Episode 22 | Glenn Morshower | Hollywood’s Genuine Pretender
We are all here for a purpose. In this breakthrough episode, actor and coach Glenn Morshower visits with Rob Cornilles to demonstrate what it means to be “present.” Covering a wide array of personal and insightful topics, Glenn reveals how “whispers” have directed his life and career choices, and how his “whole life has been spent living my second life in my first life.” Going well beyond a typical Hollywood celebrity interview, this conversation is sure to change the way you look at those who pretend for a living. How does solitude inspire Glenn? Where can we find personal peace? And what did Michelangelo say about his sculpture of David that can be life’s motto for all of us? Be prepared for one of the most genuine gentlemen Tinseltown has ever produced.
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Glenn Morshower | Hollywood’s Genuine Pretender
Glenn Morshower, thanks for joining us.
It’s my pleasure, Rob. I’m glad to be here.
You’re at home. You’re in the Dallas community. You live in the Dallas area. You were raised in Texas. What have you got behind you there? What’s your favorite?
The whole area here as is the rest of our house is a tribute to the ‘70s. If you’re missing anything in your life from the ‘70s and you’ve not seen it since, it’s probably here.
My Planet of the Apes lunch box.
We have it. Ken Walls busted me on those. He said, “Do you have an eight-track tape player?” I said, “No,” and then I went, “We do.” We haven’t played anything on it for many years.
Glenn, it’s great to see you. These are unusual guests that we get to have someone from show business with your stature joining us, but it’s a real treat. I have to ask you something. You’ve said in the past to me that you cherish eye contact.
I do. I’m giving you eye contact now, even though it may not look like it. I’m looking right down the barrel.
What is it about eye contact that you cherish so much, Mr. Morshower?
First of all, that mister garbage is completely unnecessary. It’s wasted on me. I play a lot of characters who get referred to as mister and I’ve had quite a career playing authority figures, but it’s always Glenn. To answer your question, eye contact is everything for me because that’s where people can’t lie, especially to the perceptive. I listen to two things. I listened to one thing and watch the other I watch people’s eyes because I’m looking for what’s going on behind them. It’s a show-business expression. When someone says, “Why is it I find that actor intriguing?” It was the Alaska casting director or a producer. They say, “It’s because of what he’s got going on behind the eyes.” I get it because that’s where the facade disappears. When you look deep into someone’s eyes, there’s no more smoke and mirrors. There’s no more facade. There’s no more posturing. There’s only the truth. Another thing that is a tell that telegraphs information and informs us as to what’s going on, which is all I care about.
I only care about what’s going on with people. I wrote a chapter about this one. It’s called The Presentational Self, which is my experience has shown me. I’m only here doing this interview with you to express opinions and I don’t label them the truth for the world, but they’re certainly the truth for me. The truth that I hold to be true are ones that have been tested and they’ve held up under scrutiny and inspection at something that’s a magnificent, absolute about truth in general. The truth doesn’t mind being inspected because it has nothing to hide. It holds up well under inspection. People who speak the truth hold up well, not surprisingly under inspection as well. When people are lying, they tend to break down under scrutiny or close inspection. The sidecar of eye-contact is tonality. That’s the other home of truth is you listen to someone’s tonality. If you say, “How are you?” They say, “I’m fine.”
The word said one thing. It said you’re fine, but the tone told the truth. When you hear someone go, “I’m fine,” I usually will go, “No, you’re not.” It always gets a smile because it’s calling them on why did you feel the need to disguise or hide who you were? It’s okay if you’re not feeling fine. It’s okay to have an off chapter. It’s okay to have an off day, an off-hour or an off week. If you start getting into a month-long periods of time where things seem to be off, it’s time to take a close look at that and see what it’s going to take to inspire you to get life back on track. Eye contact is everything and my business requires it. It’s a skillset. It’s an even greater importance in our personal lives, but I’ve learned to take what was always important to me in my personal life and turn it into a big career advantage to know how to look people in the eye.
I’ll add one other thing to it. When you’re barking orders, there’s an additional film trick called do so minus blinking. If I decided to do it, I could sit here and talk with you for the next ten minutes and not blink one time. I’ve timed myself and it’s not even difficult to do. Some people find the thought of not blinking after twenty seconds, they’re madly blinking. This is side information, but it’s interesting. When you’re playing authority figures, if you blink during one of your admonishments, you lose your power. It weakens the character. Eye contact is huge. If people are afraid to do it, there’s a good chance that they’re hiding something. There’s something they don’t want you to see. They’ll look up briefly, but then they turn away. If they can look on ashamedly right at you and hold eye contact for an undetermined period of time, I’m able to tell that there’s a good chance they don’t have anything that they need to hide.
When you’re creating a character, 0it’s not the words on a script that you’re considering. You’re considering the comportment of the individual. You do a whole character exposition about their background. Even if there’s nothing in the script about their background, you develop that obviously all the way through their wardrobe, their mannerisms, the gait of their walk, their gestures and the way they look at people.
Speaking of the ‘70s and eye contact, as you were describing that, there was one movie character that was famous for having a hard time making eye contact. That was Talia Shire’s character in Rocky. What a beautiful scene that was when he finally got her to look him in the eye. It was a memorable scene for me. I don’t know why, but I’m thinking about that as you’re describing the importance of being able to make eye contact.
