Malkovich was born inChristopher, Illinois, on December 9, 1953. He grew up inBenton, Illinois. His father, Daniel Leon Malkovich, was a stateconservation director, who published the conservation magazineOutdoor Illinois. His mother, Joe Anne (née Choisser), owned theBenton Evening News daily newspaper andOutdoor Illinois.[2][3][4] He grew up with an older brother, Danny, and three younger sisters, Amanda, Rebecca, and Melissa. In a May 2020 interview, he revealed that Melissa is his only surviving sibling.[5][6][7] His paternal grandparents werе immigrants fromCroatia from the vicinity ofOzalj;[8][9][10][11] his other ancestry includes English, Scottish, French, and German descent. In 2025 Malkovich revealed in an interview that after having a DNA test he discovered that he is 43% Romanian.[12] Malkovich attended Logan Grade School, Webster Junior High School, andBenton Consolidated High School. During his high-school years, he appeared in various plays and the musicalCarousel. He was also active in a folk gospel group, with whom he sang at churches and community events. As a member of a localsummer theater project, he co-starred inJean-Claude van Itallie'sAmerica Hurrah in 1972.[citation needed]
He returned to theatre, directingGood Canary in Spanish in Mexico, then in English at the Rose Theater in London in 2016. Ilan Goodman, Harry Lloyd, and Freya Mavor were in the cast. Malkovich won the Milton Schulman Award for the best director at the Evening Standard Theater Awards in 2016.[33][34] He appeared inJust Call Me God inHamburg in March 2017.[16] Malkovich wrote and starred in a movie called100 Years (2016), directed byRobert Rodriguez. The movie is locked in a vault in the south of France, not to be seen before 2115.[35]
Malkovich's production of George Bernard Shaw'sArms and the Man, set during theSerbo-Bulgarian War, attracted protests from Bulgarian nationalists at its November 2024 premiere at theIvan Vazov National Theater in Sofia. The protestors, who included members of the Union of Bulgarian Writers and right wing political parties and movements, crowded the entrance, waving Bulgarian flags and held a banner which said "Malkovich, go home".[40] Malkovich characterised the protests as not "a very smart idea" and rebuffed the suggestion that he had come to work in Bulgaria in order to denigrate the country's reputation.[40]
Malkovich created his own fashion company, Mrs. Mudd, in 2002.[41] The company released its John Malkovich menswear collection, "Uncle Kimono", in 2003,[42] which was subsequently covered in the international press,[43] and its second clothing line, "Technobohemian", in 2011.[44] Malkovich designed the outfits himself.[45] In an interview withBig Issue in 2024, Malkovich said that he "stopped doing fashion about six, seven years ago" but still enjoys seeing collections by "the great fabric designers".[41]
In 2008, directed by Austrian director Michael Sturminger, he portrayed the story ofJack Unterweger in a performance for one actor, two sopranos, and period orchestra entitledSeduction and Despair, which premiered at Barnum Hall inSanta Monica, California.[47] A fully staged version of the production, entitledThe Infernal Comedy premiered inVienna in July 2009. The show has since been performed in 2009 through 2012 throughout Europe, North America and South America.[48]
Malkovich was also directed by Sturminger inCasanova's Variations and itsmovie adaptation in 2014 (co-starringFanny Ardant).[49] For their third collaboration, in 2017, Michael Stürminger directed Malkovich inJust Call me God – the final speech, in which he played aThird World dictator called Satur Dinam Cha, who is about to be overthrown.[50]
Malkovich has collaborated with Lithuanian actressIngeborga Dapkūnaitė on many productions; by April 2023, there had been nine, and he has called her his "oldest, closest, colleague".[52] In 1992[53] they both appeared in the Steppenwolf production ofA Slip of the Tongue,[52] which later played inShaftesbury Avenue in London, directed by Simon Stokes.[54][16] She also appeared inLibra, a play directed and adapted by Malkovich aboutLee Harvey Oswald,[53] and, in January 2011, she appeared with him inThe Giacomo Variations at theSydney Opera House, as part of theSydney Festival.[55][16] In April 2023, Dapkūnaitė acted alongside Malkovich inIn the Solitude of Cotton Fields inTallinn, Estonia.[52]
