By Deke Rivers
Hollywood legend John Malkovich has played some great bad guys over his long and illustrious career, but the sinister Teddy KGB from the 1998 drama Rounders is unquestionably one of his best.
“I want to be successful,” John Malkovich once said. “But I would like it to be a success with something that doesn’t make me want to vomit all over the screening room after I’ve seen it.” For the most part, John Malkovich has achieved this career goal. A strange, idiosyncratic character actor and leading man who can turn even the most seemingly mundane role into a piece of cinematic flash-fire, John Malkovich is a cinematic force unto himself. Malkovich arrived in Hollywood after founding Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater Company, where he directed and performed in some of America’s most vital non-commercial theatre productions. On stage, Malkovich was a fierce and uncompromising talent, and he brought that sizzle straight to the big screen, picking up an Oscar nomination for his moving turn as a blind man in Places In The Heart, which was his first major role.
From there, he settled in as a cinematic fixture, jumping effortlessly from supporting roles to leads, and from indies to blockbusters. Though he has a number of question marks on his resume (Mary Reilly, anyone? Johnny English?), Malkovich’s masterstrokes are many: he was searing as a man on a dark mission in Eleni; made for a fascinating rogue in Empire Of The Sun; went to the brink in The Sheltering Sky; invested the hulking Lennie with crunching pathos in Of Mice And Men; made memorable cameos in Jennifer Eight and Knockaround Guys; found the heart and soul of a real-life oddball who masqueraded as reclusive film director Stanley Kubrick in Colour Me Kubrick; and debuted auspiciously as a director with The Dancer Upstairs. Malkovich forever sealed the deal on his immortal cult status, however, when he played himself in Spike Jonze’s modern classic Being John Malkovich.
But when many movie lovers think of John Malkovich, they think of his bad guys. He excavated great depths as the villainous, duplicitous Valmont in Dangerous Liaisons; and created truly unforgettable bad guys in Con Air, In The Line Of Fire, The Portrait Of A Lady and Ripley’s Game. “I’m drawn to a character with a lack of humanity,” Malkovich once said. “People give reasons for being cruel or sadistic but I think it’s just a lack of humanity and concern for others. I think I’m good at playing bad guys because I don’t like them. Audiences are attracted to them but I hate them. It’s strange.”
One of the best of John Malkovich’s bad guys is Teddy KGB in the compelling 1998 drama Rounders. Stylishly directed by John Dahl, Rounders follows Mike McDermott (Matt Damon), a law student with a keen taste for wagering. Rather than gambling at Wildz, however, Mike has a thing for poker, and frequently does the rounds of the underground pro gambling scene in New York and Atlantic City. Against the protestations of his girlfriend (Gretchen Mol), and not helped by his impulsive, self-centred best friend Worm (Edward Norton), Mike soon finds himself in deep to the grimly named Teddy KGB (Malkovich), a Russian mobster who can work the cards like nobody else.
With his bizarre wardrobe, intense mannerisms, and thick Russian accent, John Malkovich twists the character into something truly fierce and funny. Though Teddy KGB is a dangerous man capable of ruining everything for Mike, the screen comes alive whenever he’s on it, and he provides many of Rounders’ most memorable moments. John Malkovich lands just on the right of absurdist caricature with the character, and the result is something truly extraordinary. “Certain people still come up to me in airports, on planes, in restaurants or whatever, and that’s the thing they want to talk about: Teddy KGB,” John Malkovich has said. “A lot of times it’s people who went through a poker player phase or are still going through it. It was a pretty funny part, flashy in that way. And the real decision about that was just how broad to go.”
Teddy KGB in the excellent Rounders is John Malkovich at his bizarre, unforgettable best…
