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Exclusive: Wme has signed John Malkovich, the two-time Academy Award nominee and Emmy-winning actor, writer, producer and director. Malkovich has appeared in more than 70 films, even one that was named after him — Being John Malkovich. He is just as industrious on the stage, directing and starring in London, New York and Chicago stage productions. He most recently received the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Director for the Zach Helm play The Good Canary in…...

Exclusive: Wme has signed the writer, director and playwright Zach Helm. Helm is perhaps best known for scripting Stranger Than Fiction, writing and directing Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium and writing the 2016 West End play Good Canary which John Malkovich directed. More recent scripts include The Mercenary for Fox, Chernin Entertainment and Epic Magazine, and he’s attached to direct his script We Do Not Forget and the Steve Zaillian-produced Culo Quasars Cocaine Chaos…...

Exclusive: Wme has signed the writer, director and playwright Zach Helm. Helm is perhaps best known for scripting Stranger Than Fiction, writing and directing Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium and writing the 2016 West End play Good Canary which John Malkovich directed. More recent scripts include The Mercenary for Fox, Chernin Entertainment and Epic Magazine, and he’s attached to direct his script We Do Not Forget and the Steve Zaillian-produced Culo Quasars Cocaine Chaos…...

The actor and director on addiction and success, Trump’s bankruptcies, and the film he wrote that no one will see for 100 years

John Malkovich has acted in 98 films and is about to make his London directorial debut with Zach Helm’s Good Canary, a play about success, secrets and addiction. He has directed the play in Mexico and in France, where it won Molière awards for direction and design.

What drew you to Good Canary and why return to it?

Lucy Liu, who was at the time going out with Zach, originally approached me with the script and I loved it. Theatre is like surfing. An actor paddles out, gets on a board and waits for the wave: the wave is the collision between your material and the public. You don’t create the wave, you ride it. In good material, there will almost invariably be a wave – and...

Almost 25 years after he played the Vicomte de Valmont in Stephen Frears's film, Malkovich directs a French-language version of Christopher Hampton's play in Paris

In 1988, John Malkovich donned a periwig to play the predatory Vicomte de Valmont in Stephen Frears's film Dangerous Liaisons. Almost 25 years later, the actor has stepped into the director's shoes with a French language version of the original play in Paris.

Malkovich's production of Christopher Hampton's Les Liaisons Dangereuses – itself an adaptation of a novel by Choderlos de Laclos – retains traces of period costume, but gives the play several modern twists, with the characters' letter-writing replaced by texts and tweets. "We're doing a kind of mix between the 18th century and now," Malkovich told Agence France-Presse.

Rehearsals began in November, before the production opened at the Théàtre de l'Atelier in the Latin Quarter of the French capital in January, where it is booking until 30 June.

John Malkovich has reportedly put his family before his career by turning down a lead role on Broadway. While the actor is in talks to direct the New York production of the play The Good Canary, he told the New York Post that taking on the starring role would be unfair on his family. Instead, the household will join the 55-year-old Burn After Reading actor for a brief stint in Austria, where Malkovich will work on a new play. "I have kids at home who don't want to leave their friends and move, except they will when I'm (more)...