Today’s star of the week was suggested by Tim on Facebook and is also one of my favourite actors.
It’s John Cusack.
John Cusack was a pretty big deal back in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s. From his breakthrough role at just 16 as Walter “Gib” Gibson in Rob Reiner’s The Sure Thing (1985), to the 2009 disaster movie blockbuster 2012, he was one of the bigger players in the industry.
Sadly, in recent years a lot of his films have gone straight to dvd - but that’s no reflection of his acting talent and there’s probably a reason for it which we’ll get to shortly...
Born into an Irish Catholic family, Cusack has four other siblings, all of which are, or have been actors. Most notably is his older sister Joan (School of Rock). They also all starred with him in Grosse Pointe Blank (1997).
He went to high school with fellow actor Jeremy Piven (Entourage) whom he later shared an apartment with in Chicago. The two are good friends and have also been in several films together.
John dropped out of university after just a year, saying he had “too much fire in his belly” and joined Piven’s parents theatre workshop. Shortly after, he got his first role in The Class (1983), followed by Sixteen Candles (1984) and at just 16 years old he gained leading man status in one of my all time favourite movies, The Sure Thing (1985).
In the years that followed Cusack went on to make some of the 80s and 90s most classic movies including Better off Dead (1985), Say Anything (1989), Con Air (1997) and Being John Malkovich (1999).👌
Away from the camera Cusack enjoys Helicopter Snowboarding (or Heli-Skiing) which is where you take a helicopter to reach some of the harder to reach mountain slopes. 😵
He’s also a level 6 black belt in kickboxing which he started training in for his role in Say Anything and decided to keep up afterwards.
He’s an extremely vocal political activist and even met with CIA whistle blower, Edward Snowdon in a hotel in Moscow in 2015.
They talked about the CIA, surveillance and the nature of fame and he went on to co-author a book about it called “Things That Can And Cannot Be Said.”
Cusack isn’t a fan of Hollywood these days and has made no secret of it. This is one of the theories as to why we don’t see much of him on the big screen anymore.
He once said that Hollywood is a “whore house” since mega-corporations have stepped in and that everything is about franchises these days. He’s not wrong...🤷♂️
Regardless of his relationship with Hollywood, John Cusack continues to make movies even if we’re not aware of them all. He also writes and produced and owns his own production company called New Crime Productions. Add to all that his political activities and I think it’s safe to say he’s keeping himself pretty busy.
Tim’s favourite John Cusack movies are:
High Fidelity (2000) 👌
Better Off Dead (1985)
Con Air (1997)
Say Anything (1989)
The Paperboy (2012)
Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)
What are yours? 🤔