n Hollywood is rather thin on the ground when it comes to villainous sex bombs. Forty-five-year-old John Malkovich seems to revel in a film career playing largely unsympathetic assasins (In The Line Of Fire); salacious immoral rakes (Dangerous Liasions) and truly deranged inmate (Con Air). All of which are carried off with sneering aplomb.

n This unlikely Hollywood leading man came to the big screen via a very respectable period in theatre. An intense and grave actor, he was one of the original founders of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company where he directed and performed in some of the States' most cutting edge but praiseworthy productions. Street credentials further boosted by the fact that Steppenwolf was a co-operative that began in 1976 in the basement of a church rented for $10 a month. By the mid 80s Malkovich had graduated to TV movies but his first film role as a photographer in The Killing Fields guaranteed attention. By 1984 he'd snagged an Oscar nomination for playing a cantankerous - what else - and blind boarder in Places In The Heart. He retained a love of theatre as this interview snippet testifies: ''Generally you act in movies because you are too lazy to act in theatre, or you can't, or you want

to be really famous.''

n Despite the odd foray into comedy with Making, Mr Right and the simple minded Lennie in Mice and Men, Malkovich prefers the desperate, bored and unlikeable characters that any other Hollywood actor would curdle at. Despite the Con Air choice of macho escapee prisoners and blood and guts by the exploding planeload, the curious contradictions continue to flow. Talking about his preference for working with European directors like Berolucci and Nicolas Roeg he lambasted the Rambos and Arnies of the world saying: ''I've just about had it with the junk that people are watching today. . . I like an Austrain accent and a cigar as much as the next guy but enough is enough. Terminator 2 is a film where a guy chases a guy down an alley. It's a three-second idea stretched over two hours. . . People should respect the medium.''

John Malkovich is in Empire of the Sun on Channel 5 at 9pm.