Revealed

SHOW #34

John Malkovich

John Malkovich is the thespian maestro with an apparently insatiable appetite for bizarre roles; now he’s back with another, and CNN's Revealed is in the sidelines for a close up look at the theatrical process from start to finish.

Malkovich first won international acclaim as the voracious womaniser Vicomte de Valmont in "Dangerous Liaisons", followed closely by the loveable simpleton Lennie in "Of Mice and Men", and the fiercest of bad boys in a score of box-office hits. Widely considered one of the leading actors of his generation, Malkovich is more than capable of projecting warmth and pathos – yet thanks to the colorful cast of sinister and strange characters he's played, he's invariably associated with oddballs. His filmography coupled with his distinctive lingering voice and penchant for long pauses in conversation have made the man himself the subject of much intrigue, and the perfect subject for a Revealed.

Of course, for a man who claims to care little for fame, it's not something he relates to, remarking "I don't have the slightest idea why people have that fascination. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I don't have it about anybody. In this industry people either love you or hate you or don’t know you. All of those are fine by me." But intrigued the world remains. No surprise then that he was made subject of the cult classic "Being John Malkovich"- a foray into the mind of a man no one can pin down.

This time he’s playing Jack Unterweger, the Austrian serial-killer and poet, in a production which weaves opera and theatre into a spine-chilling unison. From Barcelona to Vienna, Revealed follows the actor in rehearsals and production, for an unusually intimate look at the behind-the-scenes of this latest production, "The Infernal Comedy". A highly collaborative project, Malkovich is delighted to return to the stage, his first love, and to co-direct alongside a new-found creative companion - writer and director Michael Sturminger. "I feel at the age of 55, after having done a kind of lifetime of plays that I finally met the person that I should be working with, weirdly enough."

For Malkovich, the opportunity for creative expression extends beyond the stage, and into the world of fashion. In between runs of the play he invites us along to observe the progress with his fashion line Technobohemain. Not one to put his name to something for the sake of it, Malkovich does it all himself, from sketches to prototypes to selecting the fabric, professing that he is in fact, in his words, a "fabric freak" who cannot get enough of this creative process. CNN accompanies him as he meanders through the stalls of a Paris fabric fair and to the Italian town of Prato; into the studios and factories behind his fashion line.

But at the end of the day it's on the stage that he finds his feet, as he tells CNN: "Theatre reminds me of life…theatre lives in the moment, of the moment and for the moment." He may be notorious for his eccentricities, but his friends and colleagues repeatedly assert that he is simply a nice guy and a great actor. In the words of Antony Hopkins, "he is remarkably gentle and intelligent, with the right degree of cynicism and objectivity about this profession." Glenn Close meanwhile shares with us the ease with which she "fell in love with him" on screen, lauding him as "one of the great originals, not only in our profession, but just on the planet." It's quite a claim to live up to.