KEEPING UP WITH THE JONZE

Being John Malkovich is hilarious, intelligent, witty and lots of fun ... unlike its director.

Chris Roberts looks for answers while Spike Jonze pours tomato sauce over the table

HE MAY be one of the hippest names alive, but 29-year-old Adam Spiegel, also known as Spike Jonze, director of Being John Malkovich, is dressed as a parody of a supernerd and grinning the grin of the truly inane. Judging by his creative output and stellar personal life, you could be forgiven for expecting this man to be a fascinating conversationalist. In fact, during our interview in London's Dorchester Hotel, he's so improbably dull that I'm driven to gnawing my knuckles in lieu of throttling him. Okay, so when he starts pouring tomato ketchup over the table, that's kind of interesting. But it also reeks of pose, and has Make Sure You Mention This In Your Feature stamped on its forehead in neon. Jonze must have an agile mind: that's clear from his work. Today, though, it slumbers in postures of nouveau-trendy arrogance.

Being John Malkovich is an exceptional, brave, funny, warped film, deservedly if surprisingly nominated for Oscars, including one for Best Director. It's also up for Best Original Screenplay, and its author, the wiry-haired Charlie Kaufman, is present today too. For this I'm grateful, as the pithy writer smooths over Jonze's absent- mindedness and drops a few bon mots into the gaps. Which is not to say the pair challenge the memory of Morecambe and Wise. As a double act, Jonze and Kaufman's routine is straight out of Waiting For Godot.

Asked what drew him to this script, Jonze mutters, "I just thought it was hilarious. And original, and intelligent."

"And wacky," adds Kaufman.

"No!" yelps Jonze. "Not wacky!"

"Hell, no," agrees Kaufman.

"It was just not like anything else I'd ever read," continues Jonze, in what is, for him, a long monologue. "Which is funny, as everybody describes whatever movie they're working on as exactly that. Y'know? Like when you read interviews with an actor or something? But I'm being sincere."

The Spike Jonze back story is intriguing in itself. His first film was a half-hour documentary about a blind skateboarding team. After a series of industrial clips, he alerted the mainstream to his visionary potential with his 1994 video for The Beastie Boys' Sabotage, a lively Starsky And Hutch spoof, in which Jonze did his own crazed stunt driving. From then on he became a regular fixture in MTV's annual Video Awards. You'll recall his Busby Berkeley spectacular for Bjork's It's Oh So Quiet, his boy-with-dog's-head anti-hero in the vid for Daft Punk's Da Funk, his vivid work for REM, Sonic Youth, Puff Daddy, Sean Lennon, Chemical Brothers and others. Last year he again won the Best Directed Video award, this time for Fatboy Slim's Praise You, wherein he played Richard Koufey, leader of a dance troupe which doesn't exist. He accepted the award in character. "The dance group and I have been together for seven years," he announced from the podium, wearing the kind of duds that the kids from Fame would have rejected for being too goofy. "This is by far the most amazing thing that's ever happened to us."

FOR the real Jonze, if there is such an entity, it was just another ripple. He's won prizes at Cannes for his commercials, jobbing for big boys such as Nike and Coca Cola. He's a renowned photographer, has remixed some of the music from the new film, and will soon debut as a producer on Kaufman's next screenplay, Human Nature, which features a woman covered in body hair from head to toe and a man with the world's smallest penis. "It's hard to describe," ponders Kaufman. "It's a romantic tragedy. In the form of a comedy." As if all this wasn't enough, Jonze is currently starring as a redneck soldier alongside George Clooney, Ice Cube and Mark Wahlberg in Three Kings.

Heir to a Maryland billionaire's catalogue business fortune, Jonze married, less than a year ago, the heiress to one of Hollywood's most hallowed families. Sofia Coppola, also acclaimed for her own directorial debut The Virgin Suicides - released here next month - became his wife after years of unconventional friendship. He eventually picked her up, according to Beastie Boy Adam Yauch, "by making her feel really uncomfortable".

Maybe the success this technique has had in his love life explains why he has decided to employ it during interviews. Last year, ahead of an encounter with a US magazine, Jonze arranged to have himself beaten up mid-interview. During a more recent head-to-head with a British style mag, Jonze ducked and wove his way through the interview, evading questions like punches. The unfortunate journalist was moved to describe him as "dumber than a bucket of hair."

Being John Malkovich traces the rise, fall and various deranged detours along the way of a frustrated New York puppeteer (John Cusack). Taking an office job, Cusack discovers, behind his filing cabinet, a portal into the interior of respected thespian Malkovich's psyche. It's only a matter of time before his colleague and lust object (Catherine Keener), wife (Cameron Diaz) and Malkovich (gamely portraying himself) are tumbling in and out of beds and consciousness. World domination and an emotionally scarred chimpanzee play a part in the ensuing plot. This is an unequivocally great, riotously imaginative film.