I want to add another word to this discussion, which is it is an indicator of how present someone is. Someone can take an emotional role call and you’ll know that the person who is looking at you when you’re talking is present front and center. There’s none of those, “Rob, what’s going on? I’m over here. I see over there.” What relationship is that? Texting in the middle of lunch, my thought is, “Why don’t you go be with whoever it is you’re texting that you’re finding important?” This is generational. We’re seeing a lot of this nowadays and it’s not even new. It’s been going on for the last several years, however long texting has been popular.
[bctt tweet=”Eye contact is everything because that’s where people can’t lie, especially to the perceptive.” via=”no”]
While there are advantages to it and you need to get a quick word to someone and not open up a big conversation, “Rob, catch you at 3:00 PM.” That’s beautiful. I’m talking about sitting there having a conversation with the person you’re not with. What’s interesting is I’ve done my research and what I have found to be so is that the people who do this, if you were to insist that they go be with whomever they’re texting, do you know that when they get with them, the cycle repeats itself and they’re doing it all over again with someone else, which simply means this.
They don’t know how to be where they are. They haven’t learned how to be where they are. They’re always being where they’re not. If that’s not a great life teaching, I don’t know what is to simply learn how to be where you are. Don’t spend time hanging out where you’re not. You’ll never be effective that way. You’ll have a lifetime of marginal relationships at best because you were never present with the ones you were with. Do you remember that song going, “Love the one you with, love the one you’re with?”
Glenn, I have that problem.
Which problem?
When I’m somewhere, I’m thinking about where I’m not. When I’m with family members, I think about where I’m not. “I’m not at my desk right now getting that task done or I’m not talking to that friend or that business associate.” I know that I’ve got that problem and that it’s a weakness. I don’t want to beat myself up too much. I don’t think that it’s destroying my relationships, but it’s my challenge. A challenge I’ve always got to work on is being present. I don’t know why that is. I don’t know if it’s because as an entrepreneur, I’ve always had the glass is half empty mentality because no one else is going to fill it for me. You’re an entrepreneur. You’ve been self-employed for 40-plus years as a professional actor. I want to make the audience aware of something. I’m sorry I’m speaking, but I want to make them aware of something.
Why would you be sorry you’re speaking? I love it. I have a question for you.
They’re reading because they want to learn about you, not me.
Can I at least ask this one question of you?
Roll them.
Is there ever a place where you go where you don’t feel that? For example, if instead of being with your family or whomever, but you decided you were having thoughts of being in your office. I’m going, based on your words. When you go to the office, where are you wishing you were or where are you thinking you’re not? Is there ever a place where you land and go, “I’m entirely here. This feels good. I’m not thinking about being anywhere else.”
Yes. That’s called spiritual meditation. I have those moments and I’ve had to consciously intentionally create those moments within my life. In fact, within my days. When I set aside that time, in fact, that time is sacrosanct for me. It’s in those moments, I don’t feel like I need to be anywhere else. I don’t feel guilty that I’m not anywhere else, but I need to expand that in my life.
Now you bring in increased peace. I’m not saying this for popularity. Now, this is what’s going on for me.
I wanted to point out that before this interview began, you and I checked our watches to make sure that I wasn’t overtaking your time. You said to me, “Rob, I am totally here for you.” You put no time limit on this interview. I know there’s going to be a time limit on it, but I want to attest to the audience that you practice what you preach. You made me feel like there’s nothing else that is more important for the next hour or so except talking with me in this interview. Thank you.
It’s more than a feeling though, Rob. It’s the truth. It’s one thing if I’m trying to engender a feeling, but it’s the truth. It’s how I feel, so much so that if I were in some circumstance where, for example, it was like, “I got 15 or 20 minutes, Rob, let’s go.” I’m of the ilk that I wouldn’t even do it at all. The reason is if I’m that rushed, there’s no way I’m going to be present for you. I’m not going to be present for an audience. I’m too rushed to paint with the brush that I want to paint with, which is the gentle brush of life that discovers itself. It’s not in a hurry and it wants to explore a moment. It wants to when we happen upon a tributary, take that tributary. That’s one of the reasons I don’t prep my answers.
It’s one of the reasons that in my speeches, when I speak to big companies, I don’t do a PowerPoint presentation. There’s nothing wrong with them. They’re great. There are many speakers that are better with them, but they’re not for me. They’re not for me because by committing to form, which clearly that’s form, I wind up blocking all of the intuitions that come up spontaneously that want to be expressed.
Here’s what’s key is I trust them implicitly. If I get a whisper from above, that whisper is not there for me to hear it. That whisper is there for me to act upon it. I’ve had many people that will come up to me afterwards and say, “I was moved by your speech. How long did it take you to create that?” The answer is a lifetime because it’s based on trust, which I’ve had my whole wife. All I know is I’d take the stage and I will know what to say now and I will know what to say next. It will be revealed unto me.
Hollywood’s Genuine Pretender: People who speak the truth hold up really well. When people are lying, they tend to break down under scrutiny or close inspection.
