During the set visit for Summit Entertainment's big screen adaptation of the graphic novel Red we had a chance to speak with veteran actor John Malkovich, who has done just about every type of movie you can imagine and played almost every type of character you can imagine. But what about playing a conspiracy nut who carries guns around inside of a stuffed pig? Looks like he can put that one down on his resume.
During this short interview, John talks about his character in the movie, what happened with Spider-Man and going up for the part of The Vulture, his work designing costumes, Transformers 3 and more.
Can you talk a little bit about your character and how much fun you’re having with Bruce?
Malkovich: The character as â€" all four of us, Bruce and Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman is a retired CIA assassin and mine’s a kind of survivalist type that lives in a swamp and it’s a little bit wacked… I’ve loved it. it’s really been fun. Like, the cast, the actor very much get along with the director and the cinematographer, whose father I’ve worked with for a couple of times, I’ve known her since she was quite young.
Describe how well you and Bruce knew each other going into…
Malkovich: We’ve met a couple of times over the years, but never worked together before. We sort of started out about exactly the same time in New York in the early ‘80s, so I met him once or twice then and, oh, a couple times passing through.
This is kind of a road movie, a buddy movie. Was there any male bonding while you prepared?
Malkovich: There was a lot of drinking. But I’m not in the starting five of that group…
What’s been going on between shooting Jonah Hex, the Spider-man stuff…
Malkovich: Oh, I’ve done a couple of fashion lines and an opera, directing a play in Mexico, and we’re producing a movie that starts shooting in 10 days in SoHo.
What’s that?
Malkovich: It’s called “Jeff who lives at home.â€
How’d you get involved with that?
Malkovich: Through our production company, Mr. Mudd, and it’s something that Jason Reitman developed. We did Juno with him asked us to produce it.
Does your character get a lot of backstory in the film?
Malkovich: They don’t… not anyone has tons of back-story in the film, except for Bruce’s character. Frank’s a little more but… but not sort of scads about his past life.
Can you talk about the pig? The stuffed animal?
Malkovich: I’m not really clear why it’s a pig and not, like, a duffle bag. He carries weapons and at some point, when they find out that they’re being followed -- that they are targets for something that happened many, many years ago -- my character says, “I’m gettin’ the pig.†I’m not really sure why, but that’s a really good idea. A sort of call to arms.
Malkovich: Anybody doing something brings something to it. It’s not for me to say if it’s growth. Just by the nature of everyone has a different take on the material. Some people would … we’ve all done films where you have major questions about the material or perhaps about the structure or about how that character is manifested within a structure. Or how that character… or the dialogue used. But this, I really haven’t changed much of anything, unless I was asked to. This is the script I pretty much got verbatim, for me.
Have you read the comic book?
Malkovich: I’ve looked at it. But no, I’ve just looked at the script.
What did you think of your character?
Malkovich: I thought my character was pretty clear in the script. Maybe sort of, where was he from originally? I maybe had a slightly different â€" not a different idea â€" a first impression from the script.
We’re all looking forward to seeing Helen Mirren fire very large guns…
Malkovich: As opposed to having them. Yeah, no kidding that kind of touches all the bases.
Were you on set for any of that stuff?
Malkovich: She’s fantastic Helen, very pro, very funny, a lot of fun to be around. I mean she probably secretly enjoyed squeezing off a few rounds.
Had you had much hand to hand combat training, impressions
Malkovich: No, not really.
Your character apparently had some LSD experiments done on him. Did you do any research into your role with LSD?
Malkovich: I was around in those days, but no. Every kid on the floor of my dorm did. I was never much of a drug-taker.
Can you talk about your work in fashion and costumes?
Malkovich: I design costumes, I started with the theater in Chicago, but somehow a few lines just sort of fell to me to do it. And I studied it in school and I always liked it. Around 2001… somebody asked me to do a line in Milan. I did that for five years and stopped it for the old artistic differences. Then some other Italians asked me a year, year and a half ago.
Can you talk about the scene you were shooting earlier today?
