The Actor’s Cut

Only a chap with innate, effortless panache could believe style to be unimportant. Enter the refined sophisticate John Malkovich

My interest in style is purely aesthetic. I believe nothing about style to be really important. Rather like the theory I have about television – which is that it takes about 30 points off your IQ each time you appear on it – talking about style seems to make you suffer some sort of degradation. Aesthetics are just a natural part of life. Some people have them, some people don’t – and don’t have the slightest interest in them. And that’s great. I somehow do not like an aesthetic mess. A bushman can have style, yet it feels pretentious talking about style. Regardless, I have been involved in fashion for many years.

In the past I have done costumes for plays and I have worked in fashion because some of my friends are designers, Bella Freud being one of them. I’ve worked with her and directed three of her fashion films, in place of a defilée. All the characters wear Bella’s clothes. One, Strap-Hanging, was based on an article I read years ago about a Japanese man who invented rubber underpants that would expand to 30 times their normal size in case of a tsunami, which became rather less funny after the tsunami hit, but such is fashion. The second, Lady Behave, was about a kind of trust-fund Notting Hill crowd who sometimes have issues with household and even personal hygiene. They are all sent to Lady Behave etiquette school where Arielle Dombasle plays the headmistress. The third, Hideous Man, was based on a silly album my friend Gary Sinise put together about a 600lb poet who lives in a room in his own waste. A group of poet-type women invite him to give a recital, but he is killed in an accident with a trash compactor so they perform a kind of homage with some of his better-known work, such as Small Dying Bird or Nobody Told Me. I think they’re all quite funny.

In 2001 I was asked by someone to design my own line. I thought about it, and went, “OK. Why not?” I’ve always had an interest in fabric and in clothes – how they are made, cut and styled – and I thought it might be interesting and educational to do, which it was. I might even do it again. The way people generally dress in the US, often in sweatpants, is none of my concern. I’m not out to change anything, since I believe you – and certainly I – can’t really do so anyway. I’d just like to create another option for people to wear as I think most of what we make is quite comfortable. My collection is much dressier than the American norm, without being formal. Style evolves and changes. In the past I used to wear a suit every day. Now I feel most comfortable in jeans. Whatever you feel comfortable with is right for you.

This summer I’m doing an opera in Vienna based on the story of the Austrian serial killer Jack Unterweger. Birgit Hutter, a good friend of mine who did Klimt, is doing the costumes. Unterweger was only seen in one outfit after being released from prison – a white suit and a black-and-white polyester polka-dot shirt, which was the kind of glitterati-staple outfit he wore in between murdering prostitutes across the globe. It’s a stylish outfit in a professional-clown kind of way.

The last thing I costumed in its entirety was Lost Land, a play by Stephen Jeffreys (who wrote The Libertine) about some Hungarian aristos who made Tokaji wine at the end of the First World War. My inspiration for the costumes was “period with allowances”, meaning I could do whatever I felt like!

Gianni Agnelli was a very well-dressed and stylish man. Of course, he had all the money and glamour in the world but, aside from being fabulously wealthy, he also had a terrific sense of style. It’s no wonder that many people still copy his style. He obviously had flair. He also put thought into the image he presented, and that isn’t very common nowadays.
For me, any film with Cary Grant in it has style because he was very stylish himself. As an actor, costumes are generally something over which you have little control. However, depending on the costumier, costumes can become every bit as important as writing or directing since they are pretty much the first thing people see.

Vicki Russell, Ken Russell’s daughter, not only has an incredible sense of style but also understands how it affects and expresses character. I did Colour Me Kubrick with her, and her costumes made a massive difference. I enjoyed wearing the camp, eccentric outfits she designed. She’s very witty. I didn’t know Vicki before we started so I didn’t have any expectations. In a certain way, it almost became her film – she had such a massive influence on it. Essentially, I’d get there and have all the costumes ready and she’d already made decisions such as, “In this scene you will wear a steel-blue Fifties-style Maidenform bra” without ever discussing it. She presented a whole lot of palettes to pick from or adapt, from Marilyn Monroe jewellery to dirty-old-man overcoats, via various scarves, and the wardrobe of a sort of travel-guide person who’d organise 36-hour trips to Ibiza in which you never actually leave the disco. Vicki has the ability to create histories and worlds. She’d be very clear with her directions and visions: “Here’s your kimono, your high heels and fishnets. Live and be happy!” The fantastic persona I play is perfectly underlined by Vicki’s flamboyant, mad outfits. I’m asleep in one scene when Jim Davidson’s character realises I’m not Stanley Kubrick and I’m not going to put him on the Late Show With David Letterman and fly him over in my private jet. For that, Vicki gave me a kind of Ann Summers sleep mask with “Tease Me” embroidered on it, and I think most people wouldn’t think of things like that. Such costumes really help my performance – they almost do the work for you. So, really, Vicki took a lot of decisions for me.

The impact of costumes on an actor is huge: it shapes the way you move, it puts you right into that world. I think a good costumier does everything.

- John Malkovich is FQR’s expert on all things stylish and cultural

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