It’s not a plan. I’m not going to take them here first and then massage that area over here. That will ready them to hear this. I not only feel my truth, but I feel their truth, which might even be the bigger gift. When you can step in front of an audience and take a good old fashion whiff and breathe in what’s going on in the room. Every room has needs. Every room has a collective consciousness. Average out everyone’s contribution, divided by the number of people present equals the consciousness of the room. We can average it out.
You’ve got a large number of overachievers. You’ve got a lot of people that are new that are trying to discover who it is they are and learn about their own abilities to generate results in life and so forth. You average it out. It may sound woo-woo and I genuinely don’t care. I don’t care if it sounds woo-woo. It’s the truth. If you trust, the room itself will speak to you. I find that moments speak to us. It’s the reason I became an actor. It’s to allow a moment to speak to us and then be filmed while allowing that to happen and then get a paycheck for it.
Those meant more to me years ago. It doesn’t mean they don’t mean something now, but there was a time when I was fueled by it. Now, I work from a sense of personal fulfillment that is not generated from the outside in, but truly from the inside out. That’s been a real blessing and a real healing in my life. Why are you doing what you’re doing? I know you’ve got questions you want to get on to, but while this is on my mind, I want to mention an epiphany that came to me. It’s not a cutting edge concept. It’s something I’ve thought of before many times, but I’ve never had it show up quite the way it showed up. In this specific wording and here was the wording. I call it a God download.
I’m open to talking about religion. I know it’s one of the topics a lot of people don’t talk about. I’m fine with it. In my God download and I even have an associated chill that it is accompanied by. Anytime I’m feeling what I call heavenly truth, the gift that I’ve been given to verify it. It’s a self-verifying download that within me, there will be a corresponding sensation that is akin to an entire body rush. A chill that gives me goose bumps. The hairs on my arm will stand up like, “This is worth hanging on to.” That’s my message from above. “This is no ordinary information. This is huge. Pay attention, Glenn. Because you’re being utilized on a large scale. You’re a valuable vessel in terms of numbers. Your intrinsic value is of no greater worth than any of my children.”
This being the voice of God, meaning that you are an equal child. However, the way we’ve got you positioned in life is that when your show airs, for example, you are seen by five million people live a week and many more millions in subsequent airings. That’s someone who is able to reach a lot of people. You can either sit around getting off to yourself and throwing a big party as to how wonderful you are, which is lame or you can realize that is quite an honor and a huge responsibility and one for which I’m immeasurably grateful. I had been selected for a large assignment. I don’t know what else to say other than thank you. I will show up fully for that task. Here’s the download. There were two questions. First question is what are you doing? You’re going to answer the first question first. Question two is, what is what you’re doing keeping you from doing?
It’s life-changing and I’ve shared it with a number of people. As I said, it’s not a cutting-edge concept, but I’ve never heard it worded that way. It’s succinct, almost impossible to not understand. It’s easy to grasp but here’s what I’m doing. While I might even like it or love it even, is my commitment to its continuation, to continuing to do it. What is it keeping me from doing? What is it keeping me from discovering? Are there greater versions of the light within me that could be expressing themselves if I wasn’t so committed to staying in the thing I’m in doing what I’m doing? What is it blocking? I know what it’s giving me, but there’s a condition. I know you’re familiar with the condition known as velvet handcuffs. All of a sudden, you’re handcuffed to your own comfort and probably it feels good.
You don’t feel like you’re its prisoner until you take a greater look, a deeper dive into what would be available to you if you had enough backbone to unlock the velvet handcuffs and say, “I am not a comfort seeker. I’m a cutting edge spirit that is signed up and suited up for the fullest expression of everything God intended it to be.” When I was eighteen years old, I vowed that I am suited up and showing up for the assignment of being me to the fullest extent available. I prayed that prayer word for word when I was eighteen years old.
I’m not bragging, but I will tell you straight up, I don’t know a lot of eighteen-year-olds that are that much on course with purpose in their step and I was. The only difference between me at eighteen is I have a lot less hair, but my verbiage is unchanged since those years. I was always a man on a mission. I understood that there was a huge gift being given to us, all of us, called life. I’m giving people the benefit of the doubt by saying it seemed. It seemed that I was clearer on the bigness of that than most people I ever talked with that life was enough. Life itself was enough of a reason and a justification to throw a huge party.
“What happened? Did you get a raise?” “No. I remembered how cool this system is that we live and operate and have our beingness within.” That’s cause for a party. That stuff gets me teared up. It’s not a performance it’s authentic. I am jacked up about this dance called life. It puzzles me endlessly why that spirit is not more present in our world and it’s not. Since it’s not, there is an internal mandate that says, “You then got work to do because you are here to help others discover their own light.”
You’re here to help people remember who it is they are and what it is they are and that all these things that they refer to as challenges, they’re a frigging joke in the mind of God. We have a saying in the South called, “It amounts to the significance of a pimple on a gnat’s ass.” Meaning it’s small. You done got yourself worked up about something that’s tiny. All you have to do is stop and remember that you out swam 500 million sperm in order to get here in the first place. That was your first act. Do you think that was an accident? Is there a chance that was a gift from our creator to start your life adventure with some real crystal clear instruction as to who it is you are, what it is you are and what it is you’re capable of?
Do you get it? I don’t mean you, Rob. I’m saying from above a voice saying, “Do you get it now? Do you get that you’re not weak? Do you get that all of this is available to you the moment you fully grasp who it is and what it is you are?” You’ll quit swimming in the kiddie pool in the town of Complainerville about everything that’s wrong with life. You’ll get out of the kiddie pool and go, “What was I thinking?” It’s the last thing I want to say while I’m on this roll because I know you’ve got questions you want to ask, but there is an exercise that I would highly recommend for your audience.
That is to visit your death day. Go to using God’s most underused gift, which is the gift of the imagination because we don’t push the envelope of using it. We use it for a lot of minor tasks and the imagination goes, “Thank you. Just so you know, I could be serving you in a much greater capacity.” I’m channeling the voice of the imagination. That’s what I feel it says to us all the time is like, “If you want me to come off the bench and score 3 or 4 points. I could give you a 55-point game in your life, but you don’t seem to trust me to do that. If you want to underutilize me, be my guest.” Here is what I think the healthiest use of your imagination is which is to pay a visit to the day of your death. No matter what the age, whether it’s a week from now a month from now or 50 years from now, teleport forward to that time. Take a look back at how you showed up in your life. Do a full life review. Now you’re done because you’ve died in your mind and go back and look, could you have done it any differently? We all know the answer to that.
Could you have done it better? Could you have lived with greater intention? Could you have increased the level of love in your life? Could you have helped more people? Could you have spent more time in the remembrance of this beautiful dance you were in the middle of? Could you have been more encouraging? The answer is yes. I tell you what, why don’t you go back now and do it? My whole life has been devoted to living my second life during my first life. I don’t have memories that preceded that approach.
My whole life, I’ve been blessed with the understanding that you have to die first in order to live well. It’s a mental exercise. You have to go to the time when you’re not here. You can’t do anything about the fact that you’re not here or that you’re going to be leaving in 45 seconds. You have 45 seconds worth of heartbeats left, they’re going to end and you won’t be able to do anything about that. Now we’re going to grant you a stay of execution and we’re going to send you back. I’m going to ask you this question. Having gone through all of that, I don’t mean thinking about it, but if that were the case, do you think there’s an excellent chance that when you got back, you might do it better?
You bet is the obvious answer. I’ve asked that question for many years. I’ve never had anyone hear that and go, “No. I’m sure I’d screwed up even worse.” We’re not fully plugged in. If life were a ten-pronged device, we’re using about two of them. We’re missing out on all of this other available guidance, information, power and understanding. That’s called what happens when I’m on a roll and none of that was planned. None of that was rehearsed. That’s what’s brewing inside of me.
Let’s talk about some football now. How about them, Cowboys, Glenn?
[bctt tweet=”When you look deep into someone’s eyes, there’s no more smoke and mirrors. There’s no more facade.” via=”no”]
We’re 1 and 2.
When you said I had questions I wanted to ask, I have questions certainly that I have jotted down, but I like these conversations to be free-flowing. I would like to suggest that my next question comes from a whisper. I want to talk about the whisper. There’s so much that you’ve said that I wish we could dive further into. Let’s start with the whisper. We’ve had conversations before about this. You’ve described it as the whisper. I like that word. I’ve often referred to it and have heard it referred to as an impression. Whatever you might call it, we’re on the same page. How does Glenn Morshower receive whispers? What are you doing at the time? How were you living at that moment? Are you engaged in a certain activity or does it come to you unexpectedly or do you have to prepare for it and then it arrives? Could you tell us how that works in your life?
I’m going to start with the one of, are you doing anything to prepare for it or are you doing anything at the time? The answer is yes and no. The no part is that whispers occur anywhere and everywhere. My favorite expression to clarify that where it won’t need any more discussion is including on the toilet. Some of my greatest epiphanies have occurred while seated on the throne. That’s a fact. I’ve written chapters from the throne because I ran them in my mind. I went and sat down at my desk and wrote them. They were all formulated while sitting on the toilet.
Would this observation be accurate? It’s there and only there are we almost all assured of privacy and aloneness.
That’s certainly fair enough. That’s a deeper dive on the subject of being on the toilet when epiphanies show up than anyone has ever offered. Rob, congratulations on your insightfulness.
There’s a solitude there which might be in your case. I don’t know if it is for others, but in your case, that sends a message to you that solitude is fruitful.
Thank you for not being quick to react to say, “That’s silly. Now he wants to talk about epiphanies he got on the toilet.” Instead you took it at face value and said, “Maybe there’s something there worth exploring. Maybe it’s in connection with solitude.” I couldn’t agree with you more. Solitude is one of the greatest facilitators we have. Showers are another place. With a name like Morshower, come on. When you’re showering, there’s something about the act of cleaning, purifying. As you’re cleaning yourself, your receptors are being opened up to receive new.
We get the film of the world off of us. I call it film. You think of film that is blocking a lens. We clean our lens when we shower. We certainly clean our lens when we pray. That’s a lens cleaning exercise, for sure. I do believe that there is a universality to the whisper. I believe it is ever present in all people. I do not hold the belief that there is an elitist group that receives whispers and it is unique onto them. That to me is an arrogant spiritual belief. That’s my opinion.
It’s also this regard for the human race saying that I’m at the top of the pedestal.
