John Malkovich is easily one of the finest actors working today, but I'm not sure if I'd ever trust him with an accent from east of London ever again. Take, for example, his performance in Rounders. While he's meant to be a villainous Russian gangster, he's vocal interpretation of the character incites far more laughter than it does chills. Going way over the top, it seems that Malkovich decided to forgo having a vocal coach and instead tried to do his best impression of an evil Yakov Smirnoff. Hopefully he doesn't make that same kind of mistake in his newest project.
The Playlist has learned that the Oscar nominated-actor is lined up to star in director Gabriele Salvatores' Serbian Education. Adapted from the Nicolai Lilin autobiography of the same name, the story is an investigation of the Serbian criminal underworld set between 1985 and 1995. Malkovich will play Grandfather Kuzja, a character who teaches his grandson, played by Arnas Fedaravicius, "the morals of 'honest criminals' and the rituals of this bizarre and violent community." Salvatores, who released the Italian comedy Happy Family last year, is best known for Mediterraneo, which won the Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards in 1992. The film is scheduled to begin production next month in Lithuania and Italy.
Unless this somehow ends up being a comedy - and I sincerely doubt it will - let's hope that Malkovich's screen time is kept to a minimum. The man might have two deserved Oscar nominations, but if he says anything even remotely like "pay da man hiiiss mooney" we might need to set a mandate so that Malkovich never performs with an accent again.
