Birthdate: Dec 9, 1953
Birthplace: Christopher, Illinois, USA
John Malkovich (birthname: John Gavin Malkovich) has an incredibly diverse filmography full of work by some of the world’s major living (and dead) filmmakers, ranging from Steven Spielberg and Clint Eastwood to the late European masters Michelangelo Antonioni, Manoel de Oliveira and Raul Ruiz, and is such a known name that he has a movie ironically named for him: Spike Jonze’s and Charlie Kaufman’s Being John Malkovich (1999).
Malkovich made a great impact from the start, with a powerful Oscar-nominated supporting performance in director/writer Robert Benton’s Depression-era drama, Places in the Heart (1984), starring Oscar-winning Sally Field, Lindsay Crouse, Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, and Danny Glover, and released by Tri-Star Pictures.
Malkovich was in his second Best Picture Oscar-nominated movie in a row with a supporting role in the Roland Joffé-directed Cambodia drama for Warner Bros., The Killing Fields (1984), written by Bruce Robinson, and co-starring Sam Waterston, Oscar-winning Haing S. Ngor, Craig T. Nelson and the great, late South African playwright Athol Fugard.
Malkovich was cast by director Paul Newman (his final directorial project) for the feature version replicating the Williamstown Theatre Festival production of Tennessee Williams’ drama, The Glass Menagerie (1987), starring Joanne Woodward and Karen Allen.
John Malkovich was in yet another Oscar-nominated movie with a lead role in the Steven Spielberg-directed and Tom Stoppard-written WWII drama, Empire of the Sun (1987), based on J.G. Ballard’s semi-autobiographical novel starring Christian Bale and Miranda Richardson, and released by Warner Bros.
Malkovich collaborated with another major British playwright/screenwriter— Christopher Hampton—with a co-starring role in the Stephen Frears-directed period drama for Warner Bros., Dangerous Liaisons (1988), based on Hampton’s play which is based on Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ Les Liaisons dangereuses, and co-starring Glenn Close, Michelle Pfeiffer, Uma Thurman and Keanu Reeves, and marked yet another Malkovich movie nominated and winning multiple Oscars;
Malkovich later reunited with director Frears and screenwriter Hampton for the gothic horror movie Mary Reilly (1996), produced by TriStar Pictures, co-starring Julia Roberts, and released by Sony. John Malkovich co-starred with Debra Winger in director/co-writer Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Sheltering Sky (1990), based on Paul Bowles’s 1949 novel, and released by Warner Bros., and then Malkovich co-starred with Annie MacDowell in director/writer Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s crime comedy-drama, The Object of Beauty (1991), and earning over $5 million for distributor Avenue Pictures.
Malkovich joined the ensemble of Kevin Bacon, Linda Fiorentino, Joe Mantegna, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ken Olin, Chloe Web, and Tom Waits in the Steve Rash-directed comedy-drama, Queens Logic (1991), and then Malkovich was picked by Woody Allen for his fascinating, Kafkaesque movie, Shadows and Fog (1992), starring Allen, Kathy Bates, John Cusack, Mia Farrow, Jodie Foster, Fred Gwynne, William H. Macy, Madonna, Kate Nelligan, Donald Pleasance, John C. Reilly, Wallace Shawn, and Lily Tomlin, and which was produced and released to poor business by Orion Pictures.
Malkovich co-starred as Lennie with his longtime Steppenwolf Theatre Company colleague and co-star Gary Sinise (as George) for director/producer Sinise’s and writer Horton Foote’s version of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men (1992), with Casey Siemaszko, Ray Walton, Joe Morton, and Sherilyn Fenn, and grossing $5.5 million for MGM. Malkovich then joined British filmmaker Bruce Robinson as an FBI agent in the thriller, Jennifer 8 (1992), with Uma Thurman, Andy Garcia, Lance Henriksen, and Kathy Baker, and released by Paramount Pictures to disappointing ($11 million against $20 million costs) returns.
John Malkovich co-starred in another Oscar-nominated movie by co-starring with Clint Eastwood and Rene Russo in the Wolfgang Petersen-directed Secret Service thriller, In the Line of Fire (1993), with Dylan McDermott, Gary Cole (another Steppenwolf colleague of Malkovich’s) and Fred Thompson, and making a profit for Columbia Pictures with a $187 million gross.
