John Malkovich

John Gavin Malkovich (born December 9, 1953) is an American actor, director, producer and fashion designer. He has appeared in more than 70 films.

For his roles in Places in the Heart and In the Line of Fire, he received Academy Award nominations. He appeared in such films as Empire of the Sun, The Killing Fields, Con Air, The Sheltering Sky, Of Mice and Men, Rounders, Ripley's Game, Knockaround Guys, Being John Malkovich, Shadow of the Vampire, Burn After Reading, Red, Red 2, Mulholland Falls, Dangerous Liaisons, and Warm Bodies, as well as producing films such as Ghost World, Juno, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

Early life
Malkovich was born in Christopher, Illinois. His paternal grandparents were Croatian, from Ozalj. His mother was of French, German, Scottish and English ancestry.

He grew up in Benton, Illinois, where his next door neighbor was future basketball star Doug Collins. His father, Daniel Leon Malkovich (1926–1980), was a state conservation director and publisher of Outdoor Illinois, a conservation magazine. His mother, Joe Anne (née Choisser; 1928–2009), owned the Benton Evening News, as well as Outdoor Illinois. Malkovich has three younger sisters and an older brother.

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 active in a folk gospel group, singing in area churches and community events. As a member of a local summer theater/comedy project, he co-starred in Jean-Claude van Itallie's America Hurrah in 1972. Upon graduating from high school, he entered Eastern Illinois University, and then transferred to Illinois State University, where he majored in theater.

Fashion design
Malkovich created his own fashion company, Mrs. Mudd, in 2002. The company released its John Malkovich menswear collection, "Uncle Kimono", in 2003, which was subsequently covered in the international press, and its second clothing line, "Technobohemian", in 2010. Malkovich designed the outfits himself.

Directors
Malkovich was directed many times by the Chilean director Raoul Ruiz — Le Temps retrouvé (Time Regained) in 1999, Les Ames Fortes (Savage Souls) in 2001, Klimt in 2006 [20] and Lines of Wellington in 2012.

In 2008, directed by Michael Stürminger, 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.[21] 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.[22]

Malkovich was also directed by the Austrian director Michael Stürminger in Casanova's Variations and its movie adaptation in 2014 (co-starring Fanny Ardant)[23]. For their third collaboration, in 2017, Michael Stürminger directed Malkovich in Just Call me God - the final speech. John played a Third World dictator called Satur Dinam Cha who is about to be overthrown.[24]

Also in 2008, Malkovich played the title role in the film The Great Buck Howard, 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.

Directing
In 2009, Malkovich was approached for the role of the Marvel Comics villain Vulture in the unproduced Spider-Man 4. In 2011, he directed Julian Sands in A Celebration of Harold Pinter in the Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

In 2008, Malkovich directed the French made-for-TV film Good Canary written by Zach Helm, with Cristiana Realli and Vincent Elbaz in the leading roles. Malkovich won the Molière Award best director for it. He also directed it in Spanish in Mexico then in English at the Rose Theater in London in 2016. Ilan Goodman, Harry Lloyd and Freya Mavor were in the cast. Malkovich won the Milton Schulman Award for the best director at the Evening Standard Theater Awards in 2016.

In 2012, he directed a production of a newly adapted French-language version of Les Liaisons Dangereuses for the Théâtre de l'Atelier in Paris. The production had a limited engagement in July 2013 at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City.

In 2016, Malkovich wrote and stars in a movie called "100 years: the movie you will never see" directed by Robert Rodriguez. The movie is locked in a vault in the south of France not to be seen before 2115.

In media
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.

Malkovich stars in his first video game role in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare in the "Exo Zombies" mode. 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.

Personal life
Malkovich was married to actress Glenne Headly from 1982-88. They divorced after Malkovich became involved with Michelle Pfeiffer on the set of Dangerous Liaisons. He later met his long-term partner Nicoletta Peyran on the set of The Sheltering Sky, where she was the second assistant director, in 1989. They have two children, Amandine and Loewy.

Malkovich is known for his distinctive voice, which The Guardian describes as wafting, whispery, and reedy.

He does not consider himself to be a method actor. He is fluent in French, and for nearly 10 years, he worked in a theater in Southern France. He and his family left France in a dispute over taxes in 2003, and he has since lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

He is co-owner of the restaurant Bica do Sapato and Lux nightclub in Lisbon.

Malkovich lost millions of dollars in Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme when it collapsed in 2008. He has raised funds for the Steppenwolf Theater Company, his sole charity.

Malkovich stated in a 2011 interview that "I'm not a political person ... I don't have an ideology". He said that he had not voted since George McGovern lost his presidential run in 1972.

When asked in an interview with the Toronto Star whether it was necessary to have spiritual beliefs to portray a spiritual character, Malkovich 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."

In 2002, at the Cambridge Union Society, when asked whom he would most like to fight to the death, Malkovich replied that he would "rather just shoot" journalist Robert Fisk and politician George Galloway, both pro-Palestinians, outspoken in their criticism and opposition of Israel and the then-imminent war in Iraq. Both Fisk and Galloway reacted with outrage.

On June 6, 2013, he applied pressure to reduce bleeding from the neck of a 77-year-old man who had tripped in the streets of Toronto and slashed his throat on scaffolding as he fell. The man was rushed to a hospital, where he received stitches and later credited Malkovich with saving his life.

Awards and nominations

 * Order of Merit (Ukraine), 3rd class (Kiev, 2018).