3/17/2017 John Malkovich: Politics has gone through a portal into an alternate universe | Stage | The Guardian

John Malkovich: Politics has gone through a

portal into an alternate universe
After musical dramas featuring a serial killer and a notorious libertine, the actor returns to the stage as a
tyrant. He talks about playing sociopaths and why he gave up voting

John Malkovich in Just Call Me God, a collaboration with director/dramatist Michael Sturminger and organist and conductor Martin
Haselbck. Photograph: Paul Sturminger

Alfred Hickling
Friday 17 March 2017 09.00GMT

A ccording to the cult lm Being John Malkovich, the actors consciousness can be accessed
via a portal hidden behind a ling cabinet in a Manhattan oce. Meeting him in a
restaurant behind the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, I mention that I still possess one of
the promotional facemasks that were given out when the lm was released in 1999. For years,
Malkovichs cardboard countenance hung in a corner of the spare room, until we took it down
because it was freaking our visitors out.

I dont blame you, he says politely, with the slightly fey, sing-song inection that sounds so
disconcerting when it emanates from the mouths of the seducers, murderers and psychopaths
he is so good at portraying. I would do the same.

We are not here to talk about Being John Malkovich, however, but about being Satur Diman
Cha, a ctional despot who is the subject of a new music-drama Malkovich has developed
entitled Just Call Me God. Billed as the last speech of a dictator, it is a collaboration between
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the actor, Austrian director/dramatist Michael Sturminger and the organist and period
instrument conductor Martin Haselbck. The trio rst came together in 2009 to create The
Infernal Comedy, a music drama based on the confessions of the Austrian serial killer Jack
Unterweger, in which Malkovich strangled a couple of sopranos with their bra straps. This was
followed two years later by The Giacomo Variations, a quasi-operatic piece that interleaved the
memoirs of the elderly Casanova with excerpts from the Mozart-Da Ponte repertoire.

John Malkovich in Hamburg last week. Photograph: Christian

Charisius/AFP/Getty Images

Now aged 63, Malkovich has grown a white beard for the part of Satur, which gives him the air
of a slightly sinister Santa Claus. A self-confessed fashion addict who designs his own range of
clothing, he is wearing what appears to be a distressed, denim version of a traditional peasants
blouson, though it probably lies well beyond a peasants price bracket. Having based his
previous music-dramas on the confessions of a serial killer and a notorious libertine, I ask him
if his portrayal of a dictator might be seen to complete a trilogy of musical sociopaths?

It wasnt conceived as such, but yes, I can see that it might be interpreted in that way,
Malkovich says. At least, I cant foresee there being another one, because it takes too damn
long to set these things up. Im in awe of opera singers, but the one reason I could never do it
myself is that they all have to know precisely what theyre going to be doing in eight years
time.

Whereas the Unterweger and Casanova pieces were conceived around the period instrument
forces of the Wiener Akademie orchestra, Just Call Me God nds Malkovich pitting himself
against some of the most powerful philharmonic organs in Europe (after premiering in
Germany, the piece is due to be performed at the Union Chapel in London and at Birmingham
Town Hall).

It came about because our conductor, Martin Haselbck, also happens to be a highly skilled
organist, Malkovich explains. But the organ seemed to be the natural choice to accompany
the mental processes of a dictator. An organ is the most totalitarian of instruments it can
replicate the sound of an entire orchestra, yet all that power is under the control of a single
man.

Malkovich is keen to stress that Satur is a ctional creation. Nonetheless, its notable that the
dictator expresses a vision of the future in which the super-wealthy surround themselves with
borders, fences and walls. In the past, Malkovich has described himself as a non-ideological
person who has not voted in any election for more than 40 years. Has anything changed since
then?

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Being John Malkovich, 1999. Photograph: Allstar/Propaganda

FIlms

No. I didnt vote, he says. I retired my democratic right after [Democratic candidate] George
McGovern was defeated by Richard Nixon in 1972. Did I miss something? I dont think so. It
kind of goes on tick-tocking from left to right, with two sides shouting and squabbling for what
common good Im not quite sure. As Ive said before, if politics had anything to do with the
solving of problems then you could count me in.

