If the title hadn’t already been claimed, Wild Horse Nine could have been called Being John Malkovich. Martin McDonagh‘s latest dark comedy, which opens in theaters on Nov. 6, gives the veteran actor and two-time Oscar nominee a character who feels like the natural culmination of the many and varied parts he’s played over the decades.
As aging CIA operative Chris Carlisle, Malkovich connoisseurs will be able to spot elements of the characters he previously portrayed in films like Dangerous Liaisons, In the Line of Fire, Of Mice and Men, and even Con Air, but those pieces have been stitched together in new and vibrant ways by the star and his director. It’s the kind of late-career showcase role that many actors dream of, and it has made Malkovich the odds-on favorite to claim his first Best Actor statuette.
Speaking with Gold Derby, McDonagh acknowledges that Chris and Malkovich are intertwined in his mind.
“I have loved the danger that John brings to certain characters over the years, as well as the comedy or sensitivity he brings to others,” the Oscar-winning writer-director says. “I wanted to make sure that all of those things were in this one character, and I knew John would be able to be dangerous, funny, heartbroken and heartbreaking. There isn’t another actor of his generation who can do all of those things.”
Asked whether he found that Malkovich is aware of his own meme-worthy iconography — in the same way that, say, Nicolas Cage is — McDonagh emphasizes that his star isn’t chronically online. “He’s more of an erudite actor who cares about the craft,” he notes. “The bigger idea that we all have of him is not part of his make-up, to be honest.”
For his part, Malkovich tells us that he and McDonagh never actively discussed Chris’s resemblance to characters he’s played in the past. “I always assume that’s a given with actors… but I don’t remember ever discussing it or past work,” he says. “I don’t even know what Martin’s seen of the things I’ve done.”
One deep-cut Malkovich character that may come to mind when watching Wild Horse Nine is Dr. Jeff Peters from Susan Seidelman’s eternally underrated 1987 romantic comedy, Making Mr. Right. A socially awkward scientist, Dr. Peters creates an android doppelgänger who is supposed to complete a grand space odyssey, but instead falls in love with Ann Magnuson’s PR expert. Rather than break the couple apart, Peters ultimately decides to climb aboard the rocket himself, and his parting words to Earth are: “I’m not very good with people” — a diagnosis that Malkovich agrees would also apply to Chris.
“He says that Lee is his only friend,” the actor notes, referring to Chris’s CIA colleague, played by Sam Rockwell, who has accompanied him during an extended exile on Easter Island. “He never had a friend before Lee. So apparently, he doesn’t have highly developed people skills.”
It helps that the co-stars’ friendship extended offscreen. Rockwell says that he had his own experience watching Malkovich channel some of his vintage characters during the rehearsal process. “Martin asked John to turn up the heat on a certain line, and John said, ‘Sure, no problem,’” the Oscar winner recalls. “Then John blew the tops of our heads off with the kind of rage you saw in In the Line of Fire. Martin and I were delighted that we had front-row tickets to the John Malkovich show. We were giddy with that.”
“Sam and I did every scene hundreds and hundreds of times before we shot the film,” Malkovich adds. “So the lines between ourselves and our character had already started to shape-shift very early on.”
Wild Horse Nine co-star Parker Posey was also part of those rehearsal sessions, and remembers “nerding out” with the rest of the cast over Malkovich’s evolving performance. “I got to listen to John and Sam run their lines and get them pitch perfect,” the actress says. “It’s one of those movies where the actors rise to the material and you just watch them emotionally play the scene. There’s a real wit and a sense of play to it that we were all enjoying while making it.
“And, of course, John is so sublime and he and Sam have so much love for each other as actors,” Posey adds. “Seeing that brought to life through these characters is something that we don’t see a lot in the movies that are being made now. They have a lot of chemistry and zhush.”
