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rm prod tag - cleaned up the article, removed all the unsourced and poorly sourced info, and added sourced info.
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[[File:Christopher Walken by David Shankbone.jpg|thumb|[[w:Christopher Walken|Christopher Walken]] (2007)]]
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'''[[w:Christopher Walken|Christopher Walken]]''' (born [[March 31]], [[1943]]) is an [[United States|American]] [[film]] and [[theater]] [[acting|actor]]. Walken is a prolific actor who has spent more than 50 years on stage and screen. He has appeared in over 100 movie and [[television]] roles, including ''[[A View to a Kill]]'', ''[[w:At Close Range|At Close Range]]'', ''[[w:King of New York|King of New York]]'', ''[[Batman Returns]]'' and ''[[w:Pulp Fiction (film)|Pulp Fiction]],'' as well as music videos by recording artists such as [[Madonna]]. He received the [[w:Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor|Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor]] for his role in the 1978 film ''[[The Deer Hunter]]''.
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'''[[w:Christopher Walken|Christopher Walken]]''' (born March 31, [[w:1943|1943]]) is an American actor


== Sourced ==
== Sourced ==
*I play a lot of those parts, and it's a chicken-and-egg thing. I don't know whether you get scary because you play those parts or did you get those parts because you were scary? But I do believe that there's a very close connection to what's scary and what's funny. So I think if you have the ability to do one, you might have the ability to do the other.
* I put my pants on just like the rest of you - one leg at a time. Except, once my pants are on, I make gold records.
**The Toronto Star staff (July 20, 2007) "How Walken makes us laugh in fear", ''[[w:The Toronto Star|The Toronto Star]]'', p. E01.
** ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'', as a producer working on [[w:Blue Öyster Cult|Blue Öyster Cult]]'s song "Don't Fear the Reaper"


*Well, I don't play heroes obviously. I never played the guy who gets the girl. It might be interesting to do a part where I was a father in a functional family.
* We all know war is a stupid waste of time.
**Hap Erstein (October 29, 2004) "Walken Doesn't Mind Playing Creepy Type - As Long As He's Cast", ''[[w:The Palm Beach Post|The Palm Beach Post]]'', p. 9.
** ''[[Henry Rollings show]]''


*I won't retire. When you're an actor, you're forced to retire every few months. John Gielgud was 96 when he died, and he was working. It's good to work, whatever it is that keeps you interested. I would like to do that, I would like to keep going. I don't have kids, and I don't have hobbies. I don't particularly like to travel. If you're an actor, you have to travel anyway.
* I put my pants on just like the rest of you - one leg at a time. Except, once my pants are on, I make gold records.
**Dixie Reid (October 24, 2004) "'Bend' it like Walken - Actor has more to say about food and hair than acting", ''[[w:The Sacramento Bee|The Sacramento Bee]]'', p. TK31.
** ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'', as a producer working on [[w:Blue Öyster Cult|Blue Öyster Cult]]'s song "Don't Fear the Reaper"


*I look for good possibilities in movies. I don't look for perfection.
* I pranked him! To death with a tire iron! Whammy! Blammy wowie zowie!
**Glenn Lovell: Knight Ridder Newspapers (October 18, 2004) "A mellow, reflective Christopher Walken", ''[[w:The Seattle Times|The Seattle Times]]'', p. E8.
** ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'', as a guest on the television show "Pranksters", talking about how he beat a co-worker to death as a prank.


*I'm not a big fan of other people's punctuation. When I read a script I've got a sort of automatic eraser. I don't see punctuation or capitals or instructions. I want to decide when the sentence is over. Who's to say when a sentence ends and the other one begins? Sometimes it begins in the middle of the next sentence.
* If she tries to blackmail me, I'll throw her out a higher window.
**Jason Walsh (October 17, 2004) "Walken on the edge", ''[[w:Marin Independent Journal|Marin Independent Journal]]'', Section: Lifestyles.
** ''[[Batman Returns]]'', as Max Schreck


