John Malkovich's reedy drawl suits people who think they know better. We value him most when he makes those people funny without dismissing them, as he does in Being John Malkovich.
Fi1m perspective
In Being John Malkovich (1999), Malkovich plays a version of himself who has good reason to object to everybody else's desires. He keeps his composure through the indignities, without stepping outside the performance to admire his own willingness to participate. We laughed because he takes the affronts seriously, not because a celebrity has agreed to look foolish. He makes it possible to care about a man whom the premise might otherwise use only as a joke.
The reedy drawl and intense delivery make him an obvious choice for eccentric or amoral men, though those habits can become too familiar. Places in the Heart (1984) gave him his first major film role, before Valmont in Dangerous Liaisons (1988) established him as a leading actor. The assassin Mitch Leary in In the Line of Fire (1993) belongs to the menacing part of his work that is easiest to recognise. It is also the part that risks narrowing what a script asks of him.
In Being John Malkovich, director Spike Jonze and writer Charlie Kaufman give that familiar presence an unusually good job. The people who want somebody else's life are allowed their longings, but Kaufman keeps noticing the self-pity behind them. Malkovich's seriousness prevents their treatment of him from becoming harmless fun, even when Catherine Keener's impatient Maxine Lund makes their uncertainty funny. The film sometimes explains its central idea more than it needs to; the performances are clearer about the people involved.
Later roles include Osborne Cox in the Coen brothers' comedy Burn After Reading (2008) and Marvin Boggs in the action comedy RED (2010). His dry comic timing is worth seeking out alongside the more familiar menace. He has not always chosen his material well, and a script that asks him only to seem odd is a poor use of him. Start with Being John Malkovich, and resist the temptation to treat the casting as the entire joke.
Biography
John Malkovich is an American actor. Born John Gavin Malkovich on 9 December 1953 in Christopher, Illinois, he began his career as a charter member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago in 1976.
He moved to New York and appeared in a Steppenwolf production of Sam Shepard's True West (1982). His Broadway debut came in the 1984 revival of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. He received Primetime Emmy Award nominations for the 1985 television adaptation and won for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie.
Malkovich received Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor for Places in the Heart (1984) and In the Line of Fire (1993). His film roles include Dangerous Liaisons (1988), Con Air (1997), Being John Malkovich (1999), Burn After Reading (2008) and RED (2010).
