INTERVIEW: JOHN MALKOVICH
LIFE ADVICE FROM JOHN MALKOVICH
This article first appeared on GQ online here
John Malkovich and Robert Rodriguez have made a short film which won’t be released for 100 years. The only copy of the movie has been locked in a safe which will automatically unlock on 18 November 2115. It’s all a ploy to promote Louis XIII cognac, but it’s also another example of John Malkovich’s scatter plot career. Actor, director, restauranteur, fashion designer, menswear designer, Einstein impersonator and now futurist? GQ gets at look at his latest out-of-the-ordinary project, and seeks an explanation from the man himself along with his advice for life…
Don’t worry about your career
“I never really worried about a career. I was very lucky. I pretty much did the things that interested me. Sometimes they worked out sometimes they didn’t but I never worried about where I stood or how I was viewed or if I was forgotten or coveted or admired or disliked.”
Be an architect or a painter. Not a scientist
“I wouldn’t say I admire scientist or engineers. Architects and painters, yes. I don’t really know enough about science. I don’t think a lot of science is actually science. For instance I’ve directed in several countries, Terry Johnson’s play which is about the meaning of Freud and Dali, Hysteria, I understand all the hoopla around Freud and the resentment because that’s not a science, but he was trying to understand people and making a honest effort and that’s at least as complex as the universe, I would say.”
Just keep on working
“When I was first approached I really loved the idea, in a way I wish all the films I made wouldn’t have been seen for 100 years. I don’t know how much that would change the way they are regarded. In other older civilisations they did things that wouldn’t be completed for a thousand years and that didn’t bother them very much. They just kept on working.”
Take on clever projects and reflect
“When the project was presented to me I thought, that’s a clever notion, full stop. It caused me to reflect. If we want to read about 1915, we can read history, that’s summary, but they were living their lives in certain places in the world that were quite desperate. They didn’t reflect much on us, on what would be in 100 years and that’s what I thought when I was presented with this idea; It would be a good time to reflect on the past 100 years in terms of what they thought were coming. That gave me a chance to look at that and to look at, well, not so much me but what do people say will be. I found that really quite interesting to try and grasp.”
Observe
“I’m not optimistic or pessimistic, I’m not really anything. I just observe what I knew as a child and what is now.”
Adapt
“The world is so profoundly changed from 30 years ago. And I don’t mean the latest catastrophic event because there are always those and they’re always senseless. But ok, in terms of technology, in how we are as a result of that, it shows how infinitely, irrepressibly adaptable we are.”
Have faith in people
“I refer to the future as that which is what we can’t imagine.
And if these past 30 years of just unbelievably dizziness of speed, it will only get faster and it will change us and it already has and technology will change us and it already has but so what?
People will learn to live with that. And I don’t think it’s harder to be alive in this century than it was a 100 years ago. It’s less violent and less destructive. If that gives me an overweening faith in humanity then so be it. I figure people will figure it out.
They’re incredibly adaptive.”
GQ spoke to John Malkovich at Louis XIII de Remy Martin’s launch of 100 Years, a film starring John Malkovich, directed by Robert Rodriguez
[Interesting post-script : John Malkovich is the most fucking difficult interviewee I think I’ll ever have the pleasure of talking to. Also that cognac tasted of petrol.]
