How To Make Money In Hollywood: Throw Beer At Malkovich

By: Rick Mosely

The old saying goes “nice guys finish last”, the inverse of which is that “dickheads finish first”, and we all know that goes double for working in Hollywood. (Watch an episode of “Entourage” for millions of examples.) But who would’ve thought that a great way to make money would be to simply perform the dickhead move of throwing an empty beer can at the reflective noggin of Serious Actor(!) John Malkovich?

During the filming of Being John Malkovich an extra did just this, and got paid for it. The story goes like this:

Apparently an extra on the film got drunk, and decided to throw one of his beer cans at John Malkovich. The director liked the scene so much that he left it in the film. The extra got his SAG card, a pay raise since he now had a line in the movie.

So, in honor of Spike Jonze’s latest film Where the Wild Things Are hitting theaters last week, let’s take a virtual trip way back to 1999. Enjoy: