Crispin Glover is Grendel in Zemeckis Beowulf

I just read at Fango that Crispin Glover ("Dead Man", "Willard") will portray Grendel in Rober Zemeckis' upcoming "Beowulf". The script is written by  Roger Avary ("Silent Hill", "Pulp Fiction") and Neil Gaiman ("MirrorMask") based on the perhaps greatest and most important of the Anglo-Saxon epic poems, the 1200-year-old Beowulf is one of the earliest pieces of literature in the English language and an epic poem of war and adventure.

Portraying Grendel, who is the alternately violent and lustful foe of the warrior Beowulf, the actor sees a lot of potential in the role. "From an acting point of view, it will allow me to do a lot of different things," he says. "I can show a lot of facets and different sides of this character's personality. This is definitely a good role. I don’t see anything negative about it."

Though English, the story is set in Scandinavia, where the Anglo-Saxon races lived before migration to England. It tells of the hero, Beowulf, who kills the monster Grendel after the dragonlike beast terrorizes the mead-halls, carrying off and eating the Thanes that are under Beowulf's protection.

Composed in England four centuries before the Norman Conquest. But no one knows exactly when it was composed, or by whom, or why. As a social document this great epic reflects a feudal, newly Christian world of heroes and monsters, blood and victory and death.

Already aboard are Anthony Hopkins, Ray Winstone, Brendan Gleeson and Robin Wright Penn. The movie is scheduled for a release sometime 2007 and will include CGI-Motion Capture techniques used in Zemeckis' "The Polar Express".