Does he agree with Senator John McCains assessment that curtailing press freedom is the rst
step on the road towards dictatorship? Thats very complicated, he says. My family were
media folk [Malkovichs mother edited the local newspaper in the mining community of
Benton, Illinois]. When I was growing up, you read what came over the telex wire and that was
like the word of God. You just accepted it as fact. But over time one begins to discover thats
not the case at all. One begins to ask, what is the truth? What does it even mean? Where do I get
it? What do I do with it if I have it? And how am I supposed to manage any of this without
expiring from information sickness?

He becomes even more animated on the subject of restriction of movement. The issue with
borders means its becoming impossible for me to work, he says. It used to be that you
arrived at Heathrow with a valid work permit and they would let you through. Now its like 30
pages of stu, demanding that you account for where youve been every day for the past 30
years.

It sounds like a denition of totalitarianism already, I suggest. Yes it is! For example, I had to
go to Russia last autumn to shoot a lm. I told the producers, if you want me to come, youre
gonna have to cut through all the crap to get me into the country. So this woman came from
the embassy with her forensic, biometric specimen bag, whatever it was; and the terrifying
thing is, she had a passport photo of me that I had never even seen before.

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John Malkovich in The Giacomo Variations with Ingeborga

Dapkunaite, Sophie Klussmann and Florian Boesch, 2011.
Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

Malkovich describes himself as living in a state of self-imposed exile: he and his wife, Nicoletta
Peyran, maintain a house in Cambridge Massachusetts, but has spent more than half his life
living in Europe. Though not for very much longer, it seems. I have a place in southern France
but I cant see myself keeping it since they have made it quite clear Im not welcome any more,
he says. Now if I do a play in Paris it cant be reviewed in Le Monde. It wont even appear in
the listings, because Im not considered to be politically sound. Even arts coverage seems to
have become so politicised that if you dont t into a particular worldview then your play
doesnt exist.

It seems fair to assume that Malkovich is referring to the successful lawsuit he launched
against Le Monde in 2016 over false allegations that he kept a secret Swiss bank account. But
he claims that his wrangles with the French tax authorities have left him with no option but to
quit the country. Last year I directed a play, The Good Canary, in London and Paris. I worked
without a salary, but, since I was one of the producers, the French authorities calculated that I
had earned 25,000 (22,000). Then they sent me a tax demand for 29,000 euros. He spreads
his hands in a gesture of despair. I mean, even Elvis didnt get taxed at that level of stupidity.
And you just wonder, what kind of alternate universe are we now living in?

By this point, Malkovichs increased agitation has begun to attract the attention of some
German diners, who have been discreetly ignoring the movie star sitting in the corner. Im
suddenly reminded of the scene from Being John Malkovich in which the actor crawls through
the portal to his own brain and suers a metaphysical collapse in a smart restaurant full of
multiple versions of himself.

You know, it is a bit like that, Malkovich says, calming down. When I rst read Charlie
Kaufmans script it struck me as one of the smartest screenplays ever written; but now it seems
to have become almost prophetic. The whole political situation feels as if we have gone
through a portal into some alternate universe that cant really be happening. I mean, Brexit
how are you getting along with that? I tell him were still waiting for it to happen, but that
purchasing 150 at the airport has cost 151.

Exactly, he says, Its unreal. His face broadens into a wide, rictus-like grin. But do you
know when I rst realised that Brexit was inevitable? When the EU wanted to introduce
legislation that would mess with the British electric kettle. I thought, boy, if I really had
absolute power, thats the one thing I would have the sense to leave well alone.

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Just Call Me God is at Birmingham Town Hall (0121 780 3333) on 21 March and the Union
Chapel, London N1, (020 7638 8891, barbican.org.uk) from 23-25 March.
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Topics
Stage
John Malkovich/Being John Malkovich/Theatre/interviews

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