John Malkovich (born December 9, 1953) is an American actor. He is the recipient of several accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. Malkovich has appeared in more than 70 films, including The Killing Fields (1984), Empire of the Sun (1987), Dangerous Liaisons (1988), Of Mice and Men (1992), In the Line of Fire (1993), Mulholland Falls (1996), Con Air (1997), Rounders (1998), Being John Malkovich (1999), The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999), Shadow of the Vampire (2000), Ripley's Game (2002), Johnny English (2003), Burn After Reading (2008), Red (2010), Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011), Warm Bodies (2013), Cesar Chavez (2014), Bird Box (2018), and Velvet Buzzsaw (2019). He has also produced films such as Ghost World (2001), Juno (2007), and The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012). From the 2010s Malkovich began to appear on television. His lead roles include Blackbeard in the NBC pirate drama Crossbones (2014), Hercule Poirot in the three-part BBC One mystery series The ABC Murders (2018), and the title character in the HBO drama series The New Pope (2020). He has additionally made recurring guest appearances as Russian billionaire/criminal Grigor Andolov in Billions (2018–19), and has a supporting role as Dr. Adrian Mallory in the Netflix comedy series Space Force (2020–2022). Malkovich was born in Christopher, Illinois, on December 9, 1953. He grew up in Benton, Illinois. His father, Daniel Leon Malkovich, was a state conservation director, who published the conservation magazine Outdoor Illinois. His mother, Joe Anne (Choisser), owned the Benton Evening News daily newspaper and Outdoor Illinois. He grew up with an older brother, Danny, and three younger sisters, Amanda, Rebecca, and Melissa. In a May 2020 interview, he revealed that Melissa is his only surviving sibling. His paternal grandparents were Croatian immigrants from the town of Ozalj; his other ancestry includes English, Scottish, French, and German descent. Malkovich attended Logan Grade School, Webster Junior High School, and Benton Consolidated High School. During his high-school years, he appeared in various plays and the musical Carousel. He was also active in a folk gospel group, with whom he sang at churches and community events. As a member of a local summer theater project, he co-starred in Jean-Claude van Itallie's America Hurrah in 1972. After graduating from high school in 1972, Malkovich enrolled at Eastern Illinois University. He then transferred to Illinois State University, where he majored in theater, but dropped out. He studied acting at the William Esper Studio. In 1976, Malkovich, along with Joan Allen, Gary Sinise, and Glenne Headly, became a charter member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. He moved to New York City in 1980 to appear in a Steppenwolf production of the Sam Shepard play True West for which he won an Obie Award. In early 1982, he appeared in A Streetcar Named Desire with Chicago's Wisdom Bridge Theatre. Malkovich then directed a Steppenwolf co-production, the 1984 revival of Lanford Wilson's Balm in Gilead, for which he received a second Obie Award and a Drama Desk Award. His Broadway debut that year was as Biff in Death of a Salesman alongside Dustin Hoffman as Willy. Malkovich won an Emmy Award for this role when the play was adapted for television by CBS in 1985. One of his first film roles was as an extra alongside Allen, Terry Kinney, George Wendt and Laurie Metcalf in Robert Altman's film A Wedding (1978). He made his feature film debut as Sally Field's blind boarder Mr. Will in Places in the Heart (1984). For his portrayal of Mr. Will, Malkovich received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He also portrayed Al Rockoff in The Killing Fields (1984). He continued to have steady work in films such as Empire of the Sun, directed by Steven Spielberg, and the film adaptation of Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie (both 1987) directed by Paul Newman (who appeared in the film) and Joanne Woodward. He then starred in Making Mr. Right (also 1987), directed by Susan Seidelman. Malkovich gained significant critical and popular acclaim when he portrayed the sinister and sensual Valmont in the film Dangerous Liaisons (1988), a film adaptation of the stage play Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Christopher Hampton, who had adapted it from the 1782 novel of the same title by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. He later reprised this role for the music video of "Walking on Broken Glass" by Annie Lennox. He played Port Moresby in The Sheltering Sky (1990), directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and appeared in Shadows and Fog (1991), directed by Woody Allen. In 1990, he recited, in Croatian, verses of the Croatian national anthem Lijepa naša domovino (Our Beautiful Homeland) in Nenad Bach's song "Can We Go Higher?" Malkovich starred in the 1992 film adaptation of John Steinbeck's novella Of Mice and Men as Lennie alongside Gary Sinise as George. He was nominated for another Oscar, again in the Best Supporting Actor category, for In the Line of Fire (1993). He was the narrator for the film Alive (1993). Malkovich was directed for the second time (after Dangerous Liaisons) by Stephen Frears in Mary Reilly (1996), a new adaptation of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde tale, co-starring Julia Roberts. Malkovich also appeared in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999), directed by Luc Besson, playing the French king-to-be Charles VII. Though he played the title role in the Charlie Kaufman-penned Being John Malkovich (1999), he played a slight variation of himself, as indicated by the character's middle name of "Horatio". Malkovich made a cameo appearance in Adaptation (2002) and appeared as himself during the filming of Being John Malkovich. The Dancer Upstairs, Malkovich's directorial film debut, was released in 2002. Around the same time, he played Patricia Highsmith's anti-hero Tom Ripley in Ripley's Game (also 2002), the second film adaptation of Highsmith's 1974 novel, the first being Wim Wenders' The American Friend (1977).