John Cusack reveals why he stepped back from Hollywood
John Cusack reveals why he largely stepped back from Hollywood: he wanted to tell stories without studio executives weighing in. The Being John Malkovich star, 60, said big-budget films invite fear and meddling, so he turned to writing his upcoming graphic novel Momo with illustrator Ignacio Noé—on their own terms, with no committee.
Key Takeaways
- Cusack said he stepped back to avoid negotiating stories with studios that demand creative control once tens of millions are on the line.
- He is releasing his first graphic novel, Momo, co-created with illustrator Ignacio Noé, on Sept. 29.
- Speaking to Variety at San Diego Comic-Con, he praised graphic novels as “the closest things to film.”
- His recent screen work has been selective, including Fog of War and Detective Chinatown 1900 in 2025.
Why did John Cusack step back from Hollywood?
According to Page Six, Cusack opened up about largely taking a step back from Hollywood because he did not want to negotiate telling a story.
“When you ask somebody to put $20 million or $30 million into a bank account [for a film], they want to have an opinion and they’re afraid and all that stuff,” he said.
That pressure, he suggested, leaves filmmakers contending with fear-driven notes instead of a clear creative vision. For more celebrity news, visit our Celebrity Breaking News hub.
What is Momo, and how does it fit his new approach?
Rather than chase another studio-backed project, Cusack teamed with illustrator Ignacio Noé to create Momo themselves. “This was just like, I wrote it, and I said, ‘I like the story,’ and then I got this beautiful, wonderful artist, Ignacio Noé, to do the illustrations and so nobody edited anything I wrote or that he drew,” he said.
“So it’s really a piece of work that was just done by two people. It was just me and Ignacio’s story, and that doesn’t happen today.” He added there is “no bull,” “no committee,” and “no computer up in Seattle that’s poll testing it.”
Momo, Cusack’s first graphic novel, is due Sept. 29. The story follows two fugitives in 1972 who set out to recover an ancient artifact for TV icon Jackie Gleason. At Comic-Con he told Variety he always thought graphic novels “were the closest things to film, really,” because “you’re picking out shots, they’re so cinematic.”
How selective has Cusack’s acting career become?
After decades as a leading man in films such as Grosse Pointe Blank, High Fidelity, and Con Air, Cusack’s acting work has grown more selective. He appeared in the 2025 films Fog of War and the Mandarin-language Detective Chinatown 1900 after the 2024 Chinese espionage thriller Decoded. Before that, his only screen credits since 2020 were the action thriller Pursuit and Amazon’s dystopian series Utopia.
He has long criticized Hollywood’s committee-driven model. In a 2014 Guardian interview cited by Page Six, he recalled when studios still carved out slots for personal passion projects—and said that memory of film “is gone,” with more titles now shaped for shareholders and committees.
His sister, actress Joan Cusack, has also kept a lower public profile at times, making her first red-carpet appearance since 2015 at the London premiere of Toy Story 5 in May and later telling Variety it is “great to live your life and raise your kids and be in Chicago and be a normal person.”