John Gavin Malkovich (born December 9, 1953) is an American actor. Known for his performances as eccentric and amoral characters, he has received various accolades, including three Emmy Awards and the Volpi Cup for Best Actor as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, two Actor Awards, a BAFTA Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Laurence Olivier Award.
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 (1982). He made his Broadway debut as Biff in the revival of the Arthur Miller play Death of a Salesman (1984), reprising the role in a television film adaptation the next year, for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. He directed the Harold Pinter play The Caretaker (1986), and acted in Lanford Wilson's Burn This (1987), the latter gaining him a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor nomination when it transferred to the West End in 1990.
Malkovich won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for his performance as a CIA officer in Wild Horse Nine (2026). Also he has received two Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor nominations for playing a war veteran in Places in the Heart (1984) and an assassin in 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), Red (2010), and Bird Box (2018). He also had a recurring collaboration with art film directors Manoel de Oliveira and Raúl Ruiz. He has produced films such as Ghost World (2001), Juno (2007), and The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012).
On television, he was also Emmy-nominated for portraying Herman J. Mankiewicz in the HBO television film RKO 281 (1999) and Charles Talleyrand in the historical miniseries Napoléon (2002), and received an Actor Award nomination for his performance as Kurtz in the TNT television film Heart of Darkness (1994). He also portrayed the titular character in the HBO miniseries The New Pope (2020).
Malkovich was born in Christopher, Illinois, on December 9, 1953. He grew up in Benton, Illinois. His father, Daniel Leon Malkovich, was a state conservation director, who published the conservation magazine Outdoor Illinois. His mother, Joe Anne (née Choisser), owned the Benton Evening News daily newspaper and Outdoor Illinois. 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, from the hamlet of Malkovići in the village of Lović Prekriški north of Ozalj; his other ancestry includes English, Scottish, French, and German. In a 2021 interview, he stated that he is half Croatian. In 2025, Malkovich revealed in an interview that after having a DNA test he discovered that he was 43% Romanian. In 2026, the Minister of the Interior of the Republic of Croatia, Davor Božinović, granted Malkovich Croatian citizenship. Malkovich 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. He was also active in a folk gospel group, with whom he sang at 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.
While growing up in Benton, Malkovich's next door neighbor was Doug Collins, who became an NBA basketball player and head coach.
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 studied acting at the William Esper Studio.
1976–1989: Broadway debut and film breakthrough
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 1982 to appear in a Steppenwolf production of the Sam Shepard play True West directed by Sinise, for which he won an Obie Award. One of his first film roles was as an extra alongside Allen, Terry Kinney, George Wendt, and Laurie Metcalf in Robert Altman's film A Wedding (1978). In early 1982, he appeared in A Streetcar Named Desire with Chicago's Wisdom Bridge Theatre. Malkovich 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. Other Steppenwolf productions in which Malkovich has appeared include: The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, directed by H. E. Baccus (1979); Burn This by Lanford Wilson, directed by Marshall W. Mason (1987); and The Libertine by Stephen Jeffreys, directed by Terry Johnson (1996). 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 that year was as Biff in Death of a Salesman alongside Dustin Hoffman as Willy. Malkovich won an Emmy Award for this role when the play was adapted for television by CBS in 1985. He continued to have steady work in films. In 1987, he starred in Steven Spielberg's war drama Empire of the Sun as Basie, a captured American sailor. He next appeared as Tom Wingfield in the film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, directed by Paul Newman (who appeared in the film), Joanne Woodward, and Karen Allen. The third and final project of 1987 was Susan Seidelman's science fiction romantic comedy Making Mr. Right. 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 the stage play Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Christopher Hampton, who had adapted it from the 1782 novel of the same title by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. 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. In 1990, he recited, in Croatian, verses of the Croatian national anthem Lijepa naša domovino (Our Beautiful Homeland) in Nenad Bach's song "Can We Go Higher?"
Malkovich starred in the 1992 film adaptation of John Steinbeck's novella Of Mice and Men as Lennie alongside Gary Sinise as George. He received his second Academy Award nomination for the Wolfgang Petersen-directed political action thriller In the Line of Fire (1993), playing a disillusioned former CIA agent who plans to assassinate the President of the United States. He was the narrator for the film Alive (1993) and starred in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998). Malkovich has hosted three episodes of the NBC sketch show Saturday Night Live. The first occasion was in January 1989 with musical guest Anita Baker, the second in October 1993 with musical guest Billy Joel (and special appearance by former cast member Jan Hooks), and the third in December 2008 with musical guest T.I. with Swizz Beatz (and special appearances by Justin Timberlake, Molly Sims and Jamie-Lynn Sigler).
Malkovich was directed for the second time (after Dangerous Liaisons) by Stephen Frears in Mary Reilly (1996), a new adaptation of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde tale, co-starring Julia Roberts. Malkovich also appeared in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999), directed by Luc Besson, playing the French king-to-be Charles VII. Though he played the title role in the Charlie Kaufman-penned Being John Malkovich (1999), he played a slight variation of himself, as indicated by the character's middle name of "Horatio".