| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| John Cusack | ... | Craig Schwartz | |
| Cameron Diaz | ... | Lotte Schwartz | |
| Ned Bellamy | ... | Derek Mantini | |
| Eric Weinstein | ... | Father at Puppet Show | |
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Madison Lanc | ... | Daughter at Puppet Show |
| Octavia Spencer | ... | Woman in Elevator (as Octavia L. Spencer) | |
| Mary Kay Place | ... | Floris | |
| Orson Bean | ... | Dr. Lester | |
| Catherine Keener | ... | Maxine Lund | |
| K.K. Dodds | ... | Wendy | |
| Byrne Piven | ... | Captain Mertin | |
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Judith Wetzell | ... | Tiny Woman |
| John Malkovich | ... | John Horatio Malkovich | |
| Kevin Carroll | ... | Cab Driver | |
| Willie Garson | ... | Guy in Restaurant | |
Puppeteer Craig Schwartz and animal lover and pet store clerk Lotte Schwartz are just going through the motions of their marriage. Despite not being able to earn a living solely through puppeteering, Craig loves his profession as it allows him to inhabit the skin of others. He begins to take the ability to inhabit the skin of others to the next level when he is forced to take a job as a file clerk for the off-kilter LesterCorp, located on the five-foot tall 7½ floor of a Manhattan office building. Behind one of the filing cabinets in his work area, Craig finds a hidden door which he learns is a portal into the mind of John Malkovich, the visit through the portal which lasts fifteen minutes after which the person is spit into a ditch next to the New Jersey Turnpike. Craig is fascinated by the meaning of life associated with this finding. Lotte's trips through the portal make her evaluate her own self. And the confident Maxine Lund, one of Craig's co-workers who he tells about the ... Written by Huggo
This film is excellently made and based on an imaginative, intelligent and wacky script: a depressive puppeteer discovers by chance a mysterious portal in his five-foot tall office located on the 7,5th floor of a Manhattan office building, leading within the head of the movie star John Malkovich. The cast is excellent and the actors co-exist in perfect symbiosis, literally as well as figuratively. The quintet John Cusack + Cameron Diaz + Orson Bean + Catherine Keener + John Malkovich is awesome.
A not exhaustive list of my favorite quotes: Meet you in Malkovich in one hour. The truth is for suckers, Johnny boy. Let's have sex on his table and then make him eat an omelette off of it. I comes before U. You don't know how lucky you are being a monkey, because consciousness is a terrible curse. There is truth, and there are lies, and art always tells the truth, even when it's lying. She's got her doctorate in speech impedimentology from Case Western. It's the idea of being inside someone else's skin and seeing what they see and feeling what they feel.