Hollywood's New Flavor

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Before Malkovich, the only credits he had were for some National Lampoon articles and failed TV shows. His insistence on owning Malkovich rather than surrendering all rights to a studio kept the movie in search of funding for a few years. "I was perfectly happy with it not being made," he says. "I said, 'If this movie is going to be made, this is how it works.'" His stubbornness has paid off. Kaufman has a say in casting and editing decisions on the movies he owns and is even welcomed on the set, where the screenwriter is usually regarded like a nun in a brothel. And he gets repeat business. Spike Jonze, who directed Malkovich, also directed Adaptation, and Kaufman is working on another movie with Michel Gondry, the director of Human Nature.

Yet success still doesn't sit well with Kaufman. Media interest makes him fidget. "Ten years ago, I would read an article about somebody, and it would talk about how great their life is," he says. "And I wasn't in that situation. I felt less then as a human being." He finds it incomprehensible that anybody would want to be him. His own yearning to be someone else has only recently "leveled off into just a feeling of missing something," he says. But his youthful days as a loser served him well. They have given his misfits the stamp of humanity. "I guess I don't think of them as misfits," he says. "I'm interested in people outside looking in, I guess because that's maybe how I feel." What's the best revenge for getting beaten up in high school? Writing well--and having a say about casting.