John Malkovich began to act with an impressive roster of great European filmmakers, starting with three fine films by Portuguese master Manoel de Oliveira: The Convent (1993), co-starring Catherine Deneuve; I’m Going Home (2001), co-starring Michel Piccoli and Deneuve, and premiering at the Cannes Film Festival; and A Talking Picture/Um Filme Falado (2003), with Deneuve, Irene Papas, Stefania Sandrelli and Leonor Silveira.
Malkovich continued his work with European film masters with arguably the top master of all in the late Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni (with Wim Wenders as a “supporting” co-director), directing Malkovich in the haunting anthology film, Beyond the Clouds/Al di la delve nuvole (1995), co-written by Antonioni, Tonino Guerra and Wenders, and co-starring the all-star European cast of Marcelo Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau, Sophie Marceau, Vincent Perez, Irene Jacob, Jean Reno, Fanny Ardant and Peter Weller, and earning over $3.5 million globally.
Malkovich co-starred with Nicole Kidman and Barbara Hershey in filmmaker Jane Campion’s fine version (with screenwriter Laura Jones) of Henry James’s 1881 novel, The Portrait of a Lady (1996), with Mary-Louise Parker, Martin Donovan, Shelley Winters, Richard E. Grant, Shelley Duvall, Christian Bale, Viggo Mortensen and John Gielgud, and premiering at the Venice Film Festival, and grossing $20 million for distributor Gramercy Pictures.
John Malkovich took the lead for one of Germany’s top director-writers, Volker Schlondorff, in the WWII-set The Ogre (1996), co-written by Jean-Claude Carriere, and with Gottfried John, Marianne Sagebrecht, and Armin Mueller-Stahl, and then Malkovich went Stateside for the Lee Tamahori-directed Los Angeles period crime drama, Mulholland Falls (1996), written by Pete Dexter, and co-starring Nick Nolte, Jennifer Connelly, Chaz Palminteri, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Melanie Griffith, Andrew McCarthy and Treat Williams, but which lost money for producer/distributor MGM/UA ($11.5 million against $29 million costs).
Malkovich joined one of his few brawny big-budget studio projects, co-starring with Nicolas Cage and John Cusack in the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced prison-break action movie, Con Air (1997), directed by Simon West, and with Steve Buscemi, Ving Rhames, Colm Meaney, Mykelti Williamson, Dave Chappelle and Danny Trejo, grossing $224 million for Touchstone Pictures/Disney-Buena Vista Pictures Distribution.
Malkovich was cast by director/writer/producer Randall Wallace for a new big-screen version of The Man in the Iron Mask (1998), starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jeremy Irons, Gerard Depardieu, and Gabriel Byrne, grossing a robust $183 million for MGM/United International Pictures; and then Malkovich reunited with director Wallace as co-star of the horse-racing drama, Secretariat (2010), co-starring Diane Lane, Dylan Walsh, James Cromwell, and Scott Glenn, and grossing over $60 million for Disney.
Malkovich was cast in a supporting role in the poker-themed drama directed by John Dahl, Rounders (1998), co-starring Matt Damon, Edward Norton, John Turturro, Famke Janssen, Gretchen Mol, and Martin Landau, and released by Miramax Films after premiering at the Venice Film Festival.
John Malkovich then did two ground-breaking movies with director Spike Jonze and writer Charlie Kaufman, first with the inimitable dark comedy, Being John Malkovich (1999), starring John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, and Catherine Keener, earning three Oscar nominations and over $23 million box office for USA Films/Universal Pictures International after premiering at the Venice Film Festival; followed three years later with Malkovich in a cameo as himself (again) in the Jonze/Kaufman metafictional/autobiographical comedy-drama, Adaptation. (2002), starring Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Chris Cooper, Brian Cox, Tilda Swinton, and Maggie Gyllenhaal, and grossing $33 million for Sony/Columbia Pictures.
John Malkovich portrayed French king Charles VII in director/co-writer (with Andrew Birkin) Luc Besson’s French-produced and English-language epic, The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999), with Milla Jovovich (as Joan), Faye Dunaway, Dustin Hoffman, Pascal Greggory and Vincent Cassel.
