New York Post
1999?
For someone whose mystique is so great that he's become the subject of a film fantasy, John Malkovich is uncomfortable with the label "celebrity."
"I'm just a Midwestern boy," shrugs the star of the quirky and creative "Being John Malkovich," which opens Friday. "I did what I did, I do what I do. I'm still close to all the kids I grew up with, and I don't think they consider me weird or enigmatic or that I've changed and become something else."
A star, that is.
Malkovich, who now lives in Paris (mostly because the French, he says, are
generally less "celebrity-obsessed" than Americans), is in town to promote his
upcoming film.
"Being John Malkovich," written by Charlie Kaufman and
directed by first-timer Spike Jonze (music video director and "Three Kings"
co-star), is about a struggling street puppeteer (John Cusack) who takes an
office job. There he discovers, behind a row of heavy filing cabinets, a
"portal" that can suck a person, for 15 minutes at a time, into the mind of John
Malkovich, allowing him to experience everything the actor experiences.
And while the actor, who plays himself, is happy that the movie raises the issues it does about the nature of identity in a culture obsessed with celebrity, "in a way, it's inexplicable to me that such a film even exists," says Malkovich, the smoke from his cigarette obscuring the tall, balding actor.
The smoky setting adds to the actor's mystery, though Malkovich doesn't seem to be trying to be enigmatic. Dressed in a tightly buttoned-up suit, he's polite, seemingly genuine and soft-spoken - which is exceptional, given his body of work.
In addition to his many films ("Dangerous Liaisons," "The Killing Fields," "Of Mice and Men" and "In the Line of Fire," to name a few), Malkovich is revered for his work as a stage actor and director. The Illinois native not only co-founded Chicago's influential Steppenwolf Theatre Company, but has played a wealth of roles in New York productions, including "True West," "Death of a Salesman" and "Burn This." He's directed, among other plays, "Balm in Gilead" and "Arms and the Man," and is set to return to Steppenwolf next year to direct the black farce "Hysteria."
Nevertheless, unlike so many other actors of stature, the 45-year-old Malkovich doesn't have a publicist to help shape his image. It seems he couldn't care less about his image. His attitude stems from his general disdain for the mass media, especially in this country, and for those who devour stories about public figures.
"My only hesitation in doing this movie," confides Malkovich, "was in the 'public figure' realm. And that's because I reject categorically the notion that because a person is a 'public figure,' he or she is by nature interesting, and that there is any 'public right to know.'
"What people really want to do is not 'to know' but 'to judge' - and especially to judge without knowing the real or whole story about the person - based on their own politically or religiously based bigotries. So the 'Being John Malkovich' project interested me on many levels, including the way it gets right to the issue of how so many people must obviously feel that 'our' life is better than their life, because at least we're famous. As if fame is something to aspire to."
n the film, Cusack's character, Craig, and a co-worker (Catherine Keener, of "Your Friends & Neighbors") soon turn that "portal" to the Malkovich brain into a profitable business; people line up to pay $200 a pop to "be" John Malkovich.
It's not a flattering role, either - something Malkovich says he could see right away, when he first read the script more than three years ago while waiting for a plane.
"I had run out of novels," recalls Malkovich, "and my flight was badly delayed, so I called my business partner in Los Angeles and asked if he had anything for me to read, and he said, 'Oh, yeah, do I have something for you to read,' and he had the script sent over to me."
Any ego boost Malkovich may have received from a movie with his name in the title was offset by the fact that the Malkovich character isn't spared the film's many barbs.
"One of the reasons I particularly enjoyed the script was that it purposefully didn't choose easy targets," says the real Malkovich. "I guess it could have been called 'Being Tom Cruise,' but an actor like Cruise has his career so tightly managed and spun that I don't think he'd ever find himself in such a project. Also, I don't think Charlie Kaufman wanted to go in that more obvious direction when he was writing the screenplay. And it would have been a completely different kind of movie if it had been, say, 'Being Charlie Sheen.' It would have been about parties with 40 hookers, which I'm not saying wouldn't be interesting, either."
(One of the more inspired jokes in the movie is the Malkovich character seeking advice about women from Sheen. Says an amused Malkovich, "Yes, you'd be safe in assuming and reporting that, no, in real life, I don't hang out with Charlie Sheen.")
"John wanted the movie to be meaner to him than it was," says Cusack. "He'd be, like, 'Abuse me some more; that's a big part of the point.' He was great about it."
Adds Malkovich, "Actually, if I recall, the original screenplay was even meaner to me and [more] mocking of my character and the movies I've been in than the finished film. But that's understandable. There was some concern on their part about my reaction to it"
For example, in one scene that didn't make the final cut, a fan tells the Malkovich character that he had recently purchased the laser-disc director's cut version of the 1986 "Making Mr. Right" - not exactly one of the Malkovich's creative high-water marks.
"I was sorry to see that cut out," says Malkovich with a curled lip, adding matter-of-factly, "I'd say that about three-quarters of the movies I've been in, I probably shouldn't have done."
Cusack wasn't the only one on the set impressed with Malkovich's approach.
"I was nervous before meeting him for the first time because, you know, it's John Malkovich," confides Cameron Diaz, who plays Cusack's frumpy wife. "As an actor, he's amazing. I talked with him on the set and I was surprised that he was, like, a normal guy. But I almost feel like he's acting that way so we don't feel so bad. I still think it's a kind of trick he's pulling - he can't be that talented, but also that normal."
Unlike those who head to Hollywood courting fame, Malkovich - poised to direct his first feature film, "The Dancer Upstairs," about betrayal and heroism - has taken the opposite path. In fact, he says, he would not have participated in "Being John Malkovich" if he thought the movie would become a box-office smash and make him even more popular.
I'm an actor, not a public figure," says an emphatic Malkovich. "And I'm not complaining about being a celebrity - or whatever it is I am. I'm not saying, 'Oh, it's so tough.' It's just, well, sinister, what's happening, and in many ways, it's sad. Very few people aren't debased by the fame machine. For instance, look at a kid like Leonardo DiCaprio. His life is over."
Less enigmatic than an hour before, Malkovich pauses and adds, "Which doesn't mean there aren't fine actors - like Pacino and De Niro - who are also popular. But, if you're asking me, do I want their lives? - the answer is, no."