What's So Mysterious About John Malkovich?

From directing a play in Latvian to designing eccentric fashion lines to shooting a film that won't be seen until 2115, John Malkovich is one of our most dependably freaky movie stars. In his latest, A24's Opus, he plays a reclusive genius pop star. To learn about the peculiar new role, GQ traveled all the way to... the suburbs of Boston.

- BY GABRIELLA PAIELLA

JOHN MALKOVICH lives behind a white picket fence. I arrive on a gray winter morning, double-checking that I've got the right place. This isn't exactly where I expected to find one of our most idiosyncratic, unconventional actors: a sleepy suburb of Boston, passing modest houses and a "Slow: Turtle Crossing" sign on my way over.

I unlatch the fence gate and, sure enough, Malkovich is waiting for me at his front door. The place is a rental, so he can't hang anything on the walls. Most of his stuff is in storage. But the few pieces of decor he's brought in do feel appropriate for Malkovichian: an elaborate woven rug with tufts of hot pink yarn depicting the Kremlin, a side table resembling an elephant's foot. Now 71 years old, he has been firm in his tastes for as long as he can recall.

"I had an older brother, and I can remember he and his friends driving by and throwing beer bottles at me because of some outfit choice I had made in the sixth grade," he tells me. "I was always interested in how things looked and in giving something visual cohesion. An architect that I was working with on a project once," he says to me. "Everything doesn't have to match. And I thought, Yes, it does. What the fuck are you talking about? Of course it has to match."