John Malkovich
John Malkovich
John Gavin Malkovichis an American actor and director. He has appeared in more than 70 motion pictures. For his roles in Places in the Heart and In the Line of Fire, he received Academy Award nominations. He has also appeared in films such as Empire of the Sun, The Killing Fields, Con Air, Of Mice and Men, Rounders, Ripley's Game, Knockaround Guys, Being John Malkovich, Shadow of the Vampire, Burn After Reading, RED, Mulholland Falls, and Warm Bodies, as well...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionActor
Date of Birth9 December 1953
CountryUnited States of America
I have driven school buses, sold egg rolls and painted houses, and I have often wondered what my life would have been like if I hadn't gone into acting. Mind you, it's a great life, going around pretending you're other people and getting paid ridiculous sums of money for it.
I know for a fact that a lot of actors are desperate and unhappy if their careers are not progressing at what they think is the correct rate. They just go crazy if they're not working. I don't feel I'd be that way. You can always get a few people together and put on a play. Maybe not in New York or L.A., but in a lot of other towns, you can.
I just start with a pencil and paper. I don't want something too trendy, too fashion-forward. I don't want to make something I consider a regular person couldn't wear with blue jeans. But I don't want to make something that other people make, either - like a skinny black suit in a shiny material that you can buy anywhere.
I think when I went to psychoanalysis, I actually believed that people said what they meant. This was my whole problem.
I'll never be the biggest kind of star; I'll be like Bob Duvall, respected as an actor but a lot of people can't identify the face. I don't have the personality of a big star, or the looks of a Mel Gibson or a Paul Newman, or the style of a George C. Scott.
It's funny - people think analysis or psychiatry is mad, and THEY go to CHURCH...
Some people die before their time so that others can live. It's a cornerstone of civilization.
Even if you do succeed most people wouldn't notice anyway.
It's not a field, I think, for people who need to have success every day: if you can't live with a nightly sort of disaster, you should get out. I wouldn't describe myself as lacking in confidence, but I would just say that the ghosts you chase you never catch.
You have to do things people see or you don't get to do anything.
I think people seem to sort of associate me with danger. And I don't see that at all.
It's a little bit hard to have personal things subject to public scrutiny, and it's a pressure that other people aren't under, but then they're under a lot of pressures that we're not under.
There will be people who hate everything you do. And some people will really love it. But that's not really different from the people who really hate it.
Anybody doing something brings something to it. It's not for me to say if it's "growth". Just by the nature of everyone has a different take on the material. Some people would.