#MAKING MR RIGHT HEAD MOVIE#

Metcalf, in rehearsal for the premiere of Siefert`s ''Little Egypt'' next month at Steppenwolf, darts in for a bit of catch-up gossip and teasing, and Malkovich tells her, ''I hear they want you to play this character with a big butt. Lounging about the Steppenwolf offices in an expensive gray suit and a white shirt (without tie) buttoned to the collar, he remains the same ingratiating, irritating, amiable and incorrigible person he has always been. The truly charming thing about Malkovich, a serious and committed artist, in spite of his sarcasm, is that he appears to have changed very little in his views or personality. ''I just sort of wanted to see what it was like,'' Malkovich says, ''to see a project through from beginning to end, to take a book or an idea and have a writer adapt it.'' Malkovich has collaborated successfully as a director with young writers on new plays, including Lynn Siefert`s ''Coyote Ugly'' but, mischievously, and half seriously, he adds, ''Actually, I wouldn`t want to work with a writer, unless it`s a writer I can shoot and kill.'' (Right through the opening of ''Burn This'' last week in Chicago, Malkovich was engaged in what he called ''delicate script negotiations with our young charge.'' The ''young charge'' was Wilson, who is 17 years senior to the 33-year-old Malkovich.) ''Very little I`ve done has lived up to what I had intended,'' he says. Right,'' in which he played an android, fell short at the box office, a failure that increased Malkovich`s bafflement with the way movies work. In the movies, last summer`s comedy, ''Making Mr.

After the sensation created in New York by his virtuoso direction of a revival of Lanford Wilson`s ''Balm in Gilead,'' his staging of George Bernard Shaw`s ''Arms and the Man'' and Harold Pinter`s ''The Caretaker'' drew mixed to negative reviews. Nor has all his work been covered with praise.

#MAKING MR RIGHT HEAD MOVIE#

For some months, after the initial burst of fame brought him by his ''True West'' appearance, he says, ''I spent a lot of my time riding around in planes.'' Two years ago, after a rollercoaster ride of movie and stage work that included his costarring stage role with Dustin Hoffman in ''Death of a Salesman'' and his Academy Award-nominated supporting role performance in ''Places in the Heart,'' Malkovich says, off-handedly, ''I went off to England, had my own little nervous breakdown and cooled out for a month or two.'' The rush to glory has not come without some stress.

Making mr right head