BY AND LARGE, corporate entities will not fund what it is I’m interested in doing,” Crispin Glover said, leaning forward in his theater seat. “And what also ends up happening in corporate entities is that there’s an incredible amount of interference, and then things get taken away that are important.”

Crispin Glover sounds intense when he’s talking about corporate entities. Not scarily intense—he’s not freaky like…well, let’s face it, like anyone would expect from the man best known for playing a series of oddballs (George McFly in Back to the Future), sociopaths (the rat-loving lead of Willard) and outright monsters (Grendel in the recent Beowulf). He just sounds like someone who’s devoted years to producing, financing, directing, editing, promoting, performing in, and self-distributing two films—What Is It? and It Is Fine. Everything Is Fine!—whose imagery includes, among other sights, actors with Down syndrome having sex.

Glover, garbed in a natty jacket and slacks, appeared at the Northwest Film Forum in January for screenings of both movies. He’s thoughtful and committed but, eccentric reputation or no, never comes off like he should be committed. All he wants, he said, is to make films that “go beyond the realm of that which is considered good and evil.” Yet, did he have to push things quite so far to reach that commendable goal?

"I’m actually quite confident that a lot of the things that I’m interested in have mass appeal."

“I felt that I had to because what’s happening is a domino effect,” he countered. “It isn’t just about the taboo element.” What it’s about, he says, is making people ask themselves why they’re uncomfortable, then possibly be willing to experience something else uncomfortable. He offered an example from the previous night’s Q & A session with the audience, when someone asked, “Why is it that the second film doesn’t really deal with taboo element at all when you were so much advocating that?” Glover laughed; It Is Fine details the sexual fantasies of a man with cerebral palsy. “The fact that the first film dealt with it so heavily,” he said with pride, “is exactly what opened doors so you’re not thinking about it.”

Yes, he’s making a third film to form an It trilogy but, no, he’s not always going to spook the corporate entities with taboo elements. “I’m actually quite confident that a lot of the things that I’m interested in have mass appeal,” he said, then—with the briefest of pauses—acknowledged, “even if they’re unusual things.”