John Malkovich Quotes

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John Malkovich

Profession : Actor

Birth : December 9, 1953

I don't really go through a process, it goes through me.

John Malkovich

When you do a really good play, the audience and the performers are looking into the same looking glass, the same microscope. And the specimen they are looking at is human life and that's why I do it, that's why I like it.

John Malkovich

A dog that has rabies probably will do things it wouldn't do if it didn't have rabies. But that doesn't change the fact that it has rabies.

John Malkovich

We're all animals.

John Malkovich

I love to watch good actors who surprise and amuse me.

John Malkovich

Theater is so ephemeral, and I love that.

John Malkovich

My father was an exceptionally strong influence on me.

John Malkovich

I can see how, given a certain degree of sensitivities, proclivities and rage, I could have ended up differently.

John Malkovich

Most filmmakers' entire body of knowledge is of other movies. When they describe things, they describe them in relation to other movies. That's why we have so many cyclical movies that look like other movies. But I'm not cynical. I even go to some of those movies.

John Malkovich

I probably have more female friends than any man I've ever met. What I like about them is that almost always they're generally mentally tougher, and they're better listeners, and they're more capable of surviving things.

John Malkovich

Most of the women that I like have a haunted quality - they're sort of like women who live in a haunted house all by themselves.

John Malkovich

I have driven school buses, sold egg rolls and painted houses, and I have often wondered what my life would have been like if I hadn't gone into acting. Mind you, it's a great life, going around pretending you're other people and getting paid ridiculous sums of money for it.

John Malkovich

I admire sensible, kind people. They're not often famous.

John Malkovich

I love Chicago, but in a lot of ways it's a disappointment. You can work there for years and years, and because you're in Chicago, you don't get the recognition. It has some of the best theater in the country, but when they shoot a movie there, they bring in all their actors.

John Malkovich

I'll never be the biggest kind of star; I'll be like Bob Duvall, respected as an actor but a lot of people can't identify the face. I don't have the personality of a big star, or the looks of a Mel Gibson or a Paul Newman, or the style of a George C. Scott.

John Malkovich

I know for a fact that a lot of actors are desperate and unhappy if their careers are not progressing at what they think is the correct rate. They just go crazy if they're not working. I don't feel I'd be that way. You can always get a few people together and put on a play. Maybe not in New York or L.A., but in a lot of other towns, you can.

John Malkovich

If I had spent as much time in the weight room as I did designing football uniforms, I probably would have had a free college education.

John Malkovich

I have at times spoken with my peers and the head of the actors' union about why we're not paid when we appear in, say, a 'TMZ' production, but there seems to be no real interest in combatting it.

John Malkovich

I just start with a pencil and paper. I don't want something too trendy, too fashion-forward. I don't want to make something I consider a regular person couldn't wear with blue jeans. But I don't want to make something that other people make, either - like a skinny black suit in a shiny material that you can buy anywhere.

John Malkovich

I know fashion can be intensely goofy, but it is something I've always taken pretty seriously.

John Malkovich