John Malkovich
I don't really go through a process, it goes through me.
The most evocative thing to me is probably when a writer and a group of performers can collectively put together something compelling that asks the really simple question: 'How do we live?'
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.
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.
We're all animals.
I love to watch good actors who surprise and amuse me.
My father was an exceptionally strong influence on me.
I can see how, given a certain degree of sensitivities, proclivities and rage, I could have ended up differently.
I am inspired by the appearance of a bohemian of the new millennium.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I admire sensible, kind people. They're not often famous.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I know fashion can be intensely goofy, but it is something I've always taken pretty seriously.
People always say life is short. I've never been convinced of that - mine seems to have a tendency to go on and on.
Utopia means elsewhere.
I'm a little bit of a fabric lunatic.
Well, I like to have fun at work.
Politics is not really my thing.
I can have incredible self-discipline. But see, I think it's obviously a form of stupidity.
The world is ruled by violence, or at least the imminent threat of violence. It always has been.
If you don't interfere with me, I'll always do something really good.
I don't have a saviour or a royal family.
I'm more likely to lose my temper on a film set than almost anywhere. Often the level of idiocy is so exalted that it's impossible to comprehend.
I'm not a Method actor. I don't believe acting should be psychodrama. I look within myself and see what I can find to play the role with. If I'm playing a blind man, I don't go around blindfolded for days. A lot of good actors would, but I don't go in for that very much. I like to just make it up as I go along.
You can't work in the movies. Movies are all about lighting. Very few filmmakers will concentrate on the story. You get very little rehearsal time, so anything you do onscreen is a kind of speed painting.
I'm not a psychiatrist. I'm not treating patients.
I wouldn't describe myself as lacking in confidence, but I would just say that - the ghosts you chase you never catch.
Imagine how asleep or utterly unperceptive and clueless you would have to be not to see yourself as absurd for the most part.
Fashion is chaotic, and it can be an aggravation, too, but it is at its best when it allows you to express yourself.
It's tough to figure out how do we compete in Europe and North America, when obviously a living wage for us is very different than a living wage in Indonesia.
I don't lose my temper very often now, and if I do, it's well deserved.
Theater is so ephemeral, and I love that.
You have to play your characters, not like them.
Even if you do succeed most people wouldn't notice anyway.
I don't want to be boring. But that's not always easy.
I haven't physically attacked anyone in a couple of years.
I was a very good baseball and football player, but my father always told me I was much more interested in how I looked playing baseball or football than in actually playing. There's great truth in that.
I wouldn't say anything I ever did in film would be something I'd use the word proud about. I've done better work in the theater.
I'm supposed to be a pretty good theater actor.
I've permitted myself to learn and to fail with some regularity. And that is probably the one thing I was given, and that I'm still grateful for.
It's not a gift of mine, but one given to me, to be able to criticise myself and not be crushed, by myself or by others.