*I believe in saving money. I believe in having a house. I believe in keeping things clean. I believe in exercising. Slow and steady is a very good thing for me. It works for me.
* You're not a tease, are you? 'Cause I'll cut your face.
**Douglas J. Rowe: The Associated Press (June 14, 2004) "Film bad guy Walken: 'Slow and steady is a very good thing for me'", ''[[w:The Grand Rapids Press|The Grand Rapids Press]]'', p. D5.
** ''[[Pennies From Heaven]]'', as Tom


*Careers are not often as chosen as people think they are. People talk to me about my choices. I don't make choices, hardly. Things happen, and you say yes or no - usually 'yes', because it's always better to do something. What's the choice? Somebody will say, 'Don't do that part, you don't need to do that part.' And I'll say, 'Why not? What am I going to do? Sit around the house? I'd much rather go to work, and see actors, and have fun.
* So he hid [the watch] in the one place he knew he could hide something—his ass.
**William Leith (January 25, 2003) "Dancing in the Dark: He was a baby when he got his first showbiz break in the 1940s, and then firmly schooled in the song-and-dance tradition. So how did Christopher Walken end up as a master of evil?", ''[[w:The Guardian|The Guardian]]''.
** ''[[Pulp Fiction]]'', as Captain Koons


*I think it's sort of a compliment. Jay Mohr does it in front of me all the time. I've got another friend who does me on his answering machine. When I call him, I hear myself.
* …You got me in a vendetta kinda mood. You tell the angels in heaven you've never seen an evil so singularly personified as you did in the face of the man who killed you.
**On individuals' impressions of Walken, interview in Randy Cordova (December 22, 2002) "Workaholic Walken Is Marvelous 'Catch'", ''[[w:The Arizona Republic|The Arizona Republic]]'', p. E3.
** ''[[True Romance]]'', as Vincenzo Coccotti


*I have a theory, that there is a terrific link between what is funny and what is scary. I think there is a very close connection between what frightens people and what makes them laugh. Laughter is a kind of nervousness. Animals don't laugh. Smiling is, anthropologists agree, directly linked to the baring of the teeth.
* You're talkin' to my guy all wrong. It's the wrong tone. You do it again, I'll stab you in the face with a soldering iron.
**Jan Moir (March 11, 2002) "'You're not scared of me, are you?': Christopher Walken has cornered the market in movie menace. But, as Jan Moir discovers, he is just as unsettling in real life", ''[[w:The Daily Telegraph|The Daily Telegraph]]'', p. 18.
** ''[[Joe Dirt]]'', as Gert B. Frobe


*I think that my strength as a villain is that the people watching me know that Chris knows that he's in a movie. He's playing. He's having fun. He's going bang, bang. You know, "What's that?"
* What do you call a room full of lawyers buried up to their necks in sand? Not enough sand.
**Associated Press (December 16, 1999) "Christopher Walken Prefers His Ozzie Nelson Side", ''[[w:The Press of Atlantic City|The Press of Atlantic City]]'', p. B3.
** ''[[Poolhall Junkies]]''


*It's a natural aspect of the marketplace. It's always been that way in storytelling. The guy who was good at playing the lover plays the lover, the funny guy gets the comic role. Movies are so expensive, when they put them together they want to have a couple of solid blocks in what they're building. I accept that. In theater, though, I tend to look for other things, I think I tend to be best in comedy.
* Did you see my painting? I got it from Target
**Terry Lawson: Knight-Ridder Newspapers (February 18, 1996) "Weird, As In Walken - No, He's Not Really Nuts ... Maybe", ''[[w:St. Louis Post-Dispatch|St. Louis Post-Dispatch]]'', p. 3D.
** ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'', as [[The Continental]]


*I'm a better actor now than I ever was, I wish I could have hurried that up, but there's no way. Anyway, I always wanted to be around for a long time. Like a European actor, I hope I live a long time and that I'm acting until I finish.
== Personal Quotes from IMDB.com ==
**Associated Press (February 4, 1993) "Christopher Walken shows charming side", ''[[w:The Toronto Star|The Toronto Star]]'', p. F7.