John Malkovich collaborated over a thirteen-year period with the unique and inventive Chilean-born, France-based filmmaker Raul Ruiz—first in Ruiz’s exquisite Time Regained/Le temps retrouve (1999), based on the last volume of Marcel Proust’s seven-volume In Search of Lost Time, co-starring Catherine Deneuve, Emmanuelle Beart, Marie-France Pisier and Vincent Perez, and which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival; followed by Malkovich co-starring in Ruiz’s Savage Souls/Les ames fortes (2001), based on Jean Giono’s 1949 novel, with Laetitia Casta, Charles Berling and Edith Scob; Malkovich portrayed painter Gustav Klimt in Ruiz’s fascinating biopic, Klimt (2006), with Veronica Ferres, Stephen Dillane and Saffron Burrows, and which premiered at International Film Festival Rotterdam; Malkovich then portrayed the Duke of Wellington in Ruiz’s and co-director Valeria Sarmiento’s war epic, Lines of Wellington (2012), shot by Ruiz and then completed by Sarmiento after Ruiz’s death, with Vincent Perez, Marisa Paredes, Melvil Poupaud, Mathieu Amalric, Elsa Zylberstein, Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Ciara Mastroianni and Michel Piccoli, and premiering in competition at the Venice Film Festival.
John Malkovich tackled another historical figure—legendary silent-era director F.W. Murnau—in director E. Elias Merhige’s strange and atmospheric movie about the making of Murnau’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922), Shadow of the Vampire (2000), starring Willem Dafoe, Cary Elwes, Eddie Izzard and Udo Kier, earning over $11 million for Lionsgate after premiering at the Cannes Film Festival.
John Malkovich took on the colorful Patricia Highsmith antihero, Tom Ripley, in one of his finest if overlooked performances in director/co-writer Liliana Cavani’s Ripley’s Game (2002), with Dougray Scott, Ray Winstone and Lena Headey, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival before a release by Fine Line Features (US)/Entertainment Film Distributors (UK)/01 Distribuzione (Italy). Malkovich then made his directorial debut (alongside his role as producer) with the film adaptation of screenwriter Nicholas Shakespeare’s novel, The Dancer Upstairs (2002), co-starring Javier Bardem, Juan Diego Botto, and Laura Morante, premiering at the Sundance Film Festival and then grossing over $5 million for Fox Searchlight Pictures.
Malkovich joined British comic star Rowan Atkinson, who starred in the British-French co-produced spy genre spoof, Johnny English (2003), with Natalie Imbruglia and Ben Miller, and grossing a robust $160.5 million (against $40 million) for Universal Pictures/Mars Distribution. Malkovich was co-star/producer of the British movie version of screenwriter Stephen Jeffreys’s adaptation of his play, The Libertine (2004), with Johnny Depp, Samantha Morton, Elizabeth Barry, Rosamund Pike, Rupert Friend, and Kelly Reilly, and earning $11 million after premiering at AFI Fest Los Angeles.
John Malkovich was part of the cast of the anticipated movie version of co-screenwriter Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005), starring Sam Rockwell, Mos Def, Zooey Deschanel, Martin Freeman, and Bill Nighy under Garth Jennings’s direction, and grossing over $100 million globally for Touchstone Pictures/Disney. John Malkovich created a highly unusual and colorful performance as the odd real-life figure, fraudster Alan Conway, who tricked Londoners into thinking he was filmmaker Stanley Kubrick in Color Me Kubrick (2005), directed by Brian W. Cook and written by Anthony Frewin—both former assistants to Kubrick himself—and released by Magnolia Pictures/EuropaCorp.
John Malkovich played support in two fantasy movies, starting with 20th Century Fox’s hit Eragon (2006), with Ed Speleers, Jeremy Irons, Robert Carlyle, Djimon Hounsou, Garrett Hedlund and Rachel Weisz, and grossing over $250 million; and then Malkovich appeared as Unferth in director/producer Robert Zemeckis’s Beowulf (2007), co-written by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avery, and with Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Robin Wright Penn, Brendan Gleeson, Crispin Glover, Alison Lehman, and Angelina Jolie, and grossing over $196 million for distributors Paramount Pictures/Warner Bros.
Malkovich has worked twice with director/writer Damian Harris: First, with the drama, Gardens of the Night (2008), with Gillian Jacobs, Ryan Simpkins, and Tom Arnold, and premiering at the Berlin Film Festival; Malkovich then reunited with Harris on the rom-com The Wilde Wedding (2017), joining the ensemble of Glenn Close, Patrick Stewart, Minnie Driver, Noah Emmerich and Peter Facinelli, and released by Vertical Entertainment after premiering at the Deauville Film Festival.
Malkovich co-starred with George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, and Brad Pitt in the Coen Brothers’ CIA-themed black comedy, Burn After Reading (2008), proving to be one of the Coens’ most profitable movies with a $164 million gross against $37 million costs for Focus Features/Universal Pictures.
