As a Pop Star in ‘Opus,’ John Malkovich Danced So Hard the Movie Needed an Intimacy Coordinator

Mark Anthony Green knows the relationship between an interviewer and their celebrity subject can be fraught. The former GQ editor explores just how dangerous that dynamic can get in his directorial debut, Opus, starring Ayo Edebiri and John Malkovich, which hits theaters on March 14. Edebiri stars in the A24 psychological horror thriller as Ariel Ecton, a journalist who gets the opportunity of a lifetime when she’s hand-selected to interview Moretti, Malkovich’s reclusive, pop music superstar, ahead of his first album in over 30 years. When Ariel and a small cadre of journalists, played by Juliette Lewis, Murray Bartlett, and Stephanie Suganami, arrive at Moretti’s compound and discover a community—well, a cult—composed of Moretti stans called the Levelists, it quickly becomes clear that Ariel might not make it out of the compound alive.

“No one’s ever tried to kill me,” Green jokes to Vanity Fair of his journalism past. “Not yet.”

Green, who wrote and directed Opus, compares the function of journalism in the film to the use of basketball in Spike Lee’s 1992 film White Men Can’t Jump. “It’s not a movie about basketball, but you want the basketball to be as authentic as possible,” he says. “If a basketball player saw the film, you wouldn’t want it to take them out of it.”

Unlike the eccentric pop star he plays, Malkovich personally harbors no strong feelings against journalists and others tasked with evaluating his work. “Critics have their job. It’s not my job,” says the two-time Oscar nominee. “My job is to try to play my part, and help the director realize their vision. A critic’s job is to inform his or her public, and give their impressions of what they’ve seen, or heard, or witnessed. And more power to them.”

Sometimes, those impressions are brutal—like the response one writer had to the Infernal Comedy, a theatrical performance art piece that Malkovich toured on and off for 16 years. One of the reviews it received, he says, was “ spectacularly and hilariously negative.” But Maklovich doesn’t hold a grudge. “I loved performing it, and I understood exactly what the critic was saying,” he says.

In creating Ariel, Green drew on his experience as special projects editor for GQ, as well as his youthful ambition. “You probably were really talented in your high school, and then you were really talented in college, and you get into this big scene. So you’re, like, in the room, but you aren’t doing the work that you want to do,” he says. “Sometimes that’s more frustrating than not being in the room because you feel so close to it.”

Shaping Moretti, an ’80s-era pop icon plotting his big comeback after decades in obscurity, was a trickier task. Malkovich’s Moretti evokes Prince and David Bowie: He’s a solo male superstar who oozes effortless cool and sex appeal, while being eccentric enough that nobody’s shocked to hear he may have bought and worn Freddie Mercury’s teeth. “I didn’t particularly have a pop star in mind,” Malkovich says. “The character is such an amalgam. He has quite a wide culture—he draws on a breath of knowledge, including in history and art, etcetera. I took my cues from the script itself.”

To make everyone believe in Moretti’s starpower, Malkovich had to nail the performer’s physicality, which was easier said than done for the 71-year-old. “I used to love to dance, but that was seven knee surgeries ago,” he says. Luckily, he had some help from movement coach Jessica Montoya, who worked with Malkovich for the duration of the film’s four-week New Mexico shoot. “I loved to go dancing for no reason, but I hadn’t done it in years. So it required a lot of loosening up, and good advice from her as well.”

What Malkovich and Montoya cooked up was slightly more than what Green had bargained for. “It’s that funny thing where you write something in the script, and you picture it in your head, but then it’s completely different when there’s physical people,” Green says. The moves Malkovich came up with for Moretti—heavy on the hips and pelvic thrusts—inspired the first-time director to make a big decision. “I reached out to my producer and I said, ‘I think we need an intimacy coordinator,’” Green says. With the help of that coordinator, Rebekah Wiggins, Green and Malkovich were able to capture the raw magnetism and presence that Moretti needed.

“You can’t take your eyes off of it,” Green says of Malkovich’s moves. “Is he good at dancing? Is he not? Does it matter? [It’s] a David Byrne–esque thing. And I don’t know, it’s a hell of a lot of fun.”

To write Moretti’s music, Green tapped iconic songwriter and Chic cofounder Nile Rodgers—the creative force behind ’70s disco hits like “Le Freak” and “I’m Coming Out.” Rodgers composed three original songs with record producer and singer-songwriter The-Dream. Even before preproduction on the film, Malkovich got into the booth with Rodgers and The-Dream to lay down those groovy yet stylistically distinct tracks: “Tomorrow”, “Dina, Simone” and “35mm,” which will be released as Opus: The Moretti EP on March 14.

At first, Malkovich was skeptical that Green would be able to come up with original music great enough to convince audiences that Moretti was the musical genius he’s hyped up to be. “I thought, “Boy, that’s going to be really, really hard,” Malkovich says. “But I think they came up with three excellent pieces that are believable.” Green says that the whole team was “blown away” by the energy Malkovich mustered while laying down the tracks. “To stand there in a recording booth by himself, and fearlessly put himself out there like that—that’s the confidence to really be that guy.”

While the film is full of catchy hooks and eye-popping performances, there’s more to Opus than just aesthetics and vibes. “It’s a very fun interrogation of tribalism,” Green says. That tribalism rears its head as Ariel’s investigation into Moretti and the Levelists—Moretti’s blue-jumpsuit-wearing devotees—puts her life in danger. While Edebiri’s protagonist finds herself in precarious positions, she’s not like other final girls. “She never falls when she’s being chased, or any of those horror tropes,” he says “I thought it was important that you have a young Black woman who isn’t perfect by any stretch of imagination, but she never does something stupid.”

Ultimately, Green is prepared for whatever conversations Opus sparks about journalism, stan culture, and cults. “You make a thing for there to be discourse on it,” he says. “The discourse feels like an important part of the process and life of the piece.” He also knows that he didn’t necessarily have to be so ambitious with his first film. “There’s a version of Opus where that final album, Caesar’s Request, is a MacGuffin,” he says. “They get there. There is no album. That was definitely pitched.”

But having Malkovich in his corner inspired Green to shoot for the stars. “It’s really, really easy to take a big swing when you’re working with somebody like John,” he says. “I’m a dreamer. I had big expectations for this film when it was just me in a room alone writing it. When you have someone like John—there’s one John Malkovich—I think it makes everyone else believe it’s possible.”