*I'm very nervous when I work in a film and very relaxed before a live audience. I like theater because it's more of an actor's medium. You can control your performance. In film you depend on the director to watch out for your ass, but in the theater you can take care of yourself.
I don't need to be made to look evil. I can do that on my own.
**Michael Blowen (August 17, 1980) "Walken's Success Spells Old Lifestyle, But Better Wines", ''[[w:The Boston Globe|The Boston Globe]]''.


==About==
I make movies that nobody will see. I've made movies that even I have never seen.
*Walken is fascinating because he has a complex and fearless process -- each take is wildly different and he does that until he finds the one that is true perfection.
**[[w:Josh Lucas|Josh Lucas]], discussing acting with Walken in film ''[[w:Around the Bend|Around the Bend]]'', interview in Kathy Cano Murillo (October 21, 2004) "Lucas Cranks It Up A Notch In 'Bend'", ''[[w:The Arizona Republic|The Arizona Republic]]'', p. 9.


*Everybody always wants to work with Christopher Walken. I think he's the most interesting actor working today. His choices are always dangerous, which makes for interesting work. You can watch him eat a bowl of cereal and you'd be riveted because he's just unpredictable.
Is typecasting really a problem?
**[[w:Mars Callahan|Mars Callahan]], interview in Bob Strauss (February 24, 2003) "Still racking them up - Christopher Walken, Oscar nominee and star of 'Poolhall Junkies,' has no intention of slowing his prolific career", ''[[w:The Whittier Daily News|The Whittier Daily News]]''.


{{DEFAULTSORT:Walken, Christopher}}
My hair was famous before I was
[[Category:Actors]]

If you want to learn how to build a house, build a house. Don't ask anybody, just build a house.

I can't imagine being somebody else. And anything I play, my reference is completely from the planet Showbusiness. I don't know anything about anybody else, people that I've known all my life - my family, my brothers - I don't know... I only know about me.

Emotional power is maybe the most valuable thing that an actor can have.

At its best, life is completely unpredictable.

I think that a good movie creates its own world, and that world needn't refer to anything that's real. If it's consistent, if it's entertaining, if it's interesting, it justifies its being there.

I always think that in movies or on stage, two people can be talking to each other - the audience doesn't necessarily have to know what they're talking about, just so long as they know that *you* know what you're talking about.

I used to be prettier than I am, but I think I look better now. I was a pretty boy. Particularly in my early movies. I don't like looking at them so much. There's a sort of pretty thing about me.

Bear costumes are funny... Bears as well.

I've enjoyed making movies for lots of different reasons. Sometimes, it was the other people. Sometimes, it was the fact that I was really good in it. Sometimes, it was the location. Sometimes, it was the paycheck. Sometimes, it can be lots of different things, or a lot of those things. Or there can be reasons why you'd like to avoid it the next time. Like the jungle. I've made a couple of movies in the jungle, and I don't want to go back to the jungle.

Back home, I do the same things every day. Exactly the same. I eat at the same time, I get up at the same time, I do the same things in the same order. I read. I have coffee. Then I study my scripts, I exercise on the treadmill, I make myself a little something to eat. I am a great believer in the Mediterranean diet.

Careers are not often as chosen as people think they are. People talk to me about my choices. I don't make choices, hardly. Things happen, and you say yes or no - usually 'yes', because it's always better to do something. What's the choice? Somebody will say, 'Don't do that part, you don't need to do that part.' And I'll say, 'Why not? What am I going to do? Sit around the house? I'd much rather go to work, and see actors, and have fun.

I believe in saving money. I believe in having a house. I believe in keeping things clean. I believe in exercising. Slow and steady is a very good thing for me. It works for me.

"I don't choose that much. I just sort of take what's there. I don't have much else to do. I don't have a lot of hobbies. I don't play golf. I don't have any children. Things that occupy people's time. I just try to take jobs. I basically work so much because I'm lazy." - On how he selects his acting roles.

"I don't even like holding them. Whenever I hold a gun, I want to get it out of my hand as quick as possible." - On guns.

