Being John Malkovich

Being John Malkovich is a 1999 film written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze.

Trivia

• An early draft of the script which circulated on the Internet showed a version of the plot that differed significantly, especially in the second half; in this early version, Satan is shown to be behind the entire concept of inhabiting others' brains.
• In the original script, the closing credits were going to play "Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head" by They Might Be Giants
• Craig discovers that LesterCorp is on the 7 1/2 floor of the Mertin Flemmer building by seeing a "7 1/2" on a building directory in the lobby. This moment occurs at the 7 1/2-minute point of the film.
• The play that Malkovich is reading into a tape recorder is Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard." The line beginning "I'm as hungry as the winter..." is at the end of Act Two, where Trofimov is speaking to Anya, pontificating on his rejection of materialism.
• The play that John Malkovich is rehearsing on stage is Shakespeare's "Richard III." The lines "Was ever a woman in this humour woo'd? / Was ever a woman in this humour won?" are I.ii.239-240, where Richard is gloating over his use of power, lies and crime to obtain the woman he desires, Queen Anne. This rehearsal scene is immediately followed by the first time that Craig has sex with Maxine via Malkovich.
• At the beginning of the film when Craig is trying to guess Maxine's name, one of the names he mumbles is "Emily", the name of the child that Maxine gives birth to at the end of the film. The names Craig mumbles is an allusion to Dr. Lester and his group of friends that can exist within other souls.
• Willie Garson (Guy in Restaurant) improvised the scene where he encounters John Malkovich and says, "You were really great in that movie where you play that retard." According to Garson, director Spike Jonze had instructed Garson to use the word "retard" as many times as he could.
• The 1990 Steppenwolf Theatre building in Chicago (Malkovich was one of the first members of the Steppenwolf Theatre, and remains one today) includes a half-floor used for storage.
• Charlie Kaufman sent the screenplay to Francis Ford Coppola after he wrote it. Coppola liked it very much and showed it to his daughter's husband, Spike Jonze. Jonze liked the screenplay so much that he approached Kaufman about directing the movie.
• Several characters in the movie remember Malkovich as having played a jewel thief, even though, as he correctly points out, he never did. However, Malkovich did eventually play a jewel thief in Johnny English (2003).
• The original script has Kevin Bacon in place of Charlie Sheen, as Malkovich's actor friend.
• In the first draft of the script, Lester and his friends weren't using Malkovich's portal as a means for extending their lives, but in a plot to take over the world in the name of Satan. Satan was the mysterious 'Flemmer' that the Merton-Flemmer building was half named after.
• In the scene in the Merton-Flemmer building lobby, when Craig browses the floor listings to find LesterCorp, the camera scrolls past the listing "Eric Zumbrunnen, CPA". Eric Zumbrunnen is the film's editor.
• Spike Jonze makes a cameo as Derek Mantini's assistant.
• The play that Craig was performing with his puppets (when he gets smacked by an angry parent) is based on the letters of Abelard and Heloise, written between 1115 and 1117 AD, which were found, copied and abridged by Johannes de Vepria, a 15th century Cistercian monk, into "Ex Epistolis duorum amantium" ("From the Letters of Two Lovers"). This became a classic document of early tragic romance used by many artists in their work including William Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet. In addition, screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's later project Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) took its title, and no small amount of inspiration, from Alexander Pope's "Eloisa to Abelard."
• A fictional behind-the-scenes glimpse of the making of this movie appears in screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's subsequent movie, Adaptation (2002).
• Orson Bean had a role in the film Innerspace (1987); also about a man taking control of another man's body.