John Malkovich

John Gavin Malkovich was born in Christopher, Illinois, on December 9, 1953. He grew up in Benton, Illinois. His father, Daniel Leon Malkovich (1926–1980), was a state conservation director who published the conservation magazine Outdoor Illinois. His mother, Joe Anne (née Choisser; 1928–2009), owned the Benton Evening News weekly newspaper and Outdoor Illinois.[1][2][3] He grew up with an older brother named Danny and three younger sisters named Amanda, Rebecca, and Melissa; in a May 2020 interview, he revealed that Melissa is his only surviving sibling.[4][5][6] His paternal grandparents were Croatian-Serbian immigrants from Ozalj,[7][8][9][10] and his other ancestry includes English, French, German, Kosovan, Montenegrin, and Scottish.[11][12] Malkovich attended Logan Grade School, Webster Junior High School, and Benton Consolidated High School. During his high school years, he appeared in various plays and the musical Carousel. He was also active in a folk gospel group, with whom he sang at churches and community events. As a member of a local summer theater project, he co-starred in Jean-Claude van Itallie's America Hurrah in 1972. Upon graduating from high school, he enrolled at Eastern Illinois University and then transferred to Illinois State University, where he majored in theater but dropped out.[13]

Malkovich was directed many times by the Chilean director Raoul Ruiz — Le Temps retrouvé ("Time Regained", 1999), Les Ames Fortes ("Savage Souls", 2001), Klimt (2006)[35] and Lines of Wellington (2012).

In 2008, directed by Michael Sturminger, he portrayed the story of Jack Unterweger in a performance for one actor, two sopranos, and period orchestra entitled Seduction and Despair, which premiered at Barnum Hall in Santa Monica, California.[36] A fully staged version of the production, entitled The Infernal Comedy premiered in Vienna in July 2009. The show has since been performed in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 throughout Europe, North America and South America.[37]

Malkovich was also directed by the Austrian director Michael Sturminger in Casanova's Variations and its movie adaptation in 2014 (co-starring Fanny Ardant).[38] For their third collaboration, in 2017, Michael Stürminger directed Malkovich in Just Call me God – the final speech, in which he played a Third World dictator called Satur Dinam Cha who is about to be overthrown.[39]

Malkovich played the title role in the film The Great Buck Howard (2008), a role inspired by the mentalist "The Amazing Kreskin". Colin Hanks co-starred and his father, Tom Hanks, appeared as his on-screen father. In November 2009, Malkovich appeared in an advertisement for Nespresso with fellow actor George Clooney. He portrayed Quentin Turnbull in the film adaption of Jonah Hex (2010).[40]

In 2014, the photographer Sandro Miller recreated 35 iconic portraits of John Malkovich as the subject, in a project called Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: Homage to Photographer Master.[41]

Malkovich starred in his first video game role in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare in the "Exo Zombies" mode.[42] He appeared in the music video for Eminem's single "Phenomenal". In 2017, he appeared in some humorous Super Bowl commercials portraying himself attempting to gain control of the johnmalkovich.com domain.[43]

Malkovich in July 2009

Malkovich was married to actress Glenne Headly from 1982 to 1988, but they divorced after he had an affair with Michelle Pfeiffer.[44][45] He began dating Nicoletta Peyran in 1989, after meeting her on the set of The Sheltering Sky, on which she was the second assistant director. They have two children, Amandine and Loewy.[46]

Malkovich is known for his distinctive voice, which The Guardian describes as "wafting, whispery, and reedy".[46] He does not consider himself to be a method actor.[47] He is fluent in French, having lived and worked in theater in southern France for nearly 10 years. He and his family left France in a dispute over taxes in 2003,[48] and they have since lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[49]

Malkovich is the co-owner of the restaurant Bica do Sapato and Lux nightclub in Lisbon.[50] He lost millions of dollars in the Madoff investment scandal in 2008.[51][52] He has raised funds for the Steppenwolf Theater Company, his sole charity.[53]

Malkovich stated in a 2011 interview that he is not a "political person" and that he does not have "an ideology", revealing that he had not voted since George McGovern lost his presidential run in 1972.[54] At the Cambridge Union Society in 2002, when asked whom he would most like to fight to the death, Malkovich had replied that he would "rather just shoot" journalist Robert Fisk and politician George Galloway, who were outspoken in their criticism of Israel and the war in Iraq.[55][56] When asked in an interview with the Toronto Star in 2008 whether it was necessary to have spiritual beliefs to portray a spiritual character, he said, "No, I'd say not... I'm an atheist. I wouldn't say I'm without spiritual belief particularly, or rather, specifically. Maybe I'm agnostic, but I'm not quite sure there's some great creator somehow controlling everything and giving us free will. I don't know; it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me."[57]

On June 6, 2013, Malkovich was walking in Toronto when a 77-year-old man named Jim Walpole tripped and slashed his throat on a piece of scaffolding. Malkovich applied pressure to Walpole's neck to reduce bleeding before Walpole was rushed to a hospital, where he received stitches and later credited Malkovich with saving his life.[58][59]

• Order of Merit (Ukraine), 3rd class (Kiev, 2018).[60]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to John Malkovich.

• John Malkovich on IMDb
• John Malkovich at the Internet Broadway Database
• John Malkovich at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• John Malkovich on Box Office Mojo