John Malkovich Rejected ‘Grueling’ Marvel Offers BeforeFantastic Four: First Steps: ‘Pay Me’

Mar. 15, 2025

John Malkovich on Jan. 27.Photo:Deadline/Deadline via Getty

Deadline/Deadline via Getty

John Malkovichis soon to make hisMarvel Cinematic Universedebut. But it wasn’t his first superheroic offer.

The Oscar-nominated actor, 71, couldn’t say much about his mysterious role in the upcomingThe Fantastic Four: First Stepsin aninterview withGQpublished Tuesday, Feb. 18, but he confirmed that he declined other Marvel roles that had previously been on the table.

“The reason I didn’t do them had nothing to do with any artistic considerations whatsoever,” he said. “I didn’t like the deals they made, at all.”

Noting that Marvel and such comic book adaptations are “quite grueling to make,” Malkovich added, “If you’re going to hang from a crane in front of a green screen for six months, pay me. You don’t want to pay me, it’s cool, but then I don’t want to do it, because I’d rather be onstage, or be directing a play, or doing something else.”

John Malkovich at the Sundance Film Festival premiere of ‘Opus’ on Jan. 27.Arturo Holmes/Getty

Arturo Holmes/Getty

Malkovich stars oppositeAyo Edebiriin writer-director Mark Anthony Green’s A24 thrillerOpus(in theaters March 14), playing a reclusive celebrity pop star who appears to be the leader of a strange cult. In the newly rebootedFantastic Four, the actor’s role is unknown; he was spotted in ateaser trailerwith a mop of curly gray hair and beard.

His first Marvel role, it turns out, felt “not that dissimilar to doing theater,” the stage veteran told GQ. “You imagine a bunch of stuff that isn’t there and do your little play.”

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Elsewhere in his interview, Malkovich said he moved to a suburb outside Boston, Massachusetts to be near his young granddaughter. Of his longtime partner Nicoletta Peyran, with whom he shares two children, he said marriage was “never a goal of hers, never really a goal of mine.”

20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios

Among Malkovich’s other upcoming films are the animatedA Winter’s Journey;Sacrificecostarring Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Evans and Salma Hayek; and Sergiu Celibidache biopicThe Yellow Tie.

Opusis in theaters March 14.The Fantastic Four: First Stepsis in theaters July 25.

source: people.com