Seeking John Malkovich

CAMBRIDGE -- He's never set foot in the chic Craigie Street Bistrot, though it's only a couple of blocks from his house. At least nobody at the restaurant remembers him coming in.

The guy behind the counter at Village Kitchen on Huron Avenue, where he's been known to fetch take-out pizza, has not seen him in a year or so, either. Sorry.

''I heard he went to England," says the guy helpfully, ''and stayed there a long time."

Julia Reischel, an aspiring journalist working at the used bookstore next door, has never laid eyes on him. Not in the flesh anyway. While traveling abroad recently, she did happen to catch an interview with him on French TV.

Maybe he was discussing how much he loves the Boston area.

Maybe he wasn't.

Maybe he was meeting Thomas Pynchon and Salman Rushdie afterward for tea, too.

''He lives around here? Really?" Reischel asks, not quite believing what she's just been told.

But, she points out, the bookstore does get quite a few local celebrities dropping by. Just not, you know, him.

''Governor Weld used to come in," Reischel says. ''Yo-Yo Ma, too. He's very nice. That '80s musician -- what's his name? -- right, Peter Wolf. Anthony Lewis. Oh, and Alan Dershowitz. If nobody notices him, he'll plunk down a big stack of books and say, 'I'm Alan Dershowitz!' "

Quel surprise.

Still, that was pretty much how the script was supposed to go when actor John Malkovich moved to Cambridge in 2003. He was an A-list Hollywood player, a protean Thespian with prodigious chops who seemed ideally cast to replace various other A-listers (hello, Ben; yo, Matt) we had known and loved, before they left us for Malibu, Spago, Hilo, J.Lo, and Derek Lowe.

Boohoo. Why don't any megastars come courting us?

Are we that backwater? That off the grid, ''Access Hollywood"-wise?

Or did we speak too soon?

This Malkovich guy -- this ''Being John Malkovich" guy, which made him so way cooler -- might be the exception, we thought. Sort of like David Mamet, late of ZIP code 02138, only we'd actually seen a few of his films.

Malkovich would walk into the celebrity-starved Harvard/Cambridge/Hub demimonde, plunk down a big stack of credits (''The Killing Fields," ''Places in the Heart," ''In the Line of Fire," etc.), cock his beret, spread his cape, and announce in a loud voice, ''I'm John Malkovich! I have Charlie Kaufman and Clint Eastwood on speed dial! Care to tunnel inside my brain?"

Beautiful.

Has that script been followed?

For the most part, no.

On the positive side, if there's an A-list director casting a big-screen version of ''Where's Waldo?" look no further. We've got your guy.

Tall. Smoldering eyes. Shaved head (maybe). Beard (maybe). Keeps to himself (we conjecture). Recently seen picking up a lifetime achievement award at the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland (nonaligned country, no extradition treaty) and visiting his summer home in Dubrovnik (language: Croatian; paparazzi: few). Soon to appear (then probably disappear) in the next Harry Potter movie as Lord Voldemort.

Can't . . . miss . . . him.

''Um, I'm not sure who you mean," says a salesperson at T.J. Maxx at Fresh Pond, one of the actor's reputed haunts when he goes shopping with his two kids.

''Who?" says the nice lady behind the counter at the Salvation Army Thrift Store in Davis Square, where Malkovich has been spotted on occasion. ''I'm sorry. I don't know who that is."

''Haven't seen him either," says Mike Maloney at Kate's Mystery Books on Massachusetts Avenue, a stop on any reasonably literate person's North Cambridge itinerary -- particularly a bibliophile who lives in the neighborhood.

''I hope I do someday, however" Maloney says, ''because that guy's a real actor. Not like some."

No, not like some.

Like darn few, in fact.

Boston magazine sent a writer to find Malkovich last year. The writer came back with a very fine profile of a very worthy subject, one which raised an interesting question: Did Malkovich and his partner, Nicoletta Peyran, leave their home in France and move to Cambridge because (a) the French taxes were too high, or (b) they desired better schools for their offspring?

Alas, the profile subject was unavailable for comment, leaving the very real possibility that the answer was (c) none of the above. So the editors slapped a very apt headline on the article. ''The Invisible Man," they called it.

Idle thought: Could Malkovich be the only celebrity within 3,000 miles who's never hit Larry Lucchino up for Sox playoff tickets?

Or is that him wearing the Wally costume during Yankee games?

''It's probably been 18 months since he's been in, but yes, he's come here," says Mark Lam at the Harvard Book Store on Mass. Ave. When a reporter's notebook and pen come out, Lam looks at them and frowns.

''He's a real private person," Lam says. ''I wouldn't want to alienate a good customer."

Sentiments we all share, John, if you're reading this and considering moving to, say, Fargo, N.D., or Tombstone, Ariz.

We should not take this behavior personally, however much we're inclined to. (Isn't this really, deep down, about us?)

Last spring, Malkovich starred in a production at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company, a group with which he has enjoyed a long and distinguished relationship. A group that lists him as a founding member, in fact. Backstage magazine, an adjunct company publication, assigned an interviewer to administer something it calls its ''Proust Questionnaire."

''Finding John Malkovich isn't easy," began the introduction to the published Q&A. The article went on to reveal that playwright Tracy Letts had answered the questions for Malkovich, since apparently the search never did get any easier.

Here's a portion of what ''Malkovich" had to say:

Q: If you could have only one disc in your CD player, what would it be?

A: ''If You Could Read My Mind," by Gordon Lightfoot.

Q: How would you like to die?

A: Atomized in a jet engine.

Ha! Could even Dershowitz have done any better? We don't think so.

A website posting by Emily Davis (at www.stareat.us), dated last Nov. 22, reports her seeing Malkovich walking near Harvard Square that day. According to Davis, the Malkovich sighting inspired her to start chatting with a man standing on Mass. Ave. about all the famous people who live in Cambridge.

''It was a fun, random conversation," she writes, ''reminding me how much fun it is to talk to strangers."

Isn't it?

Wouldn't it be?

John, all we're really trying to say is, we are here. Don't be a stranger.

Joseph P. Kahn can be reached at jkahn@globe.