- I'm John Malkovich, and this is the "WIRED
Autocomplete Interview." [gentle music] Whoa, excuse me, stop there. [gentle music] "John Malkovich, long hair." Well, I had very long hair until it fell out when
I was probably 23 or 24. And it's probably not ideal for an actor, but really, I don't care at all. "John Malkovich, OREOs." OREOs probably refers to
having to eat tons of OREOs during the filming of a
movie called "Rounders." I think they liked that it was big. It's a fairly out-there
performance, I'd say, where I played a character
called Teddy KGB, who ate OREOs constantly. "John Malkovich quotes." "Rounders," "Pay that man his money," or from "Dangerous Liaisons,"
"It's beyond my control." And I think those are
probably the most quoted that I can think of. "John Malkovich, Ripley." It's a series of books, wonderful books. I think, about a pretty solidly sociopathic young boy who grew up in New York and goes to Europe, and starts a whole new life, let's say. He starts it by doing things to people that aren't very nice. Eventually, I ended up playing Ripley in a film called "Ripley's Game," and the film was done in about 2000, 2001, with the Italian director, Liliana Cavani. "John Malkovich, 'The New Look,'" takes place during the end of the Nazi occupation in Paris. All the action centers around
principally two figures, Coco Chanel played by Juliette Binoche, and Christian Dior, who is
played by Ben Mendelsohn, but also includes the
designers Balenciaga, Balmain, Givenchy, Pierre Cardin, et cetera. And I play Lucien Lelong, who owned his own fashion house and he employed all of
these great designers, including Christian Dior. Broadway, I only did "Death
of a Salesman" in 1984, which was with Dustin
Hoffman playing Willy Loman, the titular salesman. The hardest thing I think about Broadway or any, say, American or English theater where I've also worked is
the eight-show-a-week thing, which is also conversely the only thing that makes it economically
feasible at all, and also weirdly, artistically, generally, the more tired you are, the more sick you are of doing
something, the better it is. It's just the way it works. "John Malkovich, 'Con Air,'" a film from the '90s produced
by Jerry Bruckheimer, of course, had great
success in producing movies, principally, I guess,
you'd say, action movies. Directed by Simon West with
the cast of Nicholas Cage, Johnny Cusack, Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, David Chappelle, oddly
enough, believe it or not. Super popular film, which people will still like. "John Malkovich, video game." I did a video voiceover. Sometimes when you do things like that, you have a line, which, let's say, might be underwhelming, and they ask you to do it 3000 times in 3000 variations. When you just go, you know,
"I think I could do it if I were asleep, pretty sure I can do it while I'm awake. Why don't we just make up a better line, and then we won't need 8,000 readings, but maybe we just need 10 or 12." "John Malkovich, 'Dangerous Liaisons.'" "Dangerous Liaisons" is a novel by a French artillery officer
called Choderlos de Laclos, end of the 18th century. We did a film of it. We, being Stephen Frears, Glenn Close, Michelle Pfeiffer, Keanu
Reeves, Uma Thurman, and that was in 1988. It was felt that I was very miscast. In the words of Charlie, Willy Loman's next door neighbor in "Death of a Salesman," I think I was liked, but not well liked. "Can John Malkovich speak French?" Yes, I've done three or
four films in French, I had a house there for 30 years. I speak French, but you
find with languages, it's something you
really have to practice. I did a film of Joan
of Arc with Luc Besson, and I had a driver, he was called Bruno. I loved Bruno because when I asked him something like, "What time is the call tomorrow?" He would answer everything
like this, but everything, [John speaking French] and sometimes they abbreviate it just to say [speaks French]. I don't know. One day we were driving
through the town he grew up in. I asked him, "What's
the name of the river?" [John speaking French] "John Malkovich when he was young." I grew up in a little town
called Benton, Illinois. It's about 300 miles straight
south of Chicago, Illinois. I read a lot and loved sports. "John Malkovich, 'Empire of the Sun.'" "Empire of the Sun" is a film Steven Spielberg asked me to do. It was based on the book by J.G. Ballard. I played a kind of ne'er do
well traveler, let's say. Steven is the only
person I ever worked with who I felt could make a movie alone. He's quite a good actor. He has the best recipe for tuna fish. He knows how to make the
best shaving cream for props. He knows how to fly the model planes. "John Malkovich, children." I have two children. They're grown up now and
we have a granddaughter. I don't like to talk about them much so, not for any reason except
just to leave them alone. "John Malkovich, Bill Hader." One of the times I did
"Saturday Night Live," he played an Italian character who was, I think, Italian Italian. The joke was he didn't
really speak much English and he spoke with a very heavy accent. It just made fun of the way I speak, which is sort of overly
clear and super mannered. Funny skit 'cause he's funny. "Where does John Malkovich live?" I live in Massachusetts. We have a little
granddaughter, and she's there. Before, it was because it was
a very quick trip to Europe where I still work. "John Malkovich, 'SNL' Christmas." This is referring to a skit I did. I read to small children
about what would really happen if Santa had a sleigh
with some flying reindeer, and everyone catches on
fire and everyone dies, and it's all impossible and
they just have to live with it. "John Malkovich, clothing." I said once on "Saturday Night Live," "Hi, I'm John Malkovich
and these are my clothes." Clothing, I think,
probably refers to the fact that I did the '24 or '26 fashion lines, men's wear collections. "John Malkovich, 'Killing Fields.'" "Killing Fields" was a movie which was about the
journalist Sydney Schanberg covering the gang who took over Cambodia. I learned a lot of things, I think, mostly about filmmaking. I learned a lot of Cambodian
swear words and oddities from all my Cambodian colleagues on it. They were phrases like, "If you're not going to paddle the boat, at least don't leave
your foot in the water." We made it through all of the boards. I was hoping for, "Why is
John Malkovich famous?" But, bummer, I didn't get it,
'cause that's a great one, but I'm not sure it's answerable, is it? [gentle music]