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I Like To Have Fun At Work. It's Okay If I Don't. I've Had That A Few Times. But Generally, I'm Someone Who Has A Lot Of Fun At Work, Because I Like My Job. I Think It's A Fantastic Job, At Least That Part Of It Is A Fantastic Job. And I Like To Have Fun, And I Personally Feel That Whether You're Talking About The Cast Or The Crew Or The Director Or Any Combination Thereof, That When People Feel Involved And Comfortable And They Feel Like Their Work Is Being Supported, That's The Best Environment To Do Good Work.

-John Malkovich

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I Like To Have

John Malkovich

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I Like To Have Fun At Work. It's Okay If I Don't. I've Had That A Few Times. But Generally, I'm Someone Who Has A Lot Of Fun At Work, Because I Like My Job. I Think It's A Fantastic Job, At Least That Part Of It Is A Fantastic Job. And I Like To Have Fun, And I Personally Feel That Whether You're Talking About The Cast Or The Crew Or The Director Or Any Combination Thereof, That When People Feel Involved And Comfortable And They Feel Like Their Work Is Being Supported, That's The Best Environment To Do Good Work.

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And May The Best Of You - For It Will Only Be The Best Of You, And Even Then Only In The Rarest And Briefest Moments - Succeed In Framing That Most Basic Of Questions, 'how Do We Live?'

Things Are So Much Global And Americanised.

I'm Not A Psychiatrist. I'm Not Treating Patients.

Treating Patients

You Can't Take A Play Someone Has Directed And Do Whatever You Want With It.

Do Whatever You Want

People Always Say Life Is Short. I've Never Been Convinced Of That - Mine Seems To Have A Tendency To Go On And On.

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.

To A Certain Extent In Hollywood You're A Product, And Your Product Is Whatever Sells The Most, And Whatever Sells The Most Is Whatever The Public Likes To See You Do - If Anything.

Quite Often - A Lot Of The Work I Had Done Had Been Extensively With Women. Most Especially In The Theater, But Also Quite Often In The Movies. That Has Its Own Delights, And Maybe Pitfalls Too.

Anybody Doing Something Brings Something To It.

Reviews Are Destructive By Their Very Nature.

There Are Many, Many Benefits To Being Known For Whatever It Is You Do. To Deny That Would Be Sort Of Asinine And Vulgar.

Unlike My Grandfather Or My Brother, I've Actually Been Able To Make Some Money At A Racetrack.

Failure's A Natural Part Of Life.

I Am Inspired By The Appearance Of A Bohemian Of The New Millennium.

I Don't Throw Things Or Yell.

I Wasn`t Really Raised To Be The Type Of Person To Have Doubts.

Scary Monsters Are Like Hula Hoops. They Come In And Out Of Fashion.

I Wouldn't Describe Myself As Lacking In Confidence, But I Would Just Say That - The Ghosts You Chase You Never Catch.

It's Not A Field, I Think, For People Who Need To Have Success Every Day: If You Can't Live With A Nightly Sort Of Disaster, You Should Get Out. I Wouldn't Describe Myself As Lacking In Confidence, But I Would Just Say That The Ghosts You Chase You Never Catch.

I Find It Hard To Pre-plan Every Element Of Everything I Do. It's Not My Thing.

I Grew Tired Of Religion Some Time Not Long After Birth. I Believe In People, I Believe In Humans, I Believe In A Car, But I Don't Believe Something I Can't Have Absolutely No Evidence Of For Millenniums. And It's Funny, People Think Analysis Or Psychiatry Is Mad, And They Go To Church.

What You Really Need To Build A Character Is Exactly What You Don't Have In The Movies - Time. You Know, Movies Are Like A Line Drawing. You Have To Make Very Quick Decisions, Which Are, In The End Instinctive. Or You Make A Decision To Say "well, Maybe I Can Do That, Because... Oh, That Could Be Irritating After A While, Or Distracting, Etc. Etc." Some Of It Is A Matter Of Time, Always.

Chicago My Favourite American City. I'm Very Much A Typical Midwesterner, And I Don't Think The Condition Is Curable.

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.

Much Of What You Do As An Actor - It's Who's Around You, What's The Environment, Where Do You Fit Into This Thing. That's Really Work That's Impossible To Do On Your Own, At Least For Me. I Find It Hard To Pre-plan Every Element Of Everything I Do. It's Not My Thing.

Most Films, It Doesn't Matter If You See Them Or Not.

I Still Have A Temper, I Suppose.

