition and they said, ‘You know, you’re not really very good. We want to give you things to work on.’ And I said, ‘What the fuck do you know? Who have you worked with? Because I was just doing improvs and work with Marlon Brando, Vittorio Storaro, Francis Coppola, Dennis Hopper. And they accepted me as an equal. What have you done? You’ve done this and this. You can’t even fucking direct traffic.’ So they kicked me out of Universal.”

— Scott Glenn

“I stopped off in Wyoming at one point. People must have thought I was nuts. I got out of the Jimmy and I walked down to the side of the road and I took this invisible Wes Hightower and threw him in the ground and broke his fucking neck and called Carol at a pay phone. I said, ‘Wes Hightower is dead. I’m coming home.'”

— Scott Glenn

“The most important single event in my life was scarlet fever when I was nine years old that I wasn’t supposed to have survived. … But that experience turned me into an athlete, turned me into someone who had learned to not only live with, but fall in love with, my fantasies and my imagination.”

— Scott Glenn

“What gives performances on film their juice or electricity is their degree of spontaneity. … And complete spontaneity is not watching yourself at all. Complete spontaneity is being in the now so completely that you really don’t have a past, and more importantly, way more importantly I think with acting, you don’t have a future, which means plans on what you’re going to do in the scene dissolve and then finally disappear.”

— Scott Glenn

“When I need to learn something, the best teacher in the world materializes right in front of me.”

— Scott Glenn

“I’m willing to fall on my ass in front of people. The embarrassment of screwing up and being clumsy and falling on my ass in front of people is not great enough to keep me from doing it. And that’s the trick to being a good student.”

— Scott Glenn

“The thing about the pandemic that I realized is a lot of people who were in love with each other had to discover whether they liked each other or not.”

— Scott Glenn

“If you love it, make it your life. And right along with that, be tenacious. Learn that the most important thing about being knocked down is getting back up. And if you can put yourself in the spot where you say, ‘I don’t care how many times I get knocked down, I’m getting back up every single time and going after what I want,’ that’s the answer.”

— Scott Glenn

Carol GlennEric RybackRobert AltmanFrancis Ford CoppolaRichard M. ColbyMartin SheenMarlon BrandoDennis HopperVittorio StoraroWilliam ShakespeareRupert HitzigRod SteigerBurt LancasterAmanda PlummerDiane LanePablo PicassoJames BridgesJack LarsonRyan O’NealSam ShepardIrving AzoffFreddy FenderDebra WingerJohn TravoltaWes HightowerEdward ParoneAaron LathamLord ByronWalter MittyWilliam HickeyLao TzuBrian EnosMike JohnsonTracy LettsDamon LindelofMimi LederMolly FerrissDavid GulpililVince VaughnKonstantin StanislavskiIsaac BoleslavskyLaurence FishburneGray FredericksonErwan Le CorreScott ReitzLee StrasbergJohn ShawKurt JohnstadJames StewartJimmy StewartJacques CousteauForrest GumpGregory HinesFred WardFreddie FieldsRudolf NureyevMatt MattoxVladimir PutinNatalia MakarovaLaurence Olivier

The post Legendary Actor Scott Glenn — How to Be Super Fit at 85, Lessons from Marlon Brando, How to Pursue Your Purpose, The Art of Serendipity, Stories of Gunslingers, and More (#729) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss.