“Malkovich: Too serious for ‘stardom’” is how WWD titled its 1984 profile of actor and future fashion designer (he’s the mind behind the Technobohemian and Uncle Kimono lines of men’s wear) John Malkovich. Indeed, Malkovich didn’t veer from the intense-actor script during the course of the interview, in which he discussed his involvement in Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company (he was an early member, along with Gary Sinise), working with Dustin Hoffman (they costarred in the 1984 theatrical revival and 1985 film version of “Death of a Salesman”), and offered his take on Hollywood stardom. He also posed with a signpost for an impromptu photo shoot in Greenwich Village.
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On Dustin Hoffman:
“Dustin is a perpetual child. He has trouble with authority figures. But you can call him a baby and he’ll laugh.”
On Steppenwolf actors:
“We’re all middle-class kids, really. We always had to have jobs, but we always knew we weren’t going to starve.”
On New York:
“I really like New York, but a lot that happens here is sort of appalling. Here, there gets to be an ulterior motive for what you’re doing. There [at Steppenwolf in Chicago], nobody really cares.”
On the temptations of stardom:
“I’ve been lucky. Nobody’s said, ‘Here’s $750,000 for ‘Porky’s IV.’’ I don’t really face the problems that Richard Burton did….I know people who are intelligent, clever — that I really like. But they want to be ‘Stars.’ You can get so messed up. There’s so much money. So much pressure. It’s so easy to be tempted when you work years and years just to live like a human being.” (Editor’s note: Malkovich did star in 2002’s “Ripley’s Game,” the straight-to-video sequel to “The Talented Mr. Ripley.”)
On Chekhov:
“There are a lot of pieces of ‘literature’ that are not worth seeing — You’re better off staying home and reading them — like Chekhov. What makes ‘Uncle Vanya’ theater? What makes it different from television or movies? There’s nothing in the form of it that makes it solely theater. I don’t mean to pick on Chekhov. I would contend that ‘Uncle Vanya’ would have been a film if there had been films when Chekhov wrote it.”
On his peers:
“I don’t think that many actors and directors know how human beings behave. I can understand why actors are often so hypersensitive — most of the directors in the theater don’t know anything.”
On himself:
“I’ve failed all of the time — everything I’ve ever done has not been what I’ve meant. That’s what’s hard about the business.”
“Which Way Home”, which Malkovich coproduced, airs on HBO August 24.
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