As An Actor There Are No Drawbacks.

Films Take Too Long. There's Too Much Bs, Too Much Nonsense. If I Want To Do A Play, I Just Call The Theater, Whether It's Here, Or In Paris Or Mexico Or Spain Or London Or Whatever, And Say, "i Want To Do This, Are You Interested?" They'll Answer The Next Day. With A Movie, It's All, "oh, I See This Film As Blah Blah Blah." They Don't Know What You're Talking About, They Don't Care.

I Like To Have Fun At Work. It's Okay If I Don't. I've Had That A Few Times. But Generally, I'm Someone Who Has A Lot Of Fun At Work, Because I Like My Job. I Think It's A Fantastic Job, At Least That Part Of It Is A Fantastic Job. And I Like To Have Fun, And I Personally Feel That Whether You're Talking About The Cast Or The Crew Or The Director Or Any Combination Thereof, That When People Feel Involved And Comfortable And They Feel Like Their Work Is Being Supported, That's The Best Environment To Do Good Work.

I Don't Lose My Temper Very Often Now, And If I Do, It's Well Deserved.

I'm More Comfortable With Whatever's Wrong With Me Than My Father Was Whenever He Felt He Failed Or Didn't Measure Up To The Standard He Set.

I Don't Think My Parents Know What I Do.

I Prefer To Conduct My Life Based On How I Treat People.

Some People Die Before Their Time So That Others Can Live. It's A Cornerstone Of Civilization.

My Father Was A Very Contradictory Man. I Mean, Most Environmentalists In America In The 1950s - Of Which There Were Hardly Any - Were Not... Paratroopers. But My Father Was In The 82nd Airborne, It Was Just Like That.

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.

Every Country Has Their Problems.

It Never Occurred To Me To Be An Actor.

In New York In The Forties Or Fifties, Everybody's In A Suit, An Overcoat And A Hat.

You Can Be A Mason And Build 50 Buildings, But It Doesn't Mean You Can Design One.

Even If You Do Succeed Most People Wouldn't Notice Anyway.

Most Of The Women That I Like Have A Haunted Quality - They're Sort Of Like Women Who Live In A Haunted House By Themselves.

I Never Wanted To Be With Someone Who Just Hung Around The House.

Well, I Like To Have Fun At Work.

Actors Generally Get To Do Things You Probably Shouldn't Do In Real Life - Well, At Least As Much As One Might Like To Or Be Tempted To. Though I Suppose A Lot Of Actors Just Go Ahead And Do It, Don't They?

I Only Have Two Rules For My Newly Born Daughter: She Will Dress Well And Never Have Sex.

I'm Supposed To Be A Pretty Good Theater Actor.

Nothing You Do Particularly Matters. But I'm Not Sure That's A Great Excuse For Doing It Poorly.

Sigmund Freud Said We Act Out Our Own Dreams, But If You Are Only An Actor You Are Not Acting Out Your Own Dream. You Are Simply Participating In Someone Else's Dream.

If You're Too Smart It Can Limit You Because You Spend So Much Time Thinking That You Don't Do Anything.

I Mean, A Lot Of Time Rehearsals Are Taken Up With Other Things Other Than Preparing A Character.

The Theater Is So Disappointing, Really, That It's Hard To Go Again And Again. It's Just Too Heartbreaking. I'd Rather Watch Football Or Play A Game Or Read.

I Don't Want A Trillion-dollar Empire To Run.

I Don't Mind Tracksuits. At The Track.

There Will Be People Who Hate Everything You Do. And Some People Will Really Love It. But That's Not Really Different From The People Who Really Hate It.

I Think Probably When I Was Little, After My Brother Turned On Me, I Just Had To Play By Myself Or With Myself. I've Always Done That. I Think Either It's Some Kind Of Weirdly Competitive Streak Or It Takes My Mind Off Whatever's Bothering Me.

I Think With Actors, If You Just Don't Set About Trying To Crush Their Confidence Immediately, You're Usually Ok.

If You Don't Interfere With Me, I'll Always Do Something Really Good.

I Don't Like Things Too Overstated In The Cut Or Too Perfect.

I Haven't Physically Attacked Anyone In A Couple Of Years.

For A While I Wanted To Be A Professional Baseball Pitcher, And Then I Wanted To Be A Musician And Then Sometimes I Think I'd Like To Start A Store For Gift-wrapping Christmas Presents... But I Feel I Could Do Most Things I Set My Mind To, Except Mechanical Things, I'm Not Very Good At That.

I'm Not A Very Skeptical Person.