In 2014, the photographerSandro Miller recreated 35 iconic portraits of John Malkovich as the subject, in a project calledMalkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: Homage to Photographer Master.[56]
Malkovich married actressGlenne Headly in 1982. In 1988, the couple divorced following his affair withMichelle Pfeiffer.[59][60] He began dating Nicoletta Peyran in 1989 after meeting her on the set ofThe Sheltering Sky, on which she was the second assistant director. The couple have two children, Amandine and Loewy.[61]
Malkovich has a distinctivevoice quality, whichThe Guardian has described as "wafting, whispery, and reedy".[61] He does not consider himself amethod actor.[62] Malkovich is fluent in French, having lived and worked in theater in southern France for nearly 10 years. He and his family left France in a dispute over taxes in 2003[63] and have since lived inCambridge, Massachusetts.[64]
Malkovich is the co-owner of the restaurant Bica do Sapato and Lux nightclub inLisbon.[65] He lost millions of dollars in theMadoff investment scandal in 2008.[66][67] In the 1990s, Malkovich and Peyran bought a farm nearLacoste, Vaucluse,[9] which the couple later turned into a wine label named Les Quelles de la Coste; they started plantinggrapevines there in 2008[68] and produced their firstvintage in 2011.[69][70] He has raised funds for theSteppenwolf Theatre Company, his sole charity.[71]
Malkovich stated in a 2011 interview that he is not a "political person" and that he does not have "an ideology", revealing that he had not voted sinceGeorge McGovern losthis presidential run in1972.[72] At theCambridge Union Society in 2002, when asked whom he would most like to fight to the death, Malkovich replied that he would "rather just shoot" journalistRobert Fisk and politicianGeorge Galloway, stating that Galloway was not honest. Journalists speculated that the comment was related tocriticism of Israel and thewar in Iraq.[73][74]
When asked in an interview with theToronto Star in 2008 whether having spiritual beliefs was necessary to portray a spiritual character, he said, "No, I'd say not... I'm anatheist. I wouldn't say I'm without spiritual belief particularly, or rather, specifically. Maybe I'magnostic, but I'm not quite sure there's some great creator somehow controlling everything and giving us free will. I don't know; it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me."[75]
On June 6, 2013, Malkovich was walking inToronto when a 77-year-old man named Jim Walpole tripped and accidentally cut his throat on a piece of scaffolding. Malkovich applied pressure to Walpole's neck to reduce bleeding before Walpole was rushed to a hospital, where he received stitches and later credited Malkovich with saving his life.[76][77]
^"Being John Malkovich".The Age. April 26, 2003.Archived from the original on October 16, 2015. RetrievedNovember 6, 2015.I think we were like that because we are Croats (on his father's side).
^abLam, Sophie (March 20, 2015)."John Malkovich: My life in travel".The Independent.Archived from the original on March 29, 2019. RetrievedNovember 18, 2018.My grandparents were Croatian. I have been there several times and I like it, but I don't know it well, only Zagreb.
^"Croatian Art".Croatianhistory.net. September 2, 1995.Archived from the original on December 18, 2008. RetrievedDecember 22, 2008.
^Kralev, Nicholas (June 15, 2002)."Seeing John Malkovich"(reprint).NicholasKralev.com.Archived from the original on August 23, 2011. RetrievedDecember 22, 2008.Even though of Croatian and Scottish descent, Malkovich had a relatively typical Midwestern upbringing in the small Illinois town of Benton, some 300 miles south of Chicago.
^Orlova-Alvarez, Tamara; Alvarez, Joe (January 30, 2019)."John Malkovich Is Coming To West End". Ikon London Magazine.Archived from the original on January 30, 2019. RetrievedJanuary 30, 2019.
^abWood, Gaby (September 30, 2001)."A multitude of Malkovich".The Guardian. London, UK.Archived from the original on September 30, 2013. RetrievedApril 25, 2010.
