John Malkovich Interview For ‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon’

When the war on Cybertron between the Autobots and Decepticons appears lost to the Autobots, their leader, Sentinel Prime, attempts to launch the Ark from their planet, containing technology that could have saved his kind. Attacked by Starscream, it crashes on Earth’s moon in 1961. President John F. Kennedy makes his famous promise to the nation to put a man on the moon. The 1969 NASA moon landing is actually an investigation of the wrecked spacecraft.

As Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is taking his first tenuous steps into adulthood, while remaining a reluctant human ally of Optimus Prime and the Autobots, the Autobots learn of a Cybertronian spacecraft on the Moon and must race against the Decepticons to find it and learn its secrets, which could turn the tide into the apocalyptic final battle. ‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon’ is out in cinemas now in 2D, Real D 3D and IMAX 3D. Check out what John Malkovich, arguably one of the finest actors working today, had to say about ‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon’ below.

How did you get involved with this project?

John Malkovich: I was first approached to be involved by Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Mark Vahradian (producers), who I was working on with a film called ‘Red’ at the time. I really liked them enormously. They approached me about doing this and gave me the first two films, which of course I hadn’t seen, I don’t get to see anything, I’m always working (laughs). I really enjoyed them, especially the first one, then they got me the script which I liked, I liked the character. I had a couple of long talks with Michael Bay about where we wanted to go, to see if we were on the same page, “are you ok with this? Do you, or don’t you like this idea?“ Ect, to me it was like a vacation, it was a lot of fun.

How did you come up with the direction of your character Bruce?

John Malkovich: What I saw, based on what I read and speaking to Michael, this is just how I saw it; I met someone once who was very very vane, talked a lot, but the manner in which he spoke English….I didn’t really understand a word of what he was saying. He may of well have been humming a tune or saying “blah, blah, blah.” I couldn’t derive any clarity about anything that he was saying. But he said it super confidently and it was very well presented, he was very well put together. That’s how I saw the character I play, Bruce, who also Shia LaBeouf’s character Sam’s boss in the film.

He’s just one of these blowhards who’s always talking a lot, very loudly and very confidently, but he’s not really saying anything. He seems to have a lot of visual issues. In other words this can’t be in his field of sight, this can’t be in his field of site. To me it was funny because he says once or twice, “you remind me of me,” he says that to Shia’s character Sam. But I don’t think that’s true at all (laughs).

The majority of your scenes are with Shia LaBeouf, what was he like working with?

John Malkovich: I’ve only worked with Shia this one time and it was pretty briefly. Shia has enormous pressure on him, it’s a very gruelling, grinding schedule, thank God he’s young (laughs). I found him super prepared, super present and very very quick…to respond, kind of like a big motorcycle. He’s extremely responsive to what’s in the room and very very quick.

This is such a huge movie, you’ve worked on so many films, so many great movies. Have any of them compared to the scale of this movie?

John Malkovich: I’ve done a couple of big…probably the only one even remotely in comparison was one I’ve done with Robert Zemeckis (Beowolf), but that was motion capture and I don’t think that was even near the budget for this. But the actual shooting was very small, it’s almost like a rehearsal, the rest of the things come after. Only ‘Con Air’ was even remotely on the same scale, but that really wasn’t on the same scale, and not so much with visual effects afterwards. It’s an enormous…a massive undertaking. But it didn’t feel so so big on the set because a lot of my scenes were small, all of it with Shia, a little bit with John Turturro, a little bit with Rosie, but even that was a small thing. We only had one bigish sequence.