If I Hear A Film Clip, Or I Happen To See Some Image From A Film - You Go To A Film Festival, And They Show Some Clip Of The Movies You've Been In, Most Of The Time I Sit There And Go, "oh God, I Should Have... Should Have... That Was Terrible." But I Think That's A Natural Part Of This Work, Because Really, Your Work Is Never Over. Of Course I Can Leave It Alone And Walk Off The Set And Never Think About It Again When It's Done. But Your Work Is Really Ongoing All The Time.

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. And 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.

There's A Reason Screens Are Only This Thick.

I Like Design, I Like Details, To Me It Is Just Another Form Of Self-expression.

The Ghosts You Chase You Never Catch.

I Was Never A Fanatical Movie Person. There Are Many Popular Films I Absolutely Love Like Anyone Else. Having Said That, I Don't Have Time To Go To The Movies Very Much. I Work A Lot Of Different Things, I'm Always Busy. But I'm Always Happy To See A Popular Movie.

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 Have Probably Four Or Five Male Friends Who Have A Real Strong Masculine Side But Some Degree Of A Feminine Side, Too. They're Pretty Rare, Whereas I Think Women With A Masculine Side Are Much Less Rare.

Theater Is So Ephemeral, And I Love That.

I Don't Have A Saviour Or A Royal Family.

You Have To Do Things People See Or You Don't Get To Do Anything.

I Can Have Incredible Self-discipline. But See, I Think It's Obviously A Form Of Stupidity.

I Don't Mind What I Play, Really.

I Always Wanted To Be Fashionable.

I Like Very Much To Do Movies.

My Father Was An Exceptionally Strong Influence On Me.

It Seems Whenever I've Had A Method Or What I Perceived To Be An Intellectual Groundwork Of Some Sort - A Kind Of Game Plan - It's Always Been The Most Morbid Failure.

I Think People Seem To Sort Of Associate Me With Danger. And I Don't See That At All.

Where Women Are Concerned, The Rule Is Never To Go Out With Anyone Better Dressed Than You.

All You Have Is The Writer's Imagination. You Have A Very Limited Time To Take This Imaginary Person And Bring The Details Of Their Life, As You Perceive Them, To Life. You Attempt To Do To That As Fully And As Vibrantly As You Can. It's Depressing To Read How Much You've Failed. And It's Not Even Particularly Instructive Or Necessary To Read How You Succeeded Because In The End Don't You Have To Judge That?

I Go Around The World, Working With All Kinds Of People Who I Love.

The World Is Ruled By Violence, Or At Least The Imminent Threat Of Violence. It Always Has Been.

I Don't Really Have A Comprehension Of Being A Public Figure.

Imagine How Asleep Or Utterly Unperceptive And Clueless You Would Have To Be Not To See Yourself As Absurd For The Most Part.

Along With The Good Qualities, If Someone Isn't Vulnerable I Can't Be Around Them To A Certain Extent. And I Don't Mean Vulnerable To Me Or Vulnerable To Me In A Sexual Way. I Just Mean Vulnerable, Period.

Some Directors Expect You To Do Everything; Write, Be Producer, Psychiatrist. Some Just Want You To Die In A Tragic Accident During The Shooting So They Can Get The Insurance.

The Projects I Look For To Produce Or Direct Would Not Be Ones In Which I Would Want To Act.

I Don't Understand How Somebody Wouldn't Have A Sense Of Humor About Themselves.

I Don't Want To Be Boring. But That's Not Always Easy.

It's A Little Bit Hard To Have Personal Things Subject To Public Scrutiny, And It's A Pressure That Other People Aren't Under, But Then They're Under A Lot Of Pressures That We're Not Under.

I Like To Direct Movies, But I Don't Like To Goof Around For Eight Years Talking About It. And It's Pretty Irritating To Get A Movie On. So To Complicate It By Having More Irritation As A Director, I Don't Really Need It. And Because I Direct A Great Deal Still, But In The Theater, I Kind Of Get That Anyway. Which Is Not At All To Say I Would Never Do It Again, Or It Would Never Happen Again.

I Like To Direct Movies, But I Don't Like To Goof Around For Eight Years Talking About It.

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.

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?'

My Father Could Be Very Distancing. My Clearest Memory Is Of Him Squatting, Watering Plants For Hours And Hours At A Time, Completely Silent. He Was Very Self-contained; My Mother Was More Outgoing And Chatty And Social. I'm Certainly More Like Her.

I've Done Quite A Few Big American Films.