Yes, it is elitist to the nth degree and it’s not even accurate. What I do think is accurate that may be runs on an adjacent track is that we declare our candidacy for the degree of whispers that we receive. The frequency is increased by volunteering. When we volunteer ourselves to be receptors, we are treated differently. Everyone has whispers. Now are you an acknowledger? That’s step one. Are you someone who completely minimizes its significance? Do you say, “No, that’s interesting. I’m going to consider this. What I’m being moved to feel right now is interesting?” Are you in the top group, which is the action taker? Are you someone who is a vetoer?
I’ve done a lot of work in this area to determine the common reasons why people veto their whispers. They’re given an internal directive. That to me is what a whisper is. It is not audible, but it might as well be because it is every bit as loud in our internal universe as, “Attention, Kmart shoppers.” You can’t not hear it. We all hear it, but maybe we’ve been schooled to think of it as nonsense or no big deal. “That was a weird thought.” No, it wasn’t a weird thought. It came from the depths of you and it wasn’t accidentally there. Our soul knows what’s up.
I grasp that it knows what’s up. There are parts of us that are infinitely wise, but are we being guided by those parts? Here are the reasons they veto. The vetoers of the world who veto their own whispers, their own sacred leadership, because one, it doesn’t make any sense, meaning you might get something from the nonlinear side of the tracks. You can’t make immediate sense of it, but for some reason you’re being told to go to Kansas this week, Topeka specifically. Would you immediately start trying to find reasons to campaign for the word no or would you simply go to Topeka? I’m one of the small group who would promptly go to Topeka without questioning it. I’m not saying this again for your readers. I’m telling you this as my bud, if nobody were reading this, I’m the odd duck that would go to Topeka.
Here’s why. I fully grasp that things would be revealed to me in Topeka that will not be until I follow the whisper’s instructions. That’s one. Reason two is that they base their adherence to the whisper on convenience. If it’s convenient, sure, I’ll do it. If it asks some extra of me in terms of time, commitment, money, and if it’s going to be inconvenient for me on any of those levels, the answer is no. Here’s what I hear from above. The above is saying, “Really? That’s too bad because what you were unwilling to give of your time, energy and money, had you done that and not doubted it, you’d have been given back ten or more times what your investment was.”
What am I doing and what is what I’m doing, keeping me from doing? If you’re holding back because you don’t want to invest that, what are you blocking by trying to hold back? You’re holding onto your time. You’re holding onto your money and all that. If you had followed your directive, you would have seen, “I will never distrust my whispers again because they know what’s up.” It’s the ultimate trusted friend. That’s my experience. My whisper has never misled me.
You said trusted friend. I think also of the term reliable partner. Don’t we all want to have a partner, a friend and we can always rely on?
I had this conversation. I was saying that one of the things I would love to put on my headstone is, “He was reliable.” That’s a huge word in my vocabulary. The minute someone is unreliable, I don’t know why you’d want to spend a lot of time with someone that you knew was unreliable. You wouldn’t be able to count on anything. They’re not going to do what they said they would do. They’re loaded with things that are not true at all. Why would you waste time hanging out with someone that was unreliable? They tell you, “We’ll grab dinner at 6:00,” and at 5:00 comes the predictable phone call that says, “I’m not going to be up for that.”
Hollywood’s Genuine Pretender: Every room has needs. Every room has collective consciousness, which is averaged out of everyone’s contribution divided by the number of people present.
It’s interesting to me in my life, Glenn. I want that heavenly person, persona, spirit and people may refer to it in different ways. I want my God to be reliable to me. I expect it. It’s like, “I prayed for it. Why can’t I have it? You told me if I did this, that I would get that.” When do you expect that? When it comes to reciprocating the reliability, that’s where I fall short. That’s where I’m not a good partner.
Reciprocating in the reliability, in that specific relationship or in general?
In that specific relationship. If I hear a whisper, if I get an impression and if I can’t be relied on to go to Topeka, then perhaps it’s hypocritical of me to then complain when I don’t feel that my God is reliable to me.
Let me ask you a question now. What if you had a longstanding history and perhaps you do. There’s a part of me that’s assuming that you do. The only reason I’m jumping to that conclusion is because you have a perceptible peace about you. This is not some crazy, smooth complimentary line that I’m sharing with you. I mean it and I said this to you shortly after I met you. You have a perceptible peace and calm about you that seems connected to something that’s powerful that keeps you stable. That keeps you loving, kind and warm because that’s what you exude. I’ve been interviewed many times and I don’t think I’ve ever had two interviews that were the same because they’re always going to be the merging of the two members and the colors of those.
I wrote a chapter called People as Colors. With me being a redhead, most of it’s gone now, but once upon a time, I was a bright redhead, so we’ll make it that my color is red. If your color is blue and that’s not connected to anything for any reason, I’m trying to offer teaching with an analogy. I give this one to my students all the time and I’ll say to one actor. I won’t even make it about you and me, Rob. I’ll say, “Two actors. One is responsible for bringing their redness to the scene. The other is responsible for bringing their blueness to the scene. The goal is neither read nor blue. The goal is purple.”
