"I was a teen star. That's disgusting enough."
John Paul Cusack (born June 28, 1966 in Evanston, Illinois) is an American actor and the brother of actors Joan Cusack and Ann Cusack. He started off as a teen idol in The '80s before he progressed into playing quirky offbeat characters in various films, including broader comedy roles.
He has appeared in such films as Grosse Pointe Blank, Being John Malkovich, and 1408.
He’s also the one Danny Trejo said he was the most afraid of on the set of Con Air. (Down to his kickboxing training?) Although given his refusal to discuss it in interviews, JC apparently wishes he wasn't in the film.
Filmography
- Class (1983) — Roscoe
- Sixteen Candles (1984) — Bryce
- Better Off Dead (1985) — Lane Myer
- The Journey of Natty Gann (1985) — Harry
- One Crazy Summer (1985) — Hoops McCann
- The Sure Thing (1985) — Walter "Gib" Gibson
- Stand by Me (1986) — Denny Lachance
- Hot Pursuit (1987) — Danny Bartlett
- Broadcast News (1987) — Angry Messenger
- Tapeheads (1988) — Ivan Alexeev
- Eight Men Out (1988) — Buck Weaver
- Say Anything... (1989) — Lloyd Dobler
- The Grifters (1990) — Roy Dillon
- Shadows and Fog (1992) — Student Jack
- Bob Roberts (1992) — Cutting Edge Host
- Bullets over Broadway (1994) — JC
- City Hall (1996) — Kevin Calhoun
- Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) — Martin Q. Blank
- Anastasia (1997) — Dimitri (voice)
- Con Air (1997) — Vince Larkin
- Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997) — John Kelso
- The Thin Red Line (1998) — Capt. John Gaff
- Pushing Tin (1999) — Nick "The Zone" Falcone
- Being John Malkovich (1999) — Craig Schwartz
- High Fidelity (2000) — Rob Gordon
- Serendipity (2001) — Jonathan Trager
- Max (2002) — Max Rothman
- Identity (2003) — Ed Dakota
- Runaway Jury (2003) — Nicholas Easter
- Must Love Dogs (2005) — Jake Anderson
- The Ice Harvest (2005) — Charlie Arglist
- 1408 (2007) — Mike Enslin
- Martian Child (2007) — David Gordon
- War, Inc. (2008) — Hauser
- Igor (2008) — Igor (voice)
- 2012 (2009) — Jackson Curtis
- Hot Tub Time Machine (2010) — Adam Yates
- The Raven (2012) — Edgar Allen Poe
- Adult World (2013) — Rat Billings
- The Butler (2013) — Richard Nixon
- The Numbers Station (2013) — Emerson Kent
- The Frozen Ground (2013)— Robert Hansen.
- Maps to the Stars (2014) — Stafford Weiss
- Love & Mercy (2015) — Brian Wilson (old)
- Never Grow Old (2019) — Dutch Albert
John Cusack's roles provide examples of the following tropes:
- Author Appeal: Cusack is a big fan of The Clash, and often sports a Clash t-shirt, especially in his earlier films.
- The Cast Showoff: Averted. He has trained in Ukidokan Kickboxing since the early 90's and holds a sixth level black belt but refuses to use it in a film and has said he prefers to keep the two parts of his life separate.
- Deadpan Snarker: His characters almost always have a very dry and cynical sense of humor.
- One for the Money; One for the Art: He's openly admitted that a lot of his higher-profile roles were taken specifically so he could then help finance some small arthouse picture being made by a non-famous friend or acquaintance that would never have been made without his financial assistance.
- Production Posse: Cusack has appeared in eleven films each with his sister Joan and Jeremy Piven (not all the same films), plus nine with Tim Robbins and four with Jack Black. (To date, no one film has featured all five of them.)
- Tall, Dark, and Handsome: He's 6'2 with dark hair and is good-looking.
- Tall, Dark, and Snarky: Many of his roles are this trope incarnate.
- What Could Have Been:
- He was approached by AMC to take the role of Walter White, the protagonist of Breaking Bad, but declined, leaving the role to Bryan Cranston.
- He auditioned to play Marty McFly in Back to the Future.
