THE JOYS OF ACTING AND BEING JOHN MALKOVICH
Hollywood’s go-to creep mellows and reforms his wild ways
For many years, John Malkovich had a reputation for being creepy, in part a product of his best-known performances: a psychotic assassin in Clint Eastwood’s In the Line of Fire; a scheming Valmont in Stephen Frears’s Dangerous Liaisons; and, of course, playing a wacky version of himself in Being John Malkovich.
But his off-screen life did little to contradict this view. In one notorious incident, he confronted a stalker in New York’s Central Park with a knife. It probably doesn’t help that, with his pale skin, thin lips, bald head and whispered delivery, he is reminiscent of Hannibal Lecter professing his fondness for fava beans and a nice Chianti.
He’s back on the big screen in Deepwater Horizon, a big-budget thriller about corruption in the oil industry, with Kate Hudson and Mark Wahlberg. “I think it’s excellent,” he says, “but I don’t know what people want to watch anymore.”
Malkovich has always maintained he prefers playing characters with whom he has nothing in common.
At 62, is he still an angry man? “Oh, no, I’ve mellowed,” he says.
In person, Malkovich is charming and obviously intelligent. He considers every question carefully before launching into circuitous replies, punctuated by long pauses, that manage to be both articulate and incoherent.
Any energy that fuelled his youthful rages seems to have been diverted in more recent years into a bewildering variety of hobbies. As well as acting and directing, he loves flower arranging, cooking and embroidery. He even has his own, eponymous fashion label.
He speaks French and Spanish and collaborates with artists from every discipline. In a recent project with photographer Sandro Miller, he posed as various famous figures, including Marilyn Monroe, Salvador Dali and Che Guevara. Another recent film, 100 Years, by From Dusk till Dawn director Robert Rodriguez, will be locked in a high-tech safe behind bulletproof glass until 2115 when it will première to the descendants of a thousand figures from around the world (including Malkovich) who have already received an invitation. The film’s plot remains a secret. “I was intrigued by the concept,” he says, “of working on a film that nobody would see in my lifetime.”
He can multitask, he explains, because he is a master at focusing. “I don’t really have any talent,” he says, “but if I have, it would be the ability to do whatever I’m doing 100 per cent, to be where I am, to not wish to be in New Orleans when I’m in Moscow.”
We meet in a casting room in London, where he has been conducting final auditions for the play he is directing: Good Canary, by U.S. screenwriter and playwright Zach Helm. The play tells the story of a successful novelist whose achievements are tempered by the suffering of his wife, an amphetamine addict. “It is the antithesis of the Beatles song All You Need Is Love,” says Malkovich, “and I find it just a very touching human story.”
When I ask if his directing work informs his acting, and vice versa, he lets out another, almost imperceptible giggle.
“I hope it makes me realize when I’m acting how irritating actors are and when I’m directing how irritating directors can be.”
He has always scorned the Method approach favoured by many of his fellow actors in Steppenwolf, the Chicago theatre company that he co-founded in 1976 with Gary Sinise and Joan Allen among others. In the past he has refused to do any research for roles, saying all an actor needs is to understand “the human condition”.
Malkovich only initially attended drama classes at college to impress a girl. Before then, he thought he’d be a journalist or a forest ranger. He grew up in the tiny mining town of Benton, Ill., where his father — clearly also a man of contradictions — was a Second World War paratrooper turned conservationist, while his mother was the owner of the local newspaper.
He has been described by a fellow actor as “so right wing you have to wonder if he’s kidding,” which — along with his past support of Israel and capital punishment, as well as attacks on liberal parenting — have led to him being lumped into that niche group, Hollywood Republicans.
Malkovich, however, denies any political allegiances, giving the impression of someone so acutely aware of life’s shades of grey that he refuses to really choose any side. “I haven’t voted since 1972, when George McGovern lost to Richard Nixon,” he says. Doesn’t he have a moral obligation to vote? “Not really. If politics were the solving of problems, it would be a different thing, but only for the saintliest of political figures is it even faintly allied to that emotion.
“I could be wrong,” he adds. “But I don’t think I am. So I can’t even watch that stuff. There are so many more interesting things to concentrate on.” Like what? “Like just about anything,” he shrugs. “The garden?”
What are his views on gun control? “You know I’m a good American and I love to squeeze off a few rounds,” he says, “but guns scare me.” He describes the debate as “two tribes dividing up into subtribes shouting at each other.”
Donald Trump, he says, has “cottoned on to and used” this disillusioned mood. “Obviously there’s a massive rejection of business as usual,” he says, but refuses to be drawn further.