The
Actor lost four close family members in five years, and his life savings to Bernie Madoff – so why does he still think he is the luckiest man around?
You could spend a lifetime preparing to interview John Malkovich. For starters, there are his films, about 90 of them – mainstream, indie, European arthouse, schlocky, literary, self-referential, lots of stinkers and a few classics. But he says he doesn’t even like movies. So then there are his more esoteric projects: a photography exhibition by Sandro Miller in which Malkovich recreated iconic portraits, including Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother; collaborations with classical musicians in which he reads out venomous critiques of the great composers. Finally, there is his real love – theatre. Fortunately, Malkovich doesn’t expect you to have seen all his work. In fact, he gives the impression that he would be happy if you had seen none.
I first interviewed him 27 years ago when he had just made In the Line of
fire – a thriller in which he plays an assassin determined to kill the president (and which is one of his classics). He didn’t mention the film once in our hour-long meeting. Today, he is supposed to be promoting Space Force, a
Netflix comedy. Again, he doesn’t mention it, until I ask at the end of our call. Instead, he talks about loss. All sorts of loss, from weight (shedding 32kg – 5st – as a teenager) to hair to money – and even three siblings in their 50s. But, oddly, the more he talks about loss, in that hushed, melancholy voice, the more I begin to suspect he is one of life’s unlikely optimists.