John Malkovich Bio
John Gavin Malkovich (born December 9, 1953) is an American actor. He is the recipient of several accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. Over a career that has spanned theatre, film, and television, Malkovich has become known for playing intelligent, often unsettling characters.
Early Life and Background
John Gavin Malkovich was born in Christopher, Illinois, on December 9, 1953, and grew up in nearby Benton, Illinois. His father, Daniel Leon Malkovich, was a state conservation director who published the conservation magazine Outdoor Illinois. His mother, Joe Anne, owned the Benton Evening News daily newspaper and also published Outdoor Illinois. Malkovich grew up with an older brother, Danny, and three younger sisters, Amanda, Rebecca, and Melissa.
He attended Logan Grade School, Webster Junior High School, and Benton Consolidated High School. During his high school years, he appeared in various plays and the musical Carousel, and he was active in a folk gospel group that performed at local churches and community events. As a member of a local summer theater project, he co-starred in Jean-Claude van Itallie’s America Hurrah in 1972.
After graduating from high school in 1972, Malkovich enrolled at Eastern Illinois University. He then transferred to Illinois State University, where he majored in theater, but dropped out. He later studied acting at the William Esper Studio.
Path to Acting
In 1976, Malkovich, along with Joan Allen, Gary Sinise, and Glenne Headly, became a charter member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. He moved to New York City in 1980 to appear in a Steppenwolf production of the Sam Shepard play True West, directed by Sinise, for which he won an Obie Award. He also appeared as an extra in Robert Altman’s film A Wedding in 1978.
Other early Steppenwolf productions in which Malkovich appeared included The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams in 1979, Burn This by Lanford Wilson in 1987, and The Libertine by Stephen Jeffreys in 1996. In early 1982, he appeared in A Streetcar Named Desire with Chicago’s Wisdom Bridge Theatre. He then directed a Steppenwolf co-production, the 1984 revival of Lanford Wilson’s Balm in Gilead, for which he received a second Obie Award and a Drama Desk Award.
John Malkovich Career
Early Career (1976-1987)
One of his first film roles was as an extra in Robert Altman’s A Wedding (1978), alongside Joan Allen, Terry Kinney, George Wendt, and Laurie Metcalf. He made his feature film debut as Sally Field’s blind boarder Mr. Will in Places in the Heart (1984). For his portrayal of Mr. Will, Malkovich received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He also portrayed Al Rockoff in Roland Joffe’s epic film The Killing Fields (1984).
His Broadway debut came as Biff in Death of a Salesman alongside Dustin Hoffman as Willy. Malkovich won a Primetime Emmy Award for this role when the play was adapted for television by CBS in 1985. He continued to have steady work in films such as Empire of the Sun, directed by Steven Spielberg, and the film adaptation of Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie (both 1987), directed by Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. He also starred in Making Mr. Right (1987), directed by Susan Seidelman.
Breakthrough (1988-2000)
Malkovich gained significant critical and popular acclaim when he portrayed the sinister and sensual Valmont in the film Dangerous Liaisons (1988), a film adaptation of Christopher Hampton’s stage play. He later reprised this role for the music video of Walking on Broken Glass by Annie Lennox. He played Port Moresby in The Sheltering Sky (1990), directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, and appeared in Shadows and Fog (1991), directed by Woody Allen.
He starred in the 1992 film adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men as Lennie alongside Gary Sinise as George. He was nominated for another Oscar, again in the Best Supporting Actor category, for In the Line of Fire (1993). Malkovich starred in Con Air (1997), The Man in the Iron Mask (1998), and played the title role in the Charlie Kaufman-penned Being John Malkovich (1999). He appeared in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999), directed by Luc Besson, playing the French king-to-be Charles VII.
Notable Works and Milestones
John Malkovich’s signature works include his two Oscar-nominated performances in Places in the Heart (1984) and In the Line of Fire (1993), his villainous turn in Dangerous Liaisons (1988), and his title role in Being John Malkovich (1999). He also earned acclaim for Con Air (1997) and the action hit Red (2010), which became one of his most popular mainstream successes.
Continued Career (2001-Present)
Malkovich’s directorial film debut, The Dancer Upstairs, was released in 2002. He played Patricia Highsmith’s antihero Tom Ripley in Ripley’s Game (2002). He hosted three episodes of Saturday Night Live, in January 1989, October 1993, and December 2008. Malkovich’s other film roles include The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005), Eragon (2006), Beowulf (2007), Changeling (2008), Red (2010), Secretariat (2010), Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011), and Red 2 (2013). He portrayed Quentin Turnbull in the film adaptation of Jonah Hex (2010).
In 2018, Malkovich appeared in a three-part adaptation of Agatha Christie’s The A.B.C. Murders for BBC television, playing Hercule Poirot. In 2019, he performed in London’s West End at the Garrick Theatre, starring in David Mamet’s play Bitter Wheat. He starred as the title character in the HBO drama series The New Pope (2020). In September 2019, he was cast as Dr. Adrian Mallory in the Netflix comedy series Space Force. His production of George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man, set during the Serbo-Bulgarian War, premiered at the Ivan Vazov National Theater in Sofia in November 2024.
John Malkovich Award Nominations
John Malkovich has earned a wide range of nominations across his career, reflecting his work in film, television, and theatre. He has received two Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor, for Places in the Heart (1984) and In the Line of Fire (1993). He has also received a BAFTA nomination, two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations, and three Golden Globe Award nominations. His Emmy-nominated roles include Herman J. Mankiewicz in RKO 281 (1999) and Charles Talleyrand in Napoléon (2002).
John Malkovich Awards Won
John Malkovich has collected several major awards during his career. He won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for his role in Death of a Salesman (1985). He received two Obie Awards, for True West (1980) and the Steppenwolf co-production Balm in Gilead (1984), and a Drama Desk Award for the latter production. He also won the Molière Award for best director for Good Canary in 2008, and the Milton Schulman Award for best director at the Evening Standard Theater Awards in 2016.
John Malkovich Family
John Gavin Malkovich was born to Daniel Leon Malkovich and Joe Anne Malkovich. 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. His paternal grandparents were immigrants from Croatia, and his other ancestry includes English, Scottish, French, and German descent.
Personal Life
Malkovich married actress Glenne Headly in 1982, and the couple divorced in 1988. He began dating Nicoletta Peyran in 1989 after meeting her on the set of The Sheltering Sky, where she served as second assistant director. The couple have two children, Amandine and Loewy. Malkovich is fluent in French, having lived and worked in theater in southern France for nearly 10 years before leaving in 2003. He and his family have since lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is the co-owner of the restaurant Bica do Sapato and Lux nightclub in Lisbon.