Malkovich then joined director/producer/composer Clint Eastwood for a supporting role in the real-life mystery, Changeling (2008), starring Angelina Jolie, Jeffrey Donovan, Michael Kelly and Colm Feore, and grossing over $113 million for Imagine Entertainment/Malpaso/Relativity Media and distributor Universal Pictures.
John Malkovich played opposite lead Josh Brolin as Jonah Hex (2010), with Megan Fox, Michael Fassbender, Will Arnett, Michael Shannon and, and Wes Bentley under Jimmy Hayward’s direction, but which was a box office bomb ($11 million box office against $47 million costs) for Warner Bros. Malkovich played an LSD-popping retired CIA agent in both the Robert Schwentke-directed action comedy, RED (2010) and the sequel directed by Dean Parisot, RED 2 (2013), both starring Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, and Helen Mirren and grossing a cumulative $348 million against cumulative costs of $148 million for Summit Entertainment.
Malkovich was part of the live-action portion of the ensemble of the Michael Bay-directed Transformers sequel, Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011), with Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, John Turturro, Tyrese Gibson, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Patrick Dempsey, and Frances McDormand, and earning a huge $1.1 billion for Paramount Pictures. Malkovich played a supporting role in director/writer Jonathan Levine’s zombie rom-com, Warm Bodies (2013), based on Isaac Marion’s Romeo and Juliet-inspired book, with Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, Rob Corddry, and Dave Franco, and grossing a profitable $117 million for Summit Entertainment/Lionsgate.
John Malkovich was a co-star/producer of director/producer Diego Luna’s biopic, Cesar Chavez (2014), starring Michael Peña, America Ferrera, and Rosario Dawson, and released by Pantelion Films and Participant Media via Lionsgate after premiering at the Berlin Film Festival. Malkovich took on one of his first voice roles in DreamWorks Animation’s Penguins of Madagascar (2014), with the voice ensemble of Tom McGrath, Chris Miller, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ken Jeong, and Peter Stormare, grossing over $373 million for distributor 20th Century Fox.
John Malkovich worked with director Matt Shakman twice, first in Shakman’s feature debut, Cut Bank (2014), with Liam Hemsworth, Teresa Palmer, Billy Bob Thornton, Bruce Dern, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Oliver Platt, and released by A24; and then Malkovich was directed by Shakman as Red Ghost in his first Marvel Cinematic Universe movie released by Disney, The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025), the second reboot of the Fantastic Four series, with Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Julia Garner and Natasha Lyonne.
Malkovich also worked twice with director/producer Peter Berg and star Mark Wahlberg, beginning with the true-story thriller for Lionsgate, Deepwater Horizon (2016), co-starring Kurt Russell, Gina Rodriguez, Dylan O’Brien and Kate Hudson; and then Malkovich joined Berg and Wahlberg for the espionage thriller, Mile 22 (2018), with Iko Uwais, Lauren Cohan and Ronda Rousey, grossing over $66 million, losing money for STX Entertainment.
John Malkovich was cast in the Michael Apted-directed thriller, Unlocked (2017), starring Noomi Rapace, Orlando Bloom, Michael Douglas, and Toni Collette, earning $4.7 million for Lionsgate, and then Malkovich appeared in director/writer/star Louis C.K.’s withdrawn, highly controversial comedy-drama, I Love You, Daddy (2017), co-starring Chloë Grace Moretz, Rose Byrne, Charlie Day, Edie Falco, Pamela Adlon and Helen Hunt, produced by Circus King Films/Jax Media and premiering at the Toronto Film Festival. Malkovich then delivered a colorful turn in debuting director/co-writer/co-star Clark Duke’s fine version of John Brandon’s novel, Arkansas (2020), with Liam Hemsworth, Michael Kenneth Williams, Vivica A. Fox and Vince Vaughn, and released by Lionsgate.
John Malkovich co-starred with star/producer Jessica Chastain, Common, Geena Davis, Colin Farrell, and Joan Chen in the Tate Taylor-directed thriller, Ava (2020), released to poor business by Vertical Entertainment. John Malkovich took on the title role as Roman philosopher Seneca in director/co-writer Robert Schwentke’s historical drama, Seneca—On the Creation of Earthquakes (2023), a Germany-Morocco co-production with Louis Hofmann, Geraldine Chaplin, Julian Sand,s and Mary-Louise Parker, and premiering at the Berlin Film Festival.
