Scott Glenn

In The Hunt for Red October (1990), Scott Glenn gives Bart Mancuso the firmness a naval officer needs. We believe he knows his job. Alongside Sean Connery's habitual authority and Sam Neill's unforced warmth, Glenn helps make the officers distinct without upsetting the ensemble. John McTiernan's patient thriller gives that supporting work something useful to do: keep us attentive while people consider difficult choices.

We were properly tense during the discussions of how to respond to Ramius, because Baldwin makes thinking through an answer look urgent. Glenn gives the film a dependable officer, though it sometimes explains too much and gives its actors too little character to work with. That is a limit worth keeping in view when praising him. The authority convinces even when the writing is thin.

Before his breakthrough as Wes Hightower in Urban Cowboy (1980), Glenn played Lieutenant Richard M. Colby in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979). Alan Shepard in The Right Stuff (1983) and FBI unit head Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) belong to the same broad pattern of men with professional standing. Prominent supporting roles in the early 1990s made this his familiar territory. Television work has since included The Leftovers (2014–2017) and Daredevil (2015–2016). We need not mistake his relative scarcity of leading parts for a failure of the work.

His preparation goes beyond learning the lines: for The Hunt for Red October, he went out on a fast attack submarine during war games. We can see why a performer so often cast as a professional would want to spend time among the people doing the job. The useful result is the confidence with which Mancuso belongs among the other officers. Start with The Hunt for Red October, with patience for the tactical explanations.