John Malkovich interview on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross 2006

let's get my next guest out ladies gentlemen he was the Seducer in dangerous leaon he was himself in a funny sort of way in being joh Movic he was the only good thing in Johnny English will you please welcome the wonderful John [Applause] [Music] malovich Mr how lovely to have you here thanks pleasure I'm a huge fan of yours it's a delight to have you here uh I hope things are well with you I know you're going through what may well be a stressful time because you're you're moving house at the moment yes we finished yesterday okay well so you've been moving you were in France is that correct uh I was in France many years and we moved to Boston about 3 years ago and we just moved house yesterday in Boston well that's a stressful thing to be doing and at the same time you've recently given up smoking I understand uh not so recently and it's a kind of ongoing project six months is your temper fed do you find it difficult in that way because I understand when people give up smoking that's often what happens yeah uh I think I got uh considerably crabbi than I normally am which I'm not very crabby normally so it wasn't too bad a thing for you then no I'm okay okay do you try the patch or the chewing gum no okay so you just gave up cold turkey C turkey well that's a man is it that's aaz a man but you're still on the heroin is that right that cuz that will take the edge off the qu yeah yeah it has a tendency to we are joking here of course we should point out for the feeble-minded who might be watching uh what was it like being an American in France in the last few years because uh I went over to France shortly after the whole war broke out uh uh and an America invaded and we went along with them and the French said they end not going to and the Americans got crossed with that I was even there at one stage and they started calling french fries Freedom fries as a kind of protest and there was a real kind of like antagonistic thing going on did the French find you objectionable because you're Amer americ or did you indeed encounter friction because of that no I can't I you know I had a funny story I did uh there was a wonderful French writer called Jean Francois Cel who wrote how democracies perish and uh without marks or Jesus and the totalitarian Temptation and on and on and on anyway I wish I could say I'd heard of any of those I read mainly Comics yes can I recommend the ultimate ofers at the moment is a tremendous book genuinely it's a great read anyway you're reading the other sort of stuff but I did with him he he asked me to I was directing a play in Paris an English play by uh very good English playright called Terry Johnson called hysteria about the meaning of Freud and Dolly which which happened here after Freud uh escaped off I just say you were so A Cut Above our usual guests yes I'm so impressed you come on God bless you cuz we've just gone up several demographic points by having you here this evening you know we're not going to get people who read the bigger newspapers now here's the thing I've never had the uh pleasure of seeing you live on stage I've heard that you are a dynamic stage performer uh that as an actor you are you know incredible to watch on stage but I've very much enjoyed you in films is there a difference to you do you do you react differently to performing on stage in front of an audience or yeah sure well I would say the difference between theater acting and movie acting is that when I was a when I was a little boy there were two or three television channels uh and and perhaps we were better for that but um when one woke up very very early where I grew up in the Midwest of my little town at about 5 or 6:00 a.m. there was a drawing show on and the guy did line drawings and it was a program to teach you how to draw and and I think that's what movie acting is like you go you have one day you almost never go back to that scene you sketch it out very very quickly and that's it it's a different kind of thing and theater acting you go back to it again and again and again so it's a lot more like what a a painter would do you can go you can readjust you can start again and and so there are very different forms but exciting for you in different ways I imagine yeah yeah what did you consider as alternative quiz if your acting hadn't taken off uh was it part of a game plan did you think this is what I want to do with my life or did you kind of stum you know I never thought that I had uh extremely successful uh job I was a school bus driver for Solomon Shor Day School uh which I'm sure you're familiar with very very and uh I also sold office supplies for Chandlers office supply store in Evanston Illinois for a considerable period of time or was this like a kind of small stop cap job no chanders was about 3 years wow uh the the school bus thing didn't last as long as one might have hoped but I feel like I could always go back to it can I say something without you taking it the wrong way yes please you're quite a creepy kind of bloke you can be I don't think I would want you driving a school bus well you're a parent so I mean I think that's normal and even the children once said to me that one little kid I objected to a little boy on the school bus called Jonathan fredman I didn't object to him but one what joh an did to make money was he rented out playboys and Pen houses urial American Dream Spirit yeah uh as our president said the problem with the French is they don't have a word in their language for entrepreneur um but uh uh Jonathan was an entrepreneur and he rented out his playboys and penth houses on the bus and one day I had a debate with him just about I thought it was kind of cheesy because he he charged I think was 50 cents for a minute or something and that's not long enough is it you know there was a sort of time clock dispute etc etc and once said to me don't you understand why no one wants to sit at the front of the bus don't you get it what a horrible little piece of work so that didn't last thing no only a few months so the office suppli you did that for 3 years now this you were trying to make it as an at the time or or you thought that would maybe be it for you you know it wouldn't have surprised me if it had been and some may say they wish it would have been but um I it wouldn't have surprised me and I don't know how much it would have bothered me I mean we we did our full-time day jobs and then we went and did our theater at night and it it was tiring cuz 14-hour days are sometimes but but uh I wasn't unhappy doing it uh let me ask you about some of your movies then because you've made some movies which I think are just terrific it's one of my