It's Funny - People Think Analysis Or Psychiatry Is Mad, And They Go To Church.

I Don't Remember My Life Before I Had Children.

I Love To Watch Good Actors Who Surprise And Amuse Me.

Anybody Doing Something Brings Something To It. It's Not For Me To Say If It's "growth". Just By The Nature Of Everyone Has A Different Take On The Material. Some People Would.

I've Always Been An Avid Reader. Everyone In My Family Read A Lot. Considering We Were From A Little Town, We Were Pretty Literate.

I'm More Boring And More Conservative.

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.

Well, I Design Costumes Because I Started With The Theater In Chicago, But Somehow A Few Lines Just Sort Of Fell To Me To Do It. And I Studied It In School And I Always Liked It.

I Think I Was Born At A Time When An American Male Had So Many Advantages And Opportunities That Weren't Available To Men Before Or After, Just A Very Brief Period.

One Doesn't Know If One Had A Happy Childhood Or Not. I Don't Really Know What It Means.

I Was A Very Good Baseball Player And Football Player As A Kid, But My Father Always Told Me - Occasionally While Striking Me - That I Was Much More Interested In How I Looked Playing Baseball Or Football Than In Actually Playing. And I Think There's Great Truth In That.

With Acting It's Your Neck Up There In The End. And If You Think The Director Can't Help You It's One Thing. But If You Feel They're Reining You In When They Need To Be Giving You Some Rope, Or Vice Versa, Then I Just Don't Tolerate That.

Politics Is Not Really My Thing.

I Can See How, Given A Certain Degree Of Sensitivities, Proclivities And Rage, I Could Have Ended Up Differently.

I Don't Need To Be Liked.

You Have To Play Your Characters, Not Like Them.

I Don't Have A Great Intellect, And I Can't Compete With People Who Do. I Feel Certain Things. And All I Know, And All I Can Do, Is What I Feel.

I'm Not A Control Maniac.

You Know, I'm Really Not Interested In Someone Telling Me That Something's Good Or Bad.

I Don't Care What Other People Think. I Don't Think It Matters.

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.

People Get Up, They Go To Work, They Have Their Lives, But You'll Never See The Headlines Say, 'six Billion People Got Along Rather Well Today.' You'll Have The Headline About The 30 People Who Shot Each Other.

Utopia Means Elsewhere.

I'm A Little Bit Of A Fabric Lunatic.

I Mean, Anything That Money Can Be Made Off Will Never Be A Problem To Make, No Matter What It Is.

Art Is Not Disposable. If You Want It, You Have To Hold It And Smell It And Touch It And Read The Credits And Enjoy It And Put It On Your Wall.

Of Course It's Trivial, But Then Most Things Are.

When You Think Of How History Is Revealed, We Know Certain Things To Be Facts At Certain Periods Of Time, Which Turn Out Not To Be So Factual As Time Marches On.

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.

I'd Hate To See Any Film I'm Involved In Fail, Especially Artistically But Also Business-wise.

I Was Never A Fanatical Movie Person.

I Know I Have A Fairly Strong Feminine Side. I Find Myself Really Distanced From Male Behavior.

My Life Before Children I Don't Really Remember. I've Heard References To It, But I Really Don't Remember.

And If You Say A Word About This Over The Radio, The Next Wings You See Will Belong To The Flies Buzzing Over Your Rotting Corpse.

I Never Really Did A Western Western.

The Media Can Make Anything True Or Untrue. So If You Do 80 Films And You Play A Bad Guy Ten Times, Then You're A Bad Guy, And Then The Media Repeats That.

We Have A Tendency To Think Everyone's Idiotic And Everyone's Only Doing Something Idiotic, And The World Is Controlled By A Not-so-secret Group Of Morons. There's Great Truth In That, I Suppose, But Then It's Also Not True.

The One Natural Gift I Have Is Easy Access. That's The Only Natural I Gift I Have At All. You Have To Have That, The Third Eye.

When I Have Failed As An Actor I've Always Thought It Was My Fault. But When I Direct Something, I Wouldn't Want The Actors To Think It Was Their Fault.

I Think 1973 Was The Nadir Of Fashion. When You Watch The Coverage From That Era, You're Struck By The Astonishing Ugliness Of The Clothes.

I Don't Really Go Through A Process, It Goes Through Me.

I Don't Wake Up Drenched In Sweat Because I Haven't Been On Stage In Years.

There's No Worse Feeling In The World Than Realizing The Play You've Directed Doesn't Work.

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.

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