I wish more people understood that. I wish more people understood that you can’t review a person and expect the person who’s listening to your review of the third party to necessarily buy into your review because your review will be based on the color that you experienced when you were in their midst. For example, if you are yellow and I am red and someone says, “What’s it like to spend time with Rob? You’ve hung out with him. You’ve been interviewed by him. You’ve gotten to know him. You have a sense of who he is. What’s it like?” I’d say, “It’s the most beautiful orange I’ve ever experienced.” That would be an accurate statement because that’s Rob’s yellow plus Glenn’s red. They want me to talk about Rob and who Rob is.
What they haven’t factored into consideration is that they are not Glenn’s red. They are Bobby’s blue. Bobby’s blue merges with Rob’s yellow. They experienced green when they’re with you. They don’t experience orange. That is such an important thing to understand about human dynamics. It keeps it really simple. That is easy to understand that. Someone says, “What’s your agent like? Are they good? Are they strong? Are they kind?” It’s like, “All I can tell you is that their orange and orange is working here,” but they’re not going to bring red to the agency that I’m signed with. They go in and sit down and it turns out that their color merging, whatever their color is when it merges with my agent’s yellow or Rob’s yellow, it produces a different color. If that color doesn’t work, that’s not going to be a good match.
They said, “I met him and the guy’s a jerk.” No. What you don’t know is, you’re not reacting to the guy. You’re reacting to the color that arose when the two of you gathered. That’s human energy. It’s the way energy works. I always think of what is the merging energy here. What color are we shooting for, Rob, in our exchanges with one another? If the color they’re after is love, it’s not about who’s more right, who is more powerful, who owns more, who has their own airplane, who has a nine-bedroom house? Is that what we define ourselves by? Who has the fancy schmancy car? I don’t care. I somehow managed to dodge the preoccupation with things that typically hold meaning in our lives. I don’t care. Most of the things people are real caught up in caring about. I don’t care about any of it.
That’s why you’re hanging out with me, obviously. Most people wouldn’t. Thank you for that.
To be honest with you, you’re a cool cat.
Glenn, you alluded to this earlier. You talked about your role or your purpose and this life. I’ll use my own words here. You’ve been given an opportunity to use your prominence, your position, your profession to do good. The question I have for you is there are thousands of people in your profession who have a prominent role. They’re cultural icons and celebrities who seem to, at least from the outsider’s point of view, which I want to represent the outsider now, they seem to squander that. I’m going to call it a stewardship, the influence that they could have. In our show, we like to talk about influence. We like to talk about inspiration and the ability to persuade, hopefully for good.
Many of your contemporaries, I’d even call them your colleagues, and people in my core industry of sports. I put them in the same boat. They have this wonderful opportunity to use their platform, to use their reach. I don’t think they’re getting the most out of it. Meanwhile, there could be that little old lady on the corner house who is a saint, but her universe is small. She has little opportunity to create influence beyond maybe the neighbor over the fence and the little boy that mows her lawn. What do you make of that?
I love that you’re even mindful of that in the first place. The answer is you make the most of what you have, where and when you have it. Whether you’re having it at 14, 44 or 84, I guess the difference when you have it earlier is that you can devise a plan whereby you create a wider net for yourself. You’re casting a wider net. That was always important to me. It was important to me to, first and foremost, reach them well. The extent of which is yet to be determined, but I’m going to position myself such that it can be far-reaching because I stand for truth and I stand for love. Why would I want to ceiling, especially a self-imposed ceiling on that? If you’ve got drive, you’re going to have to go ahead and say yes to it fairly early on in life so that you can begin expanding your options.
If you didn’t do that, let’s say this is now becoming important to you all of a sudden and it’s way later in life, then do what you can where you are. I mean every word I’m saying. It’s not being said because it’s picturesque and it would be the correct thing to say. It’s what I’m feeling, which is that be nice to the crossing guard. Be nice to your postal carrier. Be nice to the people at the grocery store and be kind and be encouraging.
Maybe you’re running in a small circle. Run in that circle well. I was standing on a grave once. I went to visit my stepfather’s grave with my mom and with my wife. We went across the way to visit some other family member’s graves. On the ground, there was a wasp. I looked down and I realized how many people I’ve known, I don’t hang with any of them currently. Over the years, who would have felt that somehow it was their job and/or right to stomp on it.
It was there in the grass. It wasn’t flying around. It was enjoying itself. It was walking around. It wasn’t injured. It was exploring the grass, “I’ll get back to flying, but right now I’m checking out the grass.” I intentionally did something as an exercise for myself, which is that I put my foot at an angle above it to remind myself how we’re always at choice. I pulled it back and Carolyn was watching. She knew what I was doing. I said, “I want to show you a pose that many people would take in this moment because this would be their level of engagement.” I put my foot right over it. I said, “Look at what’s getting ready to not happen.”
[bctt tweet=”You got work to do because you are here to help others discover their own light. You’re here to help people remember who it is they are.” via=”no”]
My heart and my connection with this living thing are the reason it won’t happen. I pulled my foot back, I looked at him and I reached down with a little stick that was there, got up under its legs and I lifted it up. He was crawling on the stick. I had my moment with him. I set him back down and went on about my day and he went on about his day, but we had contact. That goes back to eye contact. Yes, even with a wasp, be still. Notice it. It’s here to be noticed. I don’t have anything else going on. The only place I am in the world now is standing here over this grave and there you are.