favorite movies in recent years I love you in dangerous Le a think that's an incredible movie I hope you've seen joh that it's a fabulous performance it's the performance that makes the film really thank I think uh but another movie which is really exceptional Being John malovich and here's quite something here's a film which is kind of loosely based on you in a weird sort of way or the way you may well be perceived by some people but basically this guy this guy is selling uh selling space for people to enter your head essentially John malovich act and people can go the doorway and they wind up in John's head and they see what he sees and feels what he feels for a little while and then they get kicked out again it's a very and this is the moment when you enter your own head yeah they got spit out on the New Jersey Turn Point have a look at this there's malol Sir with all due respect I discovered that portal I mean it's my livelihood do you understand it's my head Schwarz it's my head I will see you in court what makes you think I won't be seeing what you're seeing in court think [Music] fast it's just a hilarious F film that that's a very funny thing about movie making because I always love the end of that when they say think fast and I got hit in the head with a beer can and when we were doing it that night spike said we're going to Spike Jones the director said you know we got to cut this we'll never be able to do it and and Johnny kusac and I were sitting there and kind of said what why no we we have to do that and he said no we'll never find I mean who who could go by drive by in a car and hit you in the head with a can of beer and like 60 people on the crew raised their hand and that was the first take wh and how many takes did you did you wind up doing more than one or was that that was good enough one was fine I'm sure it was okay about it uh but you've played so many kind of psycho nut jobs that seems to be something you I will think your name is pretty near the top of the list when they want a real out andout creepy psycho sleazy guy your name would come up more often than not now that's a tribute to your acting skills I guess um what do you bring to the psycho world you think why is it that they come to you first I I think the real reason why it's a very strange reason is the very first play I did in New York when I first started in theater in Chicago I always played the sort of uh poetic haunted son uh or the troubled sort of poet but never someone kind of bad and this play I did called true West uh I played a sort of sociopath and because that was the first play I did that went to New York that was it and when I did that play uh it ran for months and and and had some degree of success in New York but people would come to see the play five or six times and so many uh directors I mean from antonioni to to David Putman the great English producer to Mike Nichols or scor all these people came to see the plays and no one would come backstage they were all afraid uh which is kind of a good that I was going to give them a flushy or a Kirby or I don't know what's a flushy uh put their head in the toilet and give it a Fluff what's a Kirby Kirby is you open their mouth and put their head on the curb and St I don't even know I don't I don't even let you know these things now uh here's the thing you wouldn't know about John I think and I hope I've got my facts right here uh you're a fan of sewing you like to sew in your spare time is this correct yeah uh I mean I not that I'm a particularly good sewer but I I I I certainly have done it and I do a fashion line which would be a big shock seeing as how I'm dressed today you are dressed rather like a fisherman this evening slightly like a Fisher but a Norwegian fisherman yes certainly one of the I for Herring yeah from the spes of bearing um functional though and comfortable no doubt yeah good plain wear yeah so when you sew you sew garments you sew items to get you repair clothes or is it like needle point is it like tapestry what kind of sewing is it I used to do needle point I don't think I see so well anymore but uh the last thing I personally seed was I didn't like some buttons on a jacket of mine so went through the button collection a few weeks ago and had to do those what what button collection is this John that would be my button you have a little button collection it's not that little you are a bit of a creepy you I mean in a good way it's scary I think it's a good thing you got the you like the broking Silence of lambs he puts his old man between the puts the clacker up the Barnsley or whatever is John what a pleasure to see you this uh this this Sunday here in the UK is Father's day I know you have it a different time in the United States uh you have two teenagers will you be seeing them this weekend do you think uh they're coming I'll go to France Sunday and they'll come Monday and they won't know it's Father's Day and they'll give me I don't know an apple or a popsicle stick or something like that but that would be fine and they'll go you know Happy Father's day but is it lovely having teenagers I have a teenage daughter and she's she's a very very nice person I'm very lucky to have someone you know what I feel uh incredibly blessed and mine knock on wood so far have uh stayed out I think of any serious trouble and they're fun to be around for the most part and uh I've been really lucky uh do do you do you you um find it strange do you find it uh in any way poignant that the fact they're growing up the family unit can't survive because that's something that is troubling me and I my youngest is nine so I still have a few years but I'm growing aware of the fact that as a family we only have a limited time left together and that saddens me I I find it incredibly uh haunting and depressing actually uh I I see them now my daughter is 15 and my son is 14 and you already see that they're taller than their mother and they'd really rather be away every night not not necessarily in crack houses at this point but that really all of the times of uh I remember people when we lived in France people telling me that they didn't recognize me if I wasn't carrying my son on my shoulders and yeah I I do find it worrying but all you can well you're white you've got a little you've got years of this mate we're the guys on the way come here come here bring them out John come here come here come here come on come on it's okay know it's it's a sad thing it it is it's a terrible thing it is a sad John lovely to spend some time with you I could spend all evening with you give the chance thank you for coming in uh not only terrific actor but what a lovely guest I want to show L gentlemen Mr John M thank [Applause] you good luck to you