Source : PERTHNOW NEWS
John Malkovich wanted Tom Cruise or Sean Penn to play him in Being John Malkovich.
The 72-year-old actor played a fictionalised version of himself in director Spike Jonze’s 1999 fantasy comedy – in which Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) discovered a portal into the star’s brain – but he originally wanted a role behind the camera, with someone else playing him.
However, writer Charlie Kaufman ultimately disagreed.
He told The Sunday Times’ Culture magazine: “I was a huge fan of William Hurt. Tom Cruise had just done Risky Business and I liked him a lot in that. Sean Penn. It could have been anybody, but Charlie didn’t agree.”
But one “worthwhile contribution” John did make was to suggest Charlie Sheen, who was in rehab at the time after a cocaine overdose, play his best friend after Kevin Bacon turned down the project.
He said: “I think it was the only worthwhile contribution I made, because he’s very funny.
“I was never in touch with him. But I was glad that film helped people get over whatever it was he had done, whatever atoning he was supposed to do.”
John refused to share his personal opinions on anything to be used in the script.
Discussing a scene where John Malkovich wants to order a “foot-pampering looped cotton rug”, and needs to choose a colour for the bathmat, he said when asked if it was something he would have had a view on: “Yes, but I wouldn’t discuss it.”
The Dangerous Liaisons actor likes to work on projects he think will offer a “hilarious” experience, and while working with Bernardo Bertolucci on The Sheltering Sky was just that, Woody Allen wasn’t on Shadows and Fog.
He said: “You think if you do a Woody Allen film you’ll be laughing all day long. You’re not going to be laughing at all, because he’s a profoundly serious person.”
John was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1985 for his work as a blind lodger in Places in the Heart and while he didn’t win, he wasn’t disappointed because he had a lot of “fun”.
He said: “I sat next to David Lean. My category was won by my friend Haing Ngor from The Killing Fields, and I was very happy about that.
“And then I could go smoke cigarettes and watch the people following the Passage to India elephants with giant shovels. It was fun, like the first time you go to Cannes.”
But he shunned the prestigious event the second time he was shortlisted, for In the Line of Fire.
He said: “I don’t like crowds and … et cetera, et cetera.”
