EXCLUSIVE: GLASS Star Spencer Treat Clark Talks Returning To The Franchise After 20 Years

Ahead of the theatrical debut of M. Night Shyamalan's Glass last week, I was granted an exclusive opportunity to sit down with star Spencer Treat Clark and chat about reprising his role as David Dunn's son, Joseph, in the long-awaited conclusion to Shyamalan's Eastrail 177 trilogy after twenty years.

In the first part of our lengthy chat, Clark tells me all about reuniting with M. Night Shyamalan, Bruce Willis, and Samuel L. Jackson and he also tells me the incredible way he discovered that Split was a secret sequel to Unbreakable.

ROHAN PATEL: Spencer, it's been twenty years since Unbreakable, and I actually remember when that came out and it was in the middle of this amazing run for M. Night where he had The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and then, Signs. I was just a little younger than you at the time, but being an Indian kid, what Shyamalan was doing made quite the impression.

What was it like for you to return to the franchise after this two-decade gap? You were old enough to remember working on Unbreakable, so was it a similar experience coming back as an adult?

SPENCER TREAT CLARK: It's pretty wild. Yeah, it was so bizarre showing up on the set and it's not just Night and Bruce and Sam, who were returning for this project. There were like 20 crew members that worked on the original, so all these people had stories about me that I don't even remember about running around in - we filmed in this old convention center that's now been torn down, but it was like giant creepy old stadium and it was just like this maze for an eleven year old.

And then, obviously, professionally, the opportunity to work with all these actors and with Night again, this was such a huge opportunity. And then, also to playing a character again like this that I played when I was a child, it really hasn't been done that many times. So, it was a really unique experience and I'm really grateful that it was an opportunity that came my way.

ROHAN: I remember when Split premiered at Fantastic Fest and the studio didn't want anyone to spoil it, so all the coverage preceding the movie was very hush-hush even though it did ultimately leak out in some places, but it was one of those twists that you think is too good to be true. 

How early did you know about the big Bruce Willis-sized twist in Split and that it was connected to Unbreakable?

SPENCER: I had no idea that there was even a possibility that point. I mean Night had talked about it for a while publicly and Sam really wanted to make it happen, but it had been so many years. It was just like a possibility. It seemed like it was - it wasn't even in the back of my mind.

And then, when Split came out, that was really the - I didn't even know. I had no prior warning when Split came out too, so I actually and I've told this story a couple times unfortunately. 

ANYA TAYLOR-JOY: I love it.

SPENCER: I was camping with friends and I came back and took my phone off airplane mode and I had like a million texts from people asking me if I'd seen this movie and that was my first inclination that anything was amiss.

ANYA: The one day that Spencer decides to go up a mountain and turn off his cell phone. *laughs* The one day!

SPENCER: Yeah, and then, even after that it was sort of a while before they announced a sequel and they did and I had no assumptions that I would have a part in it and then, I had a phone call set with Night and Night asked me to be a part of it and then, it was still a few months before I read the script, so I had no idea.

Actually, he did, in the phone call, he said, "You know I have a great part for you, it's actually quite sizable and I'm writing a scene between you and I right now" because he was writing the script, but I really had no way of how to interpret that, so it wasn't until I read the script that I really knew what was going on.

Check back in throughout the week for even more from Anya Taylor-Joy and Spencer Treat Clark as they tell me all about Glass, and stay tuned for our full interview which features tons of juicy and spoiler-y details about M. Night Shyamalan's latest hit! 

M. Night Shyamalan brings together the narratives of two of his standout originals—2000’s Unbreakable, from Touchstone, and 2016’s Split, from Universal—in one explosive, all-new comic-book thriller: Glass.

Following the conclusion of Split, Glass finds Dunn pursuing Crumb’s superhuman figure of The Beast in a series of escalating encounters, while the shadowy presence of Price emerges as an orchestrator who holds secrets critical to both men.