Key Points
While promoting his upcoming graphic novel, John Cusack explained what’s keeping him away from Hollywood in recent years.
The star of movies such as Say Anything said his book was the work of two people, himself and the illustrator.
Now 60, Cusack appears in fewer movies annually than he once did.
John Cusack is proud that his latest project is the work of a bare-bones crew.
“This was just like I wrote it. And I said, ‘I like this story,’” Cusack told Variety before appearing at San Diego Comic-Con 2026 to promote his upcoming graphic novel, Momo.
The Say Anything alum, who teamed up with artist Ignacio Noé for the book, has appeared in fewer films in the past few years than he once did.
The reason, on his end at least, became clear as he explained his latest creation.
“Nobody edited anything I wrote or that he drew. So it’s really a piece of work that was just done by two people,” Cusack said of himself and Noé. “It was just me and Ignacio’s story, and that doesn’t happen today.”
He said he appreciated that there was “no committee.”
The star of films such as High Fidelity, Being John Malkovich, and Grosse Pointe Blank had been looking for that kind of freedom in his work.
“I didn’t want to negotiate telling a story really,” said Cusack, 60. “When you ask somebody to put like $20 to $30 million into a bank account [for a film budget], they want to have an opinion, and they’re afraid and all that stuff.”
To Cusack, graphic novels seemed to be “the closest thing to film.”
John Cusack stars in ‘High Fidelity’ in 2000Credit: Buena Vista/Courtesy Everett
Cusack appeared in two films in 2025, the thriller Fog of War and Detective Chinatown 1900, a Mandarin-language film directed by Sicheng Chen and Mo Dai. Chen also directed his only movie in 2024, war drama Decoded. Before that, he did a single movie in 2022 — the action flick Pursuit — and the 2020 series Utopia for Amazon.
He complained as long ago as September 2014 about movie-making committees.
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“My friend Joe Roth ran Disney [until 2000],” Cusack told the Guardian. “He made things like The Rock and Con Air to make shareholders happy, but then he also gave six or seven slots to people he liked. I got to make High Fidelity and Grosse Point Blank. Spike Lee got to make Summer of Sam. Wes Anderson got to make Rushmore. I had that memory of film and that’s gone.”
He added that there was once a “one for you, one for them” system that had ended.
“Now it’s six for them – with a committee cutting the film who weren’t part of making it – and maybe one for you,” Cusack said.
Cusack’s graphic novel Momo is out Sept. 26.
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