John Malkovich reveals the one thing he regrets from his Michelle Pfeiffer affair

Oscar-nominated actor John Malkovich has one lingering regret from the 1980s affair he embarked on with Michelle Pfeiffer.

Alongside the likes of Glenn Close, Uma Thurman, Keanu Reeves, and future The Thick of It and Doctor Who favourite Peter Capaldi, the pair starred opposite each other in director Stephen Frears' period romance Dangerous Liaisons as Vicomte de Valmont and Madame de Tourvel respectively.

In a meta twist, the already-married Malkovich (who was wed to Glenne Headly at the time) and Pfeiffer (also married to Peter Horton at the time) hooked up behind the scenes as the cameras were rolling.

Yet despite splitting from their spouses in the process, the A-list performers' feelings for one another never progressed into anything serious and they went their separate ways.

Michelle Pfeiffer and John Malkovich in the film 'Dangerous Liaisons', 1988. (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Getty Images)

"It’s not something I’ve ever really talked about," Malkovich recently admitted to podcaster Bella Freud on Fashion Neurosis.

"Put it this way. In the work I do normally, you make emotional bonds with people very quickly. That’s kind of part of the work. Very rarely, those bonds extend beyond the work."

The 71-year-old, whose other acclaimed credits include Con Air, Burn After Reading, and The New Pope, also insinuated that he effectively sabotaged his working relationship with Pfeiffer by engaging in a sexual one.

He described her as 'someone I valued greatly as a colleague, was great fun and moving, and with me, incredibly fair. And... I certainly wasn't'.

"I think I’ve learned over the course of my life that a great colleague is actually kind of rarer than anything,” Malkovich further reflected.

"And when that relationship becomes more than collegial or more than a friendship, even a profound friendship, then, at least in my experience — and it might be my particular psychology or stupidity or ineptness, or all of the above — then you lose a great colleague."

ohn Malkovich at A24's Opus Los Angeles premiere held at The Egyptian Theatre on February 19, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (JC Olivera/Variety via Getty Images)

Later in the podcast episode, the star compared his professional connection with the Batman Returns icon to the one he shared with Ingeborga Dapkunaite.

The two worked together in titles such as Shadow of the Vampire, in which Malkovich played original Nosferatu director F. W. Murnau, and 2017's melodramatic comedy About Love, Adults Only.

"Ingeborga and I are still, 33 years now, working together and have remained great friends and colleagues because there is a line never crossed," he commented.

"That’s kind of what I’ve learned — that when a thing like that happens, it’s probably, might be, not retrievable."