John Malkovich: Biography, Age, Movies, Awards and Personal Life

John Malkovich's biography

One of Hollywood's most enigmatic figures, John Malkovich has crafted countless unforgettable characters. The actor himself says it comes effortlessly to him – all he has to do is channel his inner energy and shape it as needed. John does not consider himself a method actor, and his soft, whispery voice has become one of his trademarks.

Childhood

John Gavin Malkovich was born on December 9, 1953, in Christopher, Illinois, and grew up in nearby Benton. His paternal grandparents were immigrants from Croatia. John's father, Daniel Malkovich, was a state conservation director who published the magazine Outdoor Illinois, and his mother, Joe Anne, owned the local daily Benton Evening News. He grew up with an older brother and three younger sisters.

After graduating from high school in 1972, Malkovich entered Eastern Illinois University, then transferred to Illinois State University, where he majored in theater but did not finish his degree.

In university John got sucked into theater

In 1976, together with Gary Sinise, Joan Allen, Glenne Headly and others, he became a charter member of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company, working there as both actor and director. Over the next years, he could be seen on various Chicago and New York stages.

Beginning of the acting career

In 1982, Malkovich moved to New York and received an Obie Award (given annually to off-Broadway theater artists) for his performance in Sam Shepard's True West, directed by Sinise. In 1984, he made his Broadway debut as Biff in Death of a Salesman opposite Dustin Hoffman; the 1985 TV version of the production won him an Emmy Award.

That same year, John, who had just turned 30, was offered a role in the drama Places in the Heart, which became his film debut. The starring roles of the film, which is set in the time of the Great Depression, were played by Ed Harris and Sally Field. The young and still little-known actor was cast in a supporting role and earned his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Following such a successful debut, Malkovich was literally showered with offers. Casting directors sensed endless creative energy in this tall, awkward, balding man with a heavy lower jaw and short turned-up nose – energy that could transform any mediocre film into a masterpiece.

Within a few years, John Malkovich appeared in the biographical drama The Killing Fields where he had a chance to work with Sam Waterston and Julian Sands, and a Greek Civil war drama Eleni alongside Kate Nelligan.

John Malkovich in a film adaptation of the memoir Eleni

In a science-fiction romantic comedy Making Mr. Right John portrayed two characters at once – a scientist and the Ulysses android. Ann Magnuson played Malkovich's characters' love interest.

Recognition

Two John Malkovich films released in 1987 instantly gained cult status. The Glass Menagerie, adapting Tennessee Williams' celebrated memory play, is considered one of the finest stage-to-screen translations ever made. The film was directed by Paul Newman and starred Joanne Woodward and Karen Allen. John Malkovich's portrayal of Tom Wingfield remains unmatched.

Steven Spielberg's epic war drama Empire of the Sun follows young Jamie, a wealthy American boy who becomes a prisoner of war in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. Thirteen-year-old Christian Bale played Jamie, while Malkovich portrayed Basie, a cynical American sailor and camp hustler who takes the boy under his wing. The war drama told through a child's eyes earned six Academy Award nominations, though only in technical categories.

John Malkovich Hates The Sound Of His Own Voice

The charm of evil

In the historical romantic drama Dangerous Liaisons, John Malkovich played Vicomte de Valmont, who meets his end in a duel with Danceny, portrayed by Keanu Reeves. Malkovich perfectly embodied this conflicted character—both cynical and romantic, ultimately choosing death over a life without love and hope. The stellar cast also featured Glenn Close alongside a young Michelle Pfeiffer and Uma Thurman.

Glenn Close and John Malkovich in Dangerous Liaisons

In 1990, The Sheltering Sky, a drama directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, hit theaters. John played Port Moresby, a wealthy American traveler, cynical and jaded by his own prosperity. While American audiences struggled to connect with the film's deeper themes, European viewers—ever drawn to existential questions—embraced the drama with far greater enthusiasm.

In the 1992 adaptation of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, Malkovich played Lennie, a ranch hand with a mental disability and tremendous physical strength that makes him unexpectedly dangerous, opposite Gary Sinise as George. A year later, he received his second Oscar nomination for the thriller In the Line of Fire, playing a disillusioned former CIA agent who plots to assassinate the U.S. president.

Malkovich delivered another standout performance in Stephen Frears' horror film Mary Reilly (1996), playing dual roles as the brilliant Dr. Jekyll and his repulsive alter ego, Edward Hyde. Julia Roberts was cast as his maid, who discovers his secret.

Malkovich then starred in The Ogre, a French-German drama dedicated to the memory of director Louis Malle. He played Abel, a man falsely accused of assaulting a young girl. Punished for his alleged crime, he's sent to the front lines, where he's captured and becomes an assistant to Chief Forester Göring. Abel dutifully follows orders, bringing children to the hunting lodge believing he's protecting them—unaware he's actually recruiting them for the Nazi cause.

In 1997, Malkovich appeared in the action thriller Con Air as Cyrus, a criminal mastermind imprisoned in a supermax facility. He orchestrates a prison riot and hijacks a transport plane. Critics agreed that Malkovich's deadly, wickedly intelligent Cyrus stole every scene. Though some argued that Steve Buscemi's unhinged yet oddly angelic serial killer Garland gave him a run for his money. The good guys were played by Nicolas Cage and John Cusack.

Best roles

John Malkovich's name rarely appears first when the credits roll, but his name became the title of a film that achieved cult status. The fantasy comedy-drama Being John Malkovich follows a puppeteer who finds a portal that leads into Malkovich's mind, where you can see his every thought and even partially control him.

