When audiences filed into the Museum of Modern Art in last October for the premiere of No! YOU’RE WRONG. or: Spooky Action at a Distance, they were watching more than Crispin Glover’s long-gestating third feature. Much of what appeared on screen—its theatrical interiors, hand-built sets, and ornate backdrops—was created inside a 17th-century chateau in Central Bohemia that the actor-director has quietly transformed into a private filmmaking compound.
Located in Konárovice, about 45 minutes east of Prague, the Renaissance-era estate has, over the past two decades, become both Glover’s European home base and a production hub tailored to his singular approach to cinema. Konárovice Chateau, a culturally-protected landmark which he purchased in 2003, served as the primary location for No! YOU’RE WRONG. or: Spooky Action at a Distance, released in late 2025 and currently touring in 35mm as part of Glover’s roadshow screenings.
For Glover, best known to mainstream audiences for Back to the Future and more recently for roles in projects such as American Gods, the chateau is not a retreat from Hollywood so much as a corrective to it.
A 17th-century landmark turned film laboratory
Glover bought the Konárovice estate after finishing his second feature, It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine., with the specific intention of building permanent sets outside the constraints of the U.S. studio system.
“It’s a historical landmark in Konarowice that I purchased in 2003 for the purpose of building sets in what were the former horse stables and farm buildings,” he said in a November interview with Mpls.St.Paul Magazine. “The cast and crew would stay in the chateau and we’d walk next door and shoot on the sets.”
Those former agricultural structures have since been converted into roughly 18,000 square feet of atelier space. According to Glover, the sets used for his latest film took two and a half years to build. “It’s an 18,000-square-foot shop of mostly two different ateliers that were used to make the film, but I will also use these sets in later productions,” he said, noting that the upfront investment made the film’s production costs comparatively high.
The chateau itself carries a layered history. Originally associated with Count Jan von Harrach, a 19th-century patron of the arts who supported Czech composer Bedřich Smetana, the estate later served during the Communist era as a medical testing facility. When Glover acquired it, much of the interior had been painted over in institutional white. In the course of restoration, he uncovered frescoes dating back to the 18th century, which he had conserved.
The property is registered as a protected cultural monument, limiting alterations but also preserving its architectural character. Glover has described painstakingly sourcing antique fixtures and furnishings, from vintage Sherle Wagner bathroom fittings found online to locally acquired furniture, to restore a sense of opulence that had been stripped away during decades of neglect.
Outside, formal gardens have been reconstructed, and the grounds are populated by peacocks and swans. The birds, though not native to the region, have become part of the estate’s visual identity. The result is a setting that feels suspended between aristocratic past and experimental present—an aesthetic that mirrors Glover’s filmmaking.
A family collaboration rooted in Czech soil
No! YOU’RE WRONG. or: Spooky Action at a Distance was developed as a collaboration between Glover and his father, Bruce Glover, who died in March 2025 at age 92. The elder Glover was a veteran character actor known for roles in Diamonds Are Forever and Chinatown, as well as numerous television series over a five-decade career.
Born in Chicago in 1932 to English, Swedish and Czech ancestry, Bruce Glover passed on that Czech lineage to his son. Crispin Glover has long acknowledged that connection as part of what drew him to the country. Shooting his father’s final film appearance on Czech soil added a layer of resonance to the production.
“It was a long process,” Glover said of developing the screenplay with his father. The two play related characters at different stages of life, and the narrative evolved over years of rewriting and rethinking. “I offered to let him become part of the dialogue writing, which I knew would be hard. And it was. So it’s a different film from what I originally conceived.”
The production unfolded over approximately 60 shooting days spread across six years, beginning in 2013. The extended timeline reflects Glover’s working method, which prioritizes creative control over speed.
That autonomy is central to how Glover defines the divide between his acting and directing work. “Acting became a craft as opposed to my art,” he said. “And my filmmaking became my art. So I want to do good work always as an actor, but I just have to divorce myself from the content […] It’s worth it for me to make my own films that I can be 100-percent overseeing as to what’s going on in them.”
The Konárovice Chateau makes that oversight possible. By housing cast and crew on-site and maintaining standing sets, Glover sidesteps many of the financial pressures that typically shape independent productions. He has also continued to tour the film in person, presenting it in 35mm alongside live readings and extended Q&A sessions, an exhibition model he has pursued since premiering What Is It? at Sundance in 2005.
While No! YOU’RE WRONG. or: Spooky Action at a Distance has drawn a warmer reception than some of his earlier, more confrontational work, Glover remains committed to what he describes as a surrealist, anti-authoritarian approach to storytelling. The chateau, with its restored frescoes, improvised ateliers and improbable peacocks, stands as a physical extension of that philosophy: a self-contained world built to sustain questions rather than resolve them.
As he continues developing new projects—he has already begun shooting another production—the Konárovice estate appears set to remain both backdrop and engine. In an era when many productions chase tax incentives and streaming deals, Glover’s Czech stronghold offers a different model: one artist, one landmark chateau, and the slow construction of a private cinematic universe just beyond Prague’s edge.
Lead photo: Crispin Glover courtesy Depositphotos.com / Konárovice Chateau courtesy Wikimedia / Sovicka169