That’s what’s given me the profession that I have is to stop and say, “Hi.” Do you know how much better our world would be if people would stop and go, “Hi,” and not, “Hey, man,” because you’re still not there? It’s something you do. If you stop and go, “Hi.” How many problems would be eliminated? How much disease would be eliminated? We would have wellness moving through us all and light anointing us all by making eye contact and saying, “Hi.” What the hi includes is, “I see you there.” I know that you too have challenges like I do, like we all do. This is my chance to remind you that we’re rowing this lifeboat together. I don’t care if you’re a human, a squirrel or a wasp. “Hi. It’s nice to see you there.”
What happens, Rob, is my experience has been while that could seem inconsequential to some, here’s what I want to prove. If I’ve got a big corporate meeting, let’s say I’m going into Warner Brothers for a series, regular role on a new show that’s going to be on ABC television. If I have had that quality encounter, which I have many of a day, do you know that I enter the room differently? I don’t think that surprises you. There’s no part of me that believes that’s a cutting edge concept to you. It’s the truth. I walk in differently at Warner Brothers. Why? My life’s already full. I’m already happy. There’s a condition in metaphysics called the already made up mind. I have some good things that my mind is made up about. One of them is that things work out for me.
It’s been that way for many years. Why would I expect it to change? I don’t have to panic if things get a little rough for a while because I understand that things work out for me. It’s the nature of them. If we get into some whitewater rafting, the metaphorical equivalent of that in life, that’s fine. Why? Things work out for me. In the midst of the whitewater, the difficulty, the challenges, I’m the guy in the boat that’s going to turn to you and go, “Hi.” It’s huge. When you visit a room like that, with that consciousness that went and respected a wasp and said, “Go live your life. It was nice to have two minutes to observe you.” Now you go in and they can tell your wellness is not hinged on their series.
You’re not desperate. You’re the opposite of that. It’s not the goal. What’s great is the byproduct of it is peace, wellness, love and enoughness and they can’t get enough of it. They don’t always even know what it was, but you leave the room and they go, “We have to have that. Somebody make a phone call and book that.” They’re not even booking you. They think they’re booking you, your name and your face. They’re not. They’re booking an energy that somehow calls them home. It calls them into the remembrance of who it is they are. That’s what I teach. I’ve been a teacher for many years. I teach what people think is going to be an acting workshop. They visit it and realize it’s split right down the middle and that we prioritize wellness first, then we get into the acting coaching.
Let me ask you as we begin to wrap up. You described the presence that you can have when you bring this outlook, this mindset into your job, into your life or into your everywhere. As a professional actor who’s prolific, who never seems to be without work, I hear you and I think, “I’m encouraged about the entertainment business.” There’s Glenn Morshower in the middle of it. I’m sure there are others who share your values and your outlook, but I also fear that there are many who don’t.
For me and for my audience, can you give us any encouragement about the future of those who create our pop culture, our movies, our television and our music? I don’t think many of them would be able to produce this type of articulated outlook of life like you have done, which would be disappointing, but factual. What hope can you give us, Glenn, for what’s coming down the pike in the entertainment industry?
As much as I would like to offer a beautiful rainbow filled sky in response to that, I don’t know that I hold that because we’re responsible for our own contributions and that’s it and to be encouraging of others to make their contributions, but we don’t control their contributions. I’m talking about contributions of energy, the primary one being the energy of love. None higher than that.
The goal is not even a word I like. I replaced the word goal. I’m speaking it because we hear this word used a lot, but I would love to clarify. I replaced the word goal with nature many years ago because it occurred to me that a goal is something you reach, meaning it’s outside of yourself. We always hear the expression, “He reached his goal. She reached her goal.” For example, Rob, is it my goal to be more loving?
No, it’s not. It’s my nature. Is it my goal to be prosperous? No, it’s my nature. Every time I would have used the word goal, I replaced it with nature. The beauty of that is, one, it’s the truth. Two, your nature is right here, right now. It already exists. Whereas a goal, again, you’re going to have to go fetch it. Your nature is what you already are. I believe that if you’re not experiencing kindness, it’s not because you’re not kind. It’s because you haven’t dug deep enough into that, which you already are. If you drill deeper where you’ll hit is the oil of kindness, you got to drill deeper because it is your nature. Nobody has to go fetch love. Nobody has to go fetch prosperity. You don’t have to fetch kindness. I believe with every fiber of my being, we don’t have to fetch anything.
We’ve got to be still and know that it’s already so and that it is our divine right and the willingness to drill to where it is, which is more about uncovering it. No one taught us better than Michelangelo about that. When he was asked, “How did you carve David?” He said, “I didn’t carve David. I simply carved away everything that was not David.” That’s what he said. He is a frigging genius. It’s one of the wisest things that’s ever been said. I honestly don’t even know if Michelangelo knew how brilliant that statement was because he was saying, “Whatever you dream of exists within the marble called you.” Why don’t you do this? Why don’t you get everything else that isn’t that out of its way? Carve it away. Everything that isn’t love, carve that away and what will be left is love.
