{"id":825660,"date":"2026-07-25T17:53:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T17:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/825660\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T17:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T17:53:10","slug":"john-cusack-sheds-light-on-his-shift-away-from-studio-movie-stardom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/825660\/","title":{"rendered":"John Cusack sheds light on his shift away from studio movie stardom"},"content":{"rendered":"

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’s 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

“[This graphic novel] was just like I wrote it. And I said, ‘I like this story,'” he said, as per People<\/a> magazine. “Nobody edited anything I wrote or that he [Ignacio No\u00e9] drew. So it’s really a piece of work that was just done by two people.”<\/p>\n

“It was just me and Ignacio’s story, and that doesn’t happen today,” Cusack said, noting that he appreciated there was “no committee” on the project.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t want to negotiate telling a story really,” continued the actor. “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.”<\/p>\n

\"John<\/p>\n

John Cusack appeared via video call at special 30th anniversary screening of ‘Say Anything’ in 2019 (Getty)<\/p>\n

Cusack’s recent comments echo those he gave more than 10 years ago. Speaking to The Guardian<\/a> in 2014, he said: “My 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

“I 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’s gone.”<\/p>\n

He explained that there was once a “one for you, one for them” system. “Now it’s six for them \u2013 with a committee cutting the film who weren’t part of making it \u2013 and maybe one for you,” the actor said.<\/p>\n

\"John<\/p>\n

John 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’s 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":"John Cusack has offered some insight into why he has mostly moved away from major studio films in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":825661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,288534,75,32612,119944,288536,128612,288533,46334,2626,288535,184411],"class_list":["post-825660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-con-air","tag-entertainment","tag-film-studio","tag-hollywood-films","tag-ignacio-noe","tag-joan-cusack","tag-john-cusack","tag-john-hughes","tag-john-malkovich","tag-major-studio-films","tag-sixteen-candles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=825660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/825661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=825660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=825660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=825660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}