But why did Malkovich become the crux? Why not, say, Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro or even Brad Pitt or Sean Penn, who both make fleeting cameos?

"He seemed right," muses Kaufman. "He's a bit enigmatic, I guess, but not a joke. He's a serious actor, well-respected, and you don't know much about him or his personal life. There's an oddness about him.

"Malkovich as a person and an actor was able to pull off this high- concept joke and go beyond it," adds Jonze, with multiple pauses. "Charlie's writing takes all the characters very seriously, and Malkovich is so good that he's compelling and interesting as well as funny.

"From the moment he committed to do the movie, after getting his head around it, he was completely there for us, however much time we asked. He also thought that all the humour that was making fun of him would get better by being meaner. I can't imagine anyone else in the part."

Regardless of good or bad actions, the males come out of the story rottenly, whereas the females end happily. "Them's the breaks!" laughs Kaufman. "It's not a morality tale. It just works out pretty much the way it has to."

"We read with a lot of different actresses," offers Jonze. "Even though Keener's the opposite of the character Maxine, very sweet and affected by other people's feelings, she had the essence. And we didn't know if Cameron would be able to be Lotte or not, but she was open to anything, and it felt right."

How was the switch for Jonze from working with rock bands to actors? "Individuals are all so different. All the bands I've worked with were really smart, interesting people that I enjoyed exchanging ideas with, and it's been the same with actors. It's just individuals."

I find it hard, today, to imagine Spike "exchanging ideas" with anybody. The quotes you're reading are the most, er, startling and provocative of anything the noted prankster says here. For the most part, platitudes abound. What's more, he takes my photograph several times, allegedly for a photo-diary he's keeping of his London trip.

Do you and the missus talk about directing when you're alone together, I ask, the arched eyebrow obvious in my voice. "Yeah, sometimes," he mumbles, not enjoying irony being thrown back at him. "If we're both involved in something like shooting or editing at the same time, then, er, yeah ..."

Did Spike enjoy acting in Three Kings?

"Uuuh ... yeah. It was long and hard, I was going back and forth for months while doing post-production on this film. It was an experience. I learned. It was an interesting director, script, and mix of actors. Acting is really hard though. Would I do it again? Not as a priority. I've got enough to focus on doing my own things."

Is it true a chimpanzee attacked Spike on the set of Malkovich? "Yeah!" he perks up. "In the first week!"

What happened, I ask, wondering if the poor primate just got fed up waiting for Jonze to finish a sentence.

"Uuh ... he was just playing around, and, uh ... bit me. It was a mess. There was only one sequence where the chimp had to really act. Other than that we'd just let the perfect anarchy of animals take over. You should see the out-takes, there was a moment where he picked up a knife by the edge of the blade and wouldn't let it go."

Did he enjoy being locked in a cage with Cameron Diaz?

"Oh yeah," interjects Kaufman. "A lot of despair and disillusionment encroaching on the comedy there."

"Yeah?" responds Jonze, looking bemused. "I thought that was funny."

THERE can be little doubt that Spike's will be the name to drop for the foreseeable future. Malkovich is a twisted corker, and its success and acclaim may mean a new generation of film-makers feel the need to keep up with the Jonze boy. He remains a mystery to me, though. For all my admiration for his work, the phrase silver spoon hovers at the back of my mind. I watch him blank the room service waiter, who will presumably have to clean up the tomato sauce mess later. The poster-boy for alternative cinema is currently shooting more commercials for huge corporations, and thinking about videos again.

"Whatever anyone takes away from this film is good," he says, by way of conclusion. "If they come away from it thinking about anything, about any idea, that's a compliment to us. Or if they just have fun, enjoy the comedy of it, that's good too. Now if they don't think about it all afterwards and don't think it's funny, then ..."

"Then that's good too," clips Kaufman.

"Yeah! chuckles Jonze. "Ha!"

Being John Malkovich is released on Friday l See Pages 8 and 9 for review WWW www.beingjohnmalkovich.com

MINI PROFILE.

Adam Spiegel, 29, aka Spike Jonze and Richard Koufey, is not only the heir to a million-dollar business in America he is also a jack of all trades - skatewear magnate, journalist, photographer, MTV award- winning pop video maker, director of adverts and film star. It was as Koufey that he picked up a gong at this year's MTV Awards for his direction of Fatboy Slim's Praise You video. Now he has been nominated as Best Director at the Oscars for Being John Malkovich

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