John Malkovich has never been “sexy” or “hot” by People Magazine’s standards, and yet women have swooned for Malkovich for years. He’s crazy-talented, brilliant, charismatic, watchable and delightfully weird. Malkovich was (arguably) at the height of his powers in the late 1980s through the 1990s. He worked constantly, he was beloved by costars and directors, and he had at least one torrid on-set affair. I thought this was well-known lore, but CB told me that she had never heard it: Malkovich and Michelle Pfeiffer had an affair when they filmed Dangerous Liaisons, with both actors cheating on their respective spouses and blowing up their respective marriages. Like, that was how torrid the affair was, it blew up both marriages and Malkovich and Pfeiffer could barely speak about it in the years and decades that followed. Well, it’s been… 37 years or so. And Malkovich ended up talking a bit about the affair/relationship in a podcast interview.
Last week, John Malkovich pulled a rare move by opening up to the “Fashion Neurosis” podcast about his notorious affair with one of his co-stars, Michelle Pfeiffer. The two Oscar-nominated actors began an actual liaison while filming 1988’s “Dangerous Liaisons,” and it could be considered dangerous because both were married at the time, Malkovich to fellow actor Glenne Headly and Pfeiffer to Peter Horton.
The “Being John Malkovich” star went on to imply that the one thing he regrets about the affair was losing his once-satisfying professional relationship with Pfeiffer, describing her as “someone I valued greatly as a colleague, was great fun and moving, and with me, incredibly fair. And … I certainly wasn’t,” Malkovich admitted.
“I think I’ve learned over the course of my life that a great colleague is actually kind of rarer than anything,” he later added. “And when that relationship becomes more than collegial or more than a friendship, even a profound friendship, then, at least in my experience — and it might be my particular psychology or stupidity or ineptness, or all of the above — then you lose a great colleague.”
Malkovich went on to compare his professional relationship with Pfeiffer to working with actor Ingeborga Dapkunaite, who worked with him in films like 2000’s “Shadow of a Vampire” and 2017’s “About Love. For Adults Only.”
“Ingeborga and I are still, 33 years now, working together and have remained great friends and colleagues because there is a line never crossed,” Malkovich said. “That’s kind of what I’ve learned — that when a thing like that happens, it’s probably, might be, not retrievable,” he added.
Although Pfeiffer has never publicly commented on her affair with Malkovich, she has openly gushed over her second husband, producer and “Big Little Lies” creator David E. Kelley, whom she married in 1993.
For both Malkovich and Pfeiffer, it must have been a “you live and you learn” situation – neither of them went on a revenge tour, they weren’t lobbing accusations against each other, they just crossed a line, had an affair, briefly tried to give the relationship a go, and it didn’t work so they moved on. Like, this might be the first time Malky has even spoken about Michelle or the affair in decades. Blame the corsets! Or blame the story – god, I love Dangerous Liaisons, it’s one of the best costume dramas of all time, with all of the actors doing great work.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Oeda Reportajes/Look Press/Avalon and UPPA/Photoshot/Avalon.