Malkovich was a supporting actor in director/writer/co-star Charlie Day’s satire, Fool’s Paradise (2023), co-starring Ken Jeong, Kate Beckinsale, Adrien Brody, Jason Sudeikis, Edie Falco, Jason Bateman, Common and Ray Liotta, and released to little business by Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions. Malkovich had his first significant co-starring role in a significant movie several years ago in director/writer Mark Anthony Green’s feature debut, Opus (2025), starring Ayo Edebiri, with Juliette Lewis, Murray Bartlett, Amber Midthunder, Young Mazino, and Tatanka Means, and released wide by A24 after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival.
John Malkovich starred in the live-action/animated version of Franz Schubert’s song cycle, Winterreise, titled A Winter’s Journey (date to be announced), with Jason Isaacs, Martin Czarnik, and Martina Gedeck under Alex Helfrecht’s direction, and released by Sony Pictures Classics. Malkovich joined the colorful cast of director/co-writer Julian Schnabel’s $25 million adaptation (with co-writer Louise Kugelberg) of Nick Tosches’ 2002 novel, In the Hand of Dante (date to be announced), co-starring Oscar Isaac, Jason Momoa, Gerard Butler, Gal Gadot, Franco Nero and Al Pacino.
Malkovich co-starred with Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Evans, Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel, Ambika Mod, Sam Richardson, and Charli XCX in director/co-writer/producer Romain Gavras’s Greek/U.K.-produced action adventure comedy, Sacrifice (date to be announced). Malkovich’s most unusual acting assignment was as Star of 100 Years (2115), directed by Robert Rodriguez and written by Malkovich, designed to promote Remy Martin’s Louis XIII cognac (which takes 100 years to create) and a project advertised as “the movie you will never see,” and to be locked in a vault until it is released on November 18, 2115.
John Malkovich portrayed another historical figure, revered author Walker Percy, in the Ken Kwapis-directed biopic, Thelma (date to be announced), starring Tim Blake Nelson, AnnaSophia Robb, Kathy Bates, Lewis Pullman, and Stephen Root. Malkovich co-starred in director/writer Martin McDonagh’s drama, Wild Horse Nine (date to be announced), co-starring Parker Posey, Sam Rockwell, Mark Ruffalo, and Tom Waits, filmed on Easter Island and produced and released by Searchlight Pictures.
Malkovich co-starred with Kristin Scott Thomas, Rupert Everett, and Kit Clarke in director/writer Everett’s semi-autobiographical drama, Lost and Found in Paris (date to be announced), and co-produced by HanWay Films/Gabman/Recorded Picture Company.
John Malkovich, through his production company Mr. Mudd, has been a producer on well over a dozen features, including Ghost World (2001); The Dancer Upstairs (2002); the documentary How to Draw a Bunny (2002); The Libertine; Terry Zwigoff’s Art School Confidential (2006)—in which Malkovich appeared in a supporting role; Jason Reitman’s Juno (2007), Stephen Chbosky’s indie rom-com The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), Allen Hughes’ Broken City (2013); Cesar Chavez; Reitman’s Labor Day (2013); and Jean-Marc Vallée’s Demolition (2015).
John Malkovich was born in Christopher, Illinois. He was raised in Benton, Illinois, by parents Joe Anne (Benton Evening News and Outdoor Illinois magazine owner) and Daniel Malkovich (Illinois conservation director). Malkovich’s younger sisters include Amanda, Rebecca, and Melissa, as well as his late older brother, Danny. Malkovich attended Logan Grade School, Webster Junior High School, and Benton Consolidated High School.
Malkovich began his university studies at Eastern Illinois University, then transferred to study theater at Illinois State University before dropping out and studying acting at the William Esper Studio. Malkovich was married to actor Glenne Headly from 1982 to 1988, when they divorced after Malkovich had an affair with actor Michelle Pfeiffer. Malkovich has been in a relationship with assistant director Nicoletta Peyran, starting in 1989; the couple has two children, Amandine and Loewy. Malkovich’s height is 6’. Malkovich’s estimated net worth is $25 million.
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French Resident: John Malkovich was a French resident from 1993 to 2003, during which time he acted in movies by major European filmmakers such as Manoel de Oliveira and Raul Ruiz. Malkovich and his family left France over a tax dispute.
Madoff Victim: Malkovich was an unfortunate victim of fraudster investor Bernie Madoff, losing millions of dollars in the process.
Lifesaver: John Malkovich was credited by 77-year-old Toronto resident Jim Walpole with saving his life when Malkovich responded and helped Walpole, who accidentally had his throat cut after tripping and falling on a Toronto street.
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