{"id":959272,"date":"2026-07-25T23:24:29","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T23:24:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/959272\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T23:24:29","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T23:24:29","slug":"john-cusack-sheds-light-on-his-shift-away-from-studio-movie-stardom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/959272\/","title":{"rendered":"John Cusack sheds light on his shift away from studio movie stardom"},"content":{"rendered":"

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John Cusack<\/a> has offered some insight into why he has mostly moved away from major studio films in recent years. <\/p>\n

The actor rose to fame in the 1980s with roles in films such as John Hughes\u2019s Sixteen Candles (1984) and Better Off Dead (1985). <\/p>\n

He went on to enjoy a successful film career with credits including High Fidelity, Being John Malkovich, Serendipity, Con Air, 1408, Say Anything, and Grosse Pointe Blank. <\/p>\n

More recently, however, Cusack has largely turned away from Hollywood films in favour of smaller projects. He has also focused on his interests beyond acting, such as writing. <\/p>\n

Promoting his forthcoming graphic novel Momo at Comic-Con this week, Cusack suggested that an increase in film studio intervention was a key reason behind his pivot. <\/p>\n

\u201c[This graphic novel] was just like I wrote it. And I said, \u2018I like this story,\u2019\u201d he said, as per People<\/a> magazine. \u201cNobody edited anything I wrote or that he [Ignacio No\u00e9] drew. So it\u2019s really a piece of work that was just done by two people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just me and Ignacio\u2019s story, and that doesn\u2019t happen today,\u201d Cusack said, noting that he appreciated there was \u201cno committee\u201d on the project. <\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to negotiate telling a story really,\u201d continued the actor. \u201cWhen 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\u2019re afraid and all that stuff.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"JohnJohn Cusack appeared via video call at special 30th anniversary screening of \u2018Say Anything\u2019 in 2019 (Getty)<\/p>\n

Cusack\u2019s recent comments echo those he gave more than 10 years ago. Speaking to The Guardian<\/a> in 2014, he said: \u201cMy friend Joe Roth ran Disney [until 2000]. He made things like The Rock and Con Air to make shareholders happy, but then he also gave six or seven slots to people he liked. <\/p>\n

\u201cI got to make High Fidelity and Grosse Point Blank. Spike Lee got to make Summer of Sam. Wes Anderson got to make Rushmore. I had that memory of film and that\u2019s gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

He explained that there was once a \u201cone for you, one for them\u201d system. \u201cNow it\u2019s six for them \u2013 with a committee cutting the film who weren\u2019t part of making it \u2013 and maybe one for you,\u201d the actor said. <\/p>\n

\"JohnJohn and Joan Cusack attend the Roger Ebert Memorial Tribute at Chicago Theatre on 11 April, 2013 (Getty)<\/p>\n

While Cusack does not star in as many high-profile films as he once did, he did appear in two movies last year: Fog of War and the Mandarin-language hit film Detective Chinatown 1900. In 2024, Cusack appeared in one movie, the war drama Decoded, which was preceded by 2022\u2019s Pursuit. <\/p>\n

His sister, fellow actor Joan Cusack, has similarily shunned the spotlight in recent years<\/a>. She recently made her first public appearance in 11 years at the London premiere of Toy Story 5, for which she reprised her role as cowgirl Jessie. <\/p>\n

As a writer, Cusack co-wrote the 2016 book Things That Can and Cannot Be Said with Arundhati Roy about his conversations with whistleblower Edward Snowden. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":959273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[18485,63967,121872,185,385769,171,175269,76992,302202,385773,49257,133767,318393,31275,1005,385774,385770,158324,403,3546,178072,3092,385771,22756,7519,385772,67,132,68,2969,54814],"class_list":["post-959272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-anniversary","tag-arts-culture-and-entertainment","tag-cameron-crowe","tag-celebrities","tag-emcee","tag-entertainment","tag-executive-producer","tag-feeding","tag-females","tag-film-and-television-screening","tag-film-industry","tag-film-screening","tag-four-people","tag-full-length","tag-horizontal","tag-ione-skye","tag-james-l-brooks-director","tag-john-cusack","tag-new-york-city","tag-people","tag-performing-arts-center","tag-photography","tag-skype","tag-talking","tag-tribeca-festival","tag-tribeca-performing-arts-center","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-voip"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=959272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/959273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=959272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=959272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=959272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}