John Cusack outlines major career move in rare interview: “I didn’t want to negotiate telling a story”
John Cusack has been happily keeping out of the public eye for some time now; in a rare interview, the former actor has detailed why he’d had enough of Hollywood and has outlined his next major venture.
The Say Anything star was set to appear at San Diego Comic-Con to promote his upcoming graphic novel, Momo, when he explained why he’s chosen to pivot to the world of animation and cartoons.
“I didn’t want to negotiate telling a story really,” John told Variety in the new interview.
Looking back on the running of the film industry, he added, “When you ask somebody to put like $20 to $30 million into a bank account [for a film budget], they want to have an opinion, and they’re afraid and all that stuff.”
The 60-year-old former Better Off Dead star explained that, in comparison, his graphic novel was a pure endeavour: “This was just like I wrote it, and I said ‘I like this story’.”
After he wrote the book, he enlisted the “beautiful, wonderful” artist Ignacio Noé for the graphic novel’s illustrations.
From there, the two of them formed a creative allegiance: “Nobody edited anything I wrote or that he drew, and so it’s really a piece of work that was just done by two people,” he continued.
He added pointedly, “It was just me and Ignacio’s story, and that doesn’t happen today.”
Expanding on his choice to publish his first novel as a form of visual media, he added, “I always thought they were the closest things to film. Really, you’re picking out shots, and they’re so cinematic.”
Cusack was a prolific actor in his early career, including a nomination for a Golden Globe for his starring role in 2000’s High Fidelity. However, since then, Cusack has pulled back from mainstream Hollywood blockbusters in favour of smaller, independent releases.
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