Top 120 John Malkovich Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “I think with actors, if you just don’t set about trying to crush their confidence immediately, you’re usually OK.”

— John Malkovich

52. “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.”

— John Malkovich

53. “I think people seem to sort of associate me with danger. And I don’t see that at all.”

— John Malkovich

54. “You can be a mason and build 50 buildings, but it doesn’t mean you can design one.”

— John Malkovich

55. “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.”

— John Malkovich

56. “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.”

— John Malkovich

57. “I still have a temper, I suppose.”

— John Malkovich

58. “I don’t like things too overstated in the cut or too perfect.”

— John Malkovich

59. “You can’t take a play someone has directed and do whatever you want with it.”

— John Malkovich

60. “I’m not a control maniac.”

— John Malkovich

61. “I find it hard to pre-plan every element of everything I do. It’s not my thing.”

— John Malkovich

62. “It’s funny – people think analysis or psychiatry is mad, and THEY go to CHURCH...”

— John Malkovich

63. “I prefer to conduct my life based on how I treat people.”

— John Malkovich

64. “You have to play your characters, not like them.”

— John Malkovich

65. “My father was a very contradictory man.”

— John Malkovich

66. “I’m more boring and more conservative.”

— John Malkovich

67. “I like design, I like details, to me it is just another form of self-expression.”

— John Malkovich

68. “I don’t care what other people think. I don’t think it matters.”

— John Malkovich

69. “I’ve done quite a few big American films.”

— John Malkovich

70. “I don’t really have a comprehension of being a public figure.”

— John Malkovich

71. “I never really did a western western.”

— John Malkovich

72. “I mean, anything that money can be made off will never be a problem to make, no matter what it is.”

— John Malkovich

73. “Reviews are destructive by their very nature.”

— John Malkovich

74. “I like very much to do movies.”

— John Malkovich

75. “Scary monsters are like Hula Hoops. They come in and out of fashion.”

— John Malkovich

76. “I like to direct movies, but I don’t like to goof around for eight years talking about it.”

— John Malkovich

77. “I haven’t physically attacked anyone in a couple of years.”

— John Malkovich

78. “I don’t want a trillion-dollar empire to run.”

— John Malkovich

79. “Theater is so ephemeral, and I love that.”

— John Malkovich

80. “I don’t want to be boring. But that’s not always easy.”

— John Malkovich

81. “I never wanted to be with someone who just hung around the house.”

— John Malkovich

82. “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.”

— John Malkovich

83. “Unlike my grandfather or my brother, I’ve actually been able to make some money at a racetrack.”

— John Malkovich

84. “I’m supposed to be a pretty good theater actor.”

— John Malkovich

85. “I don’t wake up drenched in sweat because I haven’t been on stage in years.”

— John Malkovich

86. “I can have incredible self-discipline. But see, I think it’s obviously a form of stupidity.”

— John Malkovich

87. “I was never a fanatical movie person.”

— John Malkovich

88. “It never occurred to me to be an actor.”

— John Malkovich

89. “I mean, a lot of time rehearsals are taken up with other things other than preparing a character.”

— John Malkovich

90. “The projects I look for to produce or direct would not be ones in which I would want to act.”

— John Malkovich

91. “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.”

— John Malkovich

92. “One doesn’t know if one had a happy childhood or not. I don’t really know what it means.”

— John Malkovich

93. “I’m very much a typical midwesterner, and I don’t think the condition is curable.”

— John Malkovich

94. “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.”

— John Malkovich

95. “As an actor there are no drawbacks.”

— John Malkovich

96. “I always wanted to be fashionable.”

— John Malkovich

97. “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.”

— John Malkovich

98. “I love to watch good actors who surprise and amuse me.”

— John Malkovich

99. “There are many, many benefits to being known for whatever it is you do. To deny that would be sort of asinine and vulgar.”

— John Malkovich

100. “I don’t think my parents know what I do.”

— John Malkovich