Everything that isn’t health, carve that away. What will be left is health. Everything that isn’t peace, everything that isn’t prosperity, everything that isn’t that, but you have to be committed. You’ve got to be devoted at the highest level. Unfortunately, this is why I don’t predict a rainbow. I don’t know that that holds true for humankind. Most people want to dream about being well, but they don’t want to do the work. They’re waiting for Ryan Seacrest to show up on their front porch and hand them their perfect life that is one doorbell away. They don’t want to do the work, but they do want to talk about doing the work. They will go to personal development weekends, spend loads of money hearing about how wonderful life is and how great it can be for you.
They go home with all the materials they’ve purchased. This is not my statistic. I’ve heard this said that 75% of materials purchased during such weekends are still in their plastic wrap a year later. They have a nickname for these things. They’re not called self-help. They’re called shelf-help because that’s where they sit. I don’t have a hopeful forecast. I have a personal hopeful forecast for the individual, which means for the individual, your dream life is readily available. It’s a decision away. That’s all it is.
It’s right here. It’s awaiting your decision and what follows the decision is the commitment. You will have done your part. We are both men of faith. Do you know that the most important vision I have in my life, Rob, is not someone handing me a gold trophy called an Oscar? That doesn’t even make my top 50, not even top five. It’s not there. Number one, unequivocally, is that I would stand before God on the day of my departure from earth and God would smile and say, “That’s what I had in mind, kid.”
That never goes away. That vision is present in my life every day of my life. Frankly, it’s what keeps my life in line. It’s what gives me those dashboard lights, alarms, if you will, that let us know when we’re out of bounds. When I’m getting ready to make a decision to participate in an activity that is incongruent with my highest good. Thank God for dashboard lights because they go off and the simple, gentle voices, “Glenn, not for you.” By the way, I also don’t care about popularity. Don’t be misled by popularity. You have been given an internal mandate system that is pure and it’s clear. Don’t base the decisions you make on whether or not it’s popular to make it. I don’t and I haven’t whole life. People can line up in droves for the new thing, the new way.
I don’t care. I check-in and see if it’s true. Is it true for me? The thing that I am committed to more than anything and it seems to help any person I’ve ever shared this with, is that there is nothing of greater importance in our lives, nothing than personal peace. In a discussion I was having with a friend, I said, “There’s a simple litmus test for me in terms of what I will and won’t do. Does this encourage my sense of personal peace or does it disrupt it?” If it disrupts it, the answer’s no. I don’t care about money. I don’t care about the image. I don’t care because if I lose that, I’ve lost it all. That’s my all.
Hollywood’s Genuine Pretender: Nobody has to go fetch love. Nobody has to go fetch prosperity. You don’t have to fetch kindness. We don’t have to fetch anything. We’ve got to be still and know that it’s already there.
My everything, Rob, is my sense of personal peace. You can take my helicopter that I don’t own, my plane that I don’t own, my ten-bedroom house that I don’t own, take it all away, and even in the future, take it away, but don’t take away my personal peace because I’ve lost everything if I lose that. That keeps me in line in a crazy business called show. I wish more people came from that place of love and understanding because then all of this division and even what’s going on in our nation politically. I know we’re done, this is the end of the interview. I won’t open up that can of worms, but I’m very sad about it. I’m admitting to you.
I’m sad about the division that we don’t have this centralized party called the party of unity, where both sides grab hands and say, “We’ve got bigger fish to fry,” and more important ways to spend our time than arguing over who’s the most right. We’ve got stuff to do. Now, our sense of personal peace is at risk in this country and in this world. Why aren’t we doing something about that other than fighting? Divided, we fall, united, we stand. I love you and we’re in early stages of friendship, but I’m grateful that you let me come here and spill the beans of my soul. I appreciate that. My soul appreciates that.
Thank you, Glenn. I love you too. Thanks for your influence, you’re powerful persuader and thanks for inspiring us. Thank you. Watch Glenn Morshower movies and television shows. You’ll love him.
We’ll be back on The Resident next season.
We’ll see you on TV.
Thanks, buddy.
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About Glenn Morshower
One of the busiest character actors in Hollywood today, Glenn Morshower has appeared in over 200 film and television projects in a career spanning four decades. His first appearance was in the feature film Drive-In, in 1975. Audiences worldwide know Glenn best for his seven year run as Agent Aaron Pierce, on the FOX hit series 24. Glenn currently appears as Lew Rosen, the Ewing family attorney on TNT’s Dallas.
Glenn was most recently seen on the big screen in Moneyball, with Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill, as well as all three of the “Transformer” movies, as General Morshower. He appeared this past summer in After Earth, with Will Smith, and Parkland, with Paul Giamotti and Billy Bob Thornton. The film was executive produced by Tom Hanks.
Other film credits include X-Men: First Class, Men Who Stare at Goats, All the King’s Men, Good Night & Good Luck, The Island, Hostage, Black Hawk Down, Pearl Harbor, Godzilla, Air Force One, The River Wild, Star Trek: Generations, and the upcoming films Hoovey, and Dark Places, with Charlize Theron. Additional television credits include NCIS, Revolution, Castle, Eli Stone, Friday Night Lights, Shark, Bones, The Closer, Walker: Texas Ranger, Charmed, Monk, ER, Alias, Deadwood, CSI, and The West Wing, among many others.