Malkovich: In the script, there’s a New York times reporter who’s been killed and I get a list of names that she has and they’re trying to find the link between Frank and Marvin, who are the only two people on the list, while the other people have been killed. So we go to meet this air cargo pilot, who’s on the list. And at that point I think we’re the only people still alive. Id seen this woman at the bus station, who was firing at us. I tell Frank “I’m gonna blow her head off†and she says that she’s works for inaudible Calwell Banker??? and has nothing to do with it. and here she shows up a little bit later with the whole RPG thing.
Sometimes these instances where people think you’re crazy in the film, but at least by the end of the film you’re reprieved.
Malkovich: Sometimes it happens quite quickly. He’s a little bit wacked out, but often correct about his peers… and his statements often prove accurate.
Why don’t the other people take you seriously when you say stuff like someone's following you.
Malkovich: Because I carry a pig around. And he lives in a car.
What was your reaction to that? The set with the car.
Malkovich: It’s fantastic. Weapons and cans of beans? What else could you want?
Your character is kind of paranoid, a conspiracy theorist. Do you believe in conspiracy theories?
Malkovich: Not so much. I have never met that many people so clever to be able to pull off the various conspiracies in the world.… I think the world is a lot more chaotic than that. More accidental.
As a kid did you always want to be an actor, or more like want to work in the CIA?
Malkovich: No, and it never occurred to me to be an actor.
What did you want to be when you were kid?
Malkovich: I was pretty heavy, I guess I always wanted to do eating contests.
You let go of that dream?
Malkovich: Yes. But of course I thought too I could be a baseball pitcher or a football player.
Were you given a lot of creative freedom with your lines?
Malkovich: I don’t think Robert would mind so much. But I like the script. Unless there were changes that call for different phraseology, or different dialoge… I didn’t really see the need. I like the way it is.
How did you get involved with the new Transformers movie?
Malkovich: I spoke with him last week. Lorenzo and Mark and Summit are producing. They approached me about it. I’d see the first one, which I liked and thought it was funny. I like working with them very much. They’re very good producers, they’re very hands-on, always around, really get their hands dirty which is not so normal.
Do you enjoy popcorn movies?
Malkovich: I was never a fanatical movie person. There are many popular films I love like anyone else. Having said that, I’m not someone… I don’t have time to go to the movies very much. I work a lot of different things, I’m always busy. But I’m always happy to see a popular movie.
Were you disappointed about the whole Spider-Man thing?
Malkovich: Yeh. Because I like Sam and I like Tobey and all that stuff and the producers -- two of whom who I’ve met before -- and because I got offered… I came to like them all.
Was the part for the Vulture?
Malkovich: Yes. But I think a lot of the people who follow that genre… I’m not sure , I never really spoke with him about it, I’m not sure if they made him… if the fanboy base… that the fanboys approved of that character as an adversary for him, or maybe the studio, or maybe that was unrelated as to why it fell apart. I heard there was things about it… Yeah it was a drag ‘cuz I like sam, and he’s offered me a couple things and it hasn’t worked out.
Can you talk about working in Vienna on the opera?
Malkovich: I’ve only worked there twice… this is an opera that I do with the Viennese, baroque orchestra conductor and a very bright, very gifted Viennese opera director who has also directed movies, et cetera, has a fantastic background in the classical music. We do a piece together which we played in Vienna last summer, which went very well, and then hooked up to tour a lot in Europe this summer kind of everywhere for a month and a half or so. In Vienna, I was always attracted to I t a lot as a kid, I don’t know why, because I don’t have Austrian blood or any kind of personal history with it, but I think because I was always really interested in what happened there near the end of the 19th and in early 20th centuries, so much of what we consider the modern world sort of came from that from painting to music to psychiatry, great essays, karl krauss, playwrites et cetera, and I’d been many times but always loved it, it’s very beautiful.. there’s always somet! hing interesting to see, even the design, the arts and crafts, the architecture, et cetera.
Weapons training, shooting ranges: did you purchase any guns?
Malkovich: My son, I have an 18 year old, and he kept menacing me to come, so I’m always waiting for him. I haven’t shot a lot of guns in my life. I don’t think they’re particularly... Shoot ‘em up is a part of movies. I don’t have anything against it, but I’ve never owned a gun, and I don’t particularly plan on taking any pot shots at anyone in the near future.
If you're going to Comic-Con look for more Red footage and info during Summit's Red panel, Thursday from 2:15â€"3:15 in Hall H.
Source: Latinoreview
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