His unusual characters and artworks have inspired a cult-like following that has dubbed him both madman and genius - he's Crispin Glover. For over two decades, he as delivered standout performances in over 30 films, including River's Edge, Back To The Future, Wild At Heart, The Doors (as Andy Warhol), The People Vs. Larry Flynt, Nurse Betty and both Charlie's Angels films. He is also the author of multiple works of fiction, and an album. Glover is also the director and producer of two feature films currently in post-production, What Is It? (for which he wrote the screenplay) and it's sequel, Everything is Fine.

How did Willard come to you?

My agent. I was working on another film, and they said they were interested in me for this. And I thought it sounded initially like something I'd be interested in. I had never seen Willard, but I knew something about the concept. And it sounded like it would be interested and so I got the script. I read the script and it was a really great part, well written, and I was willing to do it immediately.

Then, after I started negotiating for it, I watched the original film and it was funny, because I already had an image in my head of the character from what I'd read which is different from what the film was.

How much time did you spend alone with the rats?

Actually, I don't think I ever spent any time alone with them. The trainers, they're very careful with the animals. They wanted me to be with the rats, especially with the Socrates rats that I would be working with, for them to get used to me. So, I held them and talked to them or whatever, worked with them a bit. But there are rules and regulations. I don't know exactly what they are, but they have to be careful that the rats are safe and not injured. Somebody said something before that maybe they would want me to have the rat, and I asked them about that. They said, "No, no, they take care of it."

Did any of them ever bite you?

I don't think I ever got bitten by any of them, no. If anything, it would be more of a test of anything, but I never got bitten by one. They were very careful, nice creatures, and very well trained. I was enormously impressed with the specific kind of training, because rats scurry for food. I worked with a dog and I worked with a cat in the film, and the dog and cat, they were harder to work with probably than the rats because a dog and cat, they're just given food no matter what they do, so they don't have to do specific things to get their food. But rats have to find their food. So, you can teach the patterns so each rat, or six or seven rats, there were two that I worked with more than the rest but they were trained. Some were trained to sit. Some were trained to run down my arm. Some were trained to go into the coffin. It was all very specific and it really helped.

I have a lot of emotional scenes with the rats so I was really grateful that they were trained so specifically. They would do it right every time. It was equivalent to an actor. There were not many more takes or anything. Sure, there were things I wasn't involved in, there was second unit stuff that probably took time to do, but things that were storyboarded out and things having to do with the rats specifically, that was really perfectly done.

What are some of the tests for the rats that they used?

They had beepers and they would have food. I just directed a video with the rats as well, because I sang the title song, the Ben song.

When did you shoot the video?

Yesterday and the day before I directed this video. It all happened within a week. It's actually an expensive production. It was... 1926 kind of Berlin, cabaret inspired. We built the set for it and I'm excited about it and we used the rats and trainers and some of the same rats. They use methods where they beep, they put food and then make them run the pattern that they're going to do right before the takes, and then once they've done it once or twice getting the reward, they take the pellet away and then we do the take, but they always reward after we've done the take. That's exactly the method they use.

Did you ever have to work with any of the animatronic rats?

There is some CGI in the film and there's a very little bit of animatronics. They had them about but I mainly worked with the rats. There were times I was talking off camera and I would just talk to a sitting puppet. Like the scene at the end where I was talking to Ben about how I was scared. Then I was talking to a puppet. I think there might have been some shots with him...