Trailer for Being John Malkovich

Malkovich doesn't play his authentic self, but a slightly altered version - the character's middle name is Horatio. No one else in Hollywood could pull this off quite like John. The role of the lucky puppeteer was given to John Cusack, while Cameron Diaz portrayed his wife. Critics called it a movie about acting—only in reverse. The same year, Malkovich played the future King Charles VII in Luc Besson's The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc. In 2000, Malkovich appeared in the French television miniseries Les Misérables, where he played a police inspector Javert, pursuing Jean Valjean and his adopted daughter Cosette. The series featured an all-star cast: Gérard Depardieu portrayed a former convict, Virginie Ledoyen played Cosette, while Asia Argento, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Christian Clavier appeared in supporting roles.

Trailer for Les Misérables

In 2002, Malkovich released his first film as a director, The Dancer Upstairs, and Liliana Cavani, director of the notorious psychological drama The Night Porter, cast him as Tom Ripley in the thriller Ripley's Game. Malkovich perfectly captured the criminal's dangerous charm and charisma, his callous disregard for others and couldn't-care-less attitude.

In 2006, the actor played Gustav Klimt in Raúl Ruiz's art-house biopic Klimt about the Viennese painter, portrayed as a nonconformist genius who refused to play by society's rules. The cast included Saffron Burrows and Sandra Ceccarelli. Malkovich was cast against type, playing a decent character rather than his usual villain, in Clint Eastwood's crime drama Changeling (2008), the plot of which revolves around a mother trying to prove that she's raising someone else's son. John played Reverend Briegleb, one of the few people who believed Angelina Jolie's character and helped her escape from a psychiatric ward.

Trailer for The Changeling

Joel and Ethan Coen made full use of Malkovich's ability to switch from completely calm to enraged within seconds in their black comedy Burn After Reading (2008). Malkovich played a former CIA analyst, Osbourne Cox, who recorded his memoir on a CD that unfortunately gets stolen. The film also stars Tilda Swinton, George Clooney and Brad Pitt.

The role of aging university professor David Lurie in the drama Disgrace (2008), based on J. M. Coetzee's novel, is considered one of John Malkovich's career-best performances and one of the most challenging for audiences to understand. The film raises more questions than it answers as Lurie faces an impossible choice. When he makes his decision based on what he believes is right, he realizes the person closest to him—his daughter—will never understand. Between 2010 and 2015, Malkovich played the villain Quentin Turnbull in the supernatural western Jonah Hex and appeared in the action comedies RED and RED 2, where he portrayed a former CIA agent forced to go back to his old days, alongside Bruce Willis, Brian Cox and Morgan Freeman.

Trailer (2010) for Jonah Hex

Malkovich also voiced the villainous Dave the Octopus, alias Dr. Octavius Brine, in the animated comedy Penguins of Madagascar (2014). In 2016, the actor appeared in a disaster film Deepwater Horizon, where he partnered up with Mark Wahlberg. His 2017 films include the crime thriller Bullet Head, where he co-starred with Adrien Brody and Antonio Banderas, a romantic comedy The Wilde Wedding, where Malkovich appeared alongside Glenn Close, and a British thriller film Unlocked, where the actor portrayed the CIA Europe Division Chief.

John Malkovich's personal life

In 1982, John married fellow actress and Steppenwolf colleague Glenne Headly. They divorced in 1988 following his affair with Michelle Pfeiffer, his co-star in Dangerous Liaisons.

On the set of The Sheltering Sky, he met Nicoletta Peyran, the film's second assistant director, and they have been together since 1989. The couple has two children, daughter Amandine and son Loewy. The family lived in southern France for nearly ten years, where they bought a farm near Lacoste and later launched the wine label Les Quelles de la Coste. In 2003, after a dispute over taxes, they left France and settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2008, Malkovich lost millions in the Madoff investment scandal.

The actor is known to be a very private person. He is fluent in French and co-owns the Lisbon restaurant Bica do Sapato and the Lux nightclub. In 2002, Malkovich founded his own fashion company, Mrs. Mudd, which released his menswear collections Uncle Kimono and Technobohemian, designed by Malkovich himself; in 2024, he said he had stepped away from fashion several years earlier.

John Malkovich Now

John Malkovich remains active in films and continues to be a sought-after actor. In 2019, two films were released featuring his work. In the thriller "Velvet Buzzsaw," he played Pierce and co-starred with Jake Gyllenhaal. In the same year, "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile" premiered with Zac Efron as Ted Bundy, where John played Judge Edward Cowart.

Velvet Buzzsaw: Trailer

In 2020, John played the title role in the HBO series "The New Pope" opposite Jude Law and Dr. Adrian Mallory in the Netflix comedy "Space Force"; that year he also appeared in the thrillers "Ava" and "Arkansas." He remains active on stage: in November 2024, his production of George Bernard Shaw's "Arms and the Man" at the Ivan Vazov National Theater in Sofia drew protests from Bulgarian nationalists. In 2025, Malkovich played twisted pop star Alfred Moretti in A24's thriller "Opus," and Julian Schnabel's "In the Hand of Dante," in which he stars, premiered at the 82nd Venice Film Festival. He is also set to star in Martin McDonagh's black comedy "Wild Horse Nine" alongside Sam Rockwell and Steve Buscemi.

Valeria Fedorova, Content Manager, Fact Checker; Daria Koshkina, Editor 14 Nov 2026

Photos: John Malkovich