The Face Volume IV Issue #022 Spring 2025

The Face: born in London in 1980, the original, definitive style magazine. Reborn for 2019. Endless discovery for a new generation.

The John Malkovich cover

There is meta in Malkovich’s madness.

He let Spike Jonze use the inside of his head as the plot of a film. He’s designed 24 menswear collections, one of them named after himself. Now a new film, Opus, sees this 71-year-old double Oscar nominee play Moretti, a mysterious cultural titan who leads a young reporter (Ayo Edebiri) on a merry dance into his psyche.

Taken from the spring 25 issue of THE FACE:

An ambitious but green reporter crosses paths with a reclusive icon, a figure that holds great fascination for the rest of the world, resulting in an interview that for, better or worse, changes her perspective on life. Why has she, unremarkable writer that she is, been chosen to interview this great man? Where does this mysterious figure live, and why is there so much secrecy around it? And should we even care?

What I have sketched out is the rough plot of A24’s Opus, written and directed by Mark Anthony Green and starring John Malkovich as an egomaniacal, reclusive pop star named Moretti. This is also the plot of this piece, written by me, an ambitious young reporter with a sort of wilting greenness one might find in spinach left about a week too long in the refrigerator, and starring John Malkovich as Moretti. Of course, there the similarities end: in the movie there is also a cultish fixation on oyster shucking and murder.

For 30 years Moretti has been hiding. Now, though, he’s back, his long-awaited comeback album billed as his magnum opus – ​“the greatest album of modern times”. But it’s also a Trojan Horse intended to lure his frenemies in, with Moretti intent on ladling out revenge on a cluster of media heavyweights who have wronged him with bad reviews and untrue profiles. Malkovich’s Moretti is a smooth criminal, a potent combination of Prince, Bowie and Bush (Kate). Early in the film the young reporter (played by a radiant Ayo Edebiri) explains her career goals to her disinterested situationship, something along the lines of (and I paraphrase): ​“I want to write about celebrities because they’re interesting and that will make me seem interesting because I write about them and I want others to find me interesting.”