People

John Malkovich

Acting · follow into films and chains

Biography

John Gavin Malkovich (born December 9, 1953) is an American actor. He has received several accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award and nominations for two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. Malkovich started his career as a charter member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago in 1976. He moved to New York City, acting in a Steppenwolf production of the Sam Shepard play True West (1980). He made his Broadway debut as Biff in the revival of the Arthur Miller play Death of a Salesman (1984). He directed the Harold Pinter play The Caretaker(1986) and acted in Lanford Wilson's Burn This(1987). Malkovich has received two Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor nominations for his performances in Places in the Heart (1984) and In the Line of Fire (1993). Other films include The Killing Fields (1984), Empire of the Sun (1987), Dangerous Liaisons (1988), Of Mice and Men (1992), Con Air (1997), Rounders (1998), Being John Malkovich (1999), Shadow of the Vampire (2000), Ripley's Game (2002), Johnny English (2003), Burn After Reading (2008), and Red (2010). He has also produced films such as Ghost World (2001), Juno (2007), and The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012). For his work on television, he received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for Death of a Salesman (1985). His other Emmy-nominated roles were for portraying Herman J. Mankiewicz in RKO 281 (1999) and Charles Talleyrand in Napoléon (2002). Other television roles include Crossbones (2014), Billions (2018–19), The New Pope (2020), and Space Force (2020–2022).

Notable films

Where to start

Highlights from credits and KinoChain journeys.

Being John Malkovich

Appears in a KinoChain journey

Empire of the Sun

Appears in a KinoChain journey

Ghost World

Appears in a KinoChain journey

Burn After Reading

As Osborne Cox

Con Air

As Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom

Wild Horse Nine

As Chris

Penguins of Madagascar

As Dave (voice)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

As Humma Kavula

Chains

KinoChain journeys

Public chains that pass through their films — or name them as a bridge.

Browse all chains

Girlhood Reclaimed

From institutionalised rebellion to the raucous freedom of the last day of school, a chain of films that lets young women be messy, angry, and gloriously themse...

8 films

The Threshold of Nowhere

From a furniture store's hidden door to the endless corridors of the mind, this chain maps the liminal spaces where dread and wonder collide.

8 films

Wild Hearts: Feral Children and the Call of the Wild

From the forests of 18th-century France to the animated jungles of Mowgli, a journey through cinema's feral children and their quest for belonging.

7 films

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