John Malkovich is no stranger to identity crises, having served as the muse for Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman’s surrealist comic masterpiece Being John Malkovich. Still, the celebrated actor was in for a surprise when he attempted to secure johnmalkovich.com for his new line of clothing; the site had already been snagged by an online squatter who was selling their own cheap knockoffs of Malkovich’s designs.
Malkovich eventually resolved the conflict—presumably through some combination of talking very quietly, and then getting very loud—and he’s now turned the experience into an ad for Squarespace. The end result is a fun little short story, even if, in one more weird twist, Malkovich did have to get the permission of the producers of the movie about people stealing his identity in order to make a joke about the movie itself, because once you take the first steps down the Malkovich rabbit hole, there’s apparently no turning back.
