« Village idiocy: M. Night's Oscar senselessness | Main | Bubble under: a comprehensive local look »
March 07, 2006
Mudd in your eye: Producing John Malkovich
With the release of The Libertine and the upcoming Art School Confidential, the NY Times' Michael Joseph Gross gets an update on prodco Mr. Mudd fromJohn Malkovich. Of his driver on the set of Killing Fields, Malkovich again recounts: "One day, we were driving somewhere," the actor said, "and Mr. Mudd was doing his usual running of Buddhist monks and bicyclists and old women off the road, and cackling. And he said to me: 'Sometime Mr. Mudd kill. Sometime Mr. Mudd not kill.' That seemed to me such a wise, such a sage philosophy," Mr. Malkovich said, and one, he suggested, suited to the unpredictable and sometimes brutal business of filmmaking. 
In 1998, when he formed an independent production company with his partners Lianne Halfon and Russell Smith, the trio briefly considered naming it Jerry's Kids but instead took the name of the philosopher-chauffeur... "The world just doesn't owe you anything — I'm probably just too Midwestern for that — even if you're really good," he said... "Obviously we'd all like it to be easier. Obviously we'd all like it to be not such a struggle to do what are essentially quite small independent films that are funny, compelling, of interest. But it hasn't been easy, and it probably won't be any easier. But that's the way it is." [Here's a list of future Mudd.]
Posted by pride at March 7, 2006 05:03 PM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)