John Malkovich Quotes

Movies bore me; especially my own.

I detest acting because it is sheer drudgery.

I really think that people who want to think more serious have to go and watch theater. Theater is a very sterilized art form. Not as much as music, but very close to music.

Theater is a recreation. It can be much more, but unless it's recreation, I don't see the point of it.

I never wanted to see another quiz show.

I got so I was really just sick of sculpture.

Life would be tolerable but for its amusements.

I hate entertainment.

I was kind of bored playing drums in a band. Which was depressing, because playing in the band was kind of a golden ticket.

I have just gotten to the point where I have been very, very disgusted with the fact that nothing is going on down there.

I don't think musicals are my thing. I'm not a big fan. Definitely have to get on the stage and do something like a straight play.

I think every show I do, whether I am doing eight shows a week of a Broadway show... I think, "that's a show I'll never get back"... I go home at night and I think to myself, "that was my favorite".

When you come to actually act, it's a game. It may be a very serious game, but it's still a game. If you lose that sense of play, the work suffers.

Actors are the jockeys of literature. Others supply the horses, the plays, and we simply make them run.

In college I was one of six males who auditioned for five male roles in a comedy play. I was the one rejected. At that moment I made up my mind never to place myself at the mercy of some pompous, goateed, black-turtleneck-shirted "should I yay him or nay him?" pantywaist ever again.

I started off in theater; I did exclusively theater for four or five years. In the last few years, television has come along but I can still make film. I feel very privileged that I can move between them.

The stage is not merely the meeting place of all the arts, but is also the return of art to life.

You can read a Shakespeare play, but does that mean you wouldn't want to see it on the stage?

I consider theater, this is a vacation for me from LA, I sort of view this as I get to have this vacation and during my vacation I get to work on acting. It's like an acting class. And if I go too long without doing a play, I just feel empty. Like approaching a role, I feel like the pool is very shallow, like I'm drawn from it. So I need to come back and do a play, fortunately I've been able to, every couple of years.

I love theater, I would love to do a play, but it's hard to beat.

I was raised in the theater and, as it turned out, a TV show was like performing a new one-act play. So, it was really no different.

The theater is a need for me. It's a terrible attraction, something I'm compelled to do. And one derives a form of nourishment from the theater which you can never get from films. Making films weakens you in some way. With the theater, the work itself is a regenerative process.

I certainly did plays in high school and community theater, and I want to get back on the stage.

Theater is a really exciting place to return to all the time because it's incredible training for an actor.

Performing to me is the most vital, most important. It's my favorite part of all of it. I just want to be on stage.