I don't particularly like to do anything dangerous. And here I was in Bangkok (filming The Deer Hunter (1978)). I was in the jungle and in the mountains. Being an actor has taken me places that I never would have gone to . . . It's been a very interesting life.

I eat the same things all the time: fish, hardly ever meat. Chicken, vegetables. I'm fond of steamed sea bass over leeks. I don't drink hard liquor. I like wine.

"I get up early, at six or seven, and have coffee. I usually read in the morning. And then, if I have a script, I do that for a while. Then I exercise at a certain time. About noon. I like to cook, so usually, I'll be making something. And I have my script. My favourite thing is to have two scripts. It's great to study two things at the same time." - On his routine.

I have been in movies that I thought I wasn't very good in. I think, Chris, don't let your mouth hang open like that next time. Look at that facial tic. Don't walk in such a self-conscious way! But sometimes, I watch myself and I think that I am terrific - and that is really nice.

I have this theory about words. There's a thousand ways to say `Pass the salt.'It could mean, you know, `Can I have some salt?'; or it could mean, `I love you.'; It could mean `I'm very annoyed with you'; really, the list could go on and on.; Words are little bombs, and they have a lot of energy inside them.

I put aside an hour every day to go over that monologue again and again for months, and every time I got to the end of it, I would crack up. - On Pulp Fiction (1994).

I was already 35 years old, and I'd been in show business for 30-plus years, and suddenly there was this big movie and I was getting an Oscar, and this enormous thing happened," he says. "In Annie Hall (1977), I played the strange brother who wanted to drive into oncoming cars. Immediately after that was The Deer Hunter (1978), where I played this nice guy who shoots himself in the head. Something happened there. The fact that they came so close together, and they were both important movies, two big public things where I was simultaneously . . . 'disturbed.' That got the ball rolling for me in terms of being an actor.

I won't do commercials either. I don't want to sell anything. As an actor, it's tricky. You have this platform and it has to do with your face, your charisma. It's tricky when you endorse something because people are liable to believe you. Be careful.

I would like to be a very old man and still be acting. So I feel lucky to have stuck around for this long. You have to be good and all that, but you also have to be lucky. I guess in everything. But especially if you're an actor. So I got no complaints.

I'm serious. I do not like the unknown or the unexpected. I cannot stand being surprised, yet as an actor I like surprise. I get very upset if my bills aren't paid immediately.

I've always been a character actor, although I'm not quite sure what that means. All my scripts are absolutely covered in notes, so any time I say anything - even `pass the salt' - I have six subtexts, comments on what I really mean when I'm saying that. Maybe that's what gives the impression that I'm saying one thing and thinking something else.

"Lots of things. The script, the directors, the location, the actors, how much are they going to pay me? How long is it going to take?" - On how he chooses parts.

"No. The soul is in the words, comes from the words, not research. [Research is] useless, waste of time. And exhausting. I just don't know how to do it. I only know my own experiences. People are completely mysterious to me. Even in my own family I have no idea what any of them are thinking." - On if he does research to prepare for a role.

People always comment about my hair. It is unusual for a man my age to have so much.

There were years when I didn't do anything but collect unemployment. I worked a lot, but I worked for nothing. I worked for 15 years as a kind of janitor at the Actors Studio. I would do manual things. I did lots of plays, theater workshops, for nothing.

"What I do has a lot to do with the words. My favorite thing is to have two scripts at the same time, and study them simultaneously in the kitchen. Go over the words, over and over, do them different ways, different inflections and rhythms. For me, rhythm is very important. I think we express ourselves as much with rhythm as with the words. It's not what you say, it's how you say it. I think it's very true. If you start to say your lines and it sounds right, usually I stick with that. If it sounds right, it probably is right. It's curious, how you're not collaborating with anyone at that point, and by the time you get there with other actors on the set, usually what you've done at home makes sense, and it's acceptable to everybody. The thing I have trouble with, because I'm so dependent on knowing my lines, is that if suddenly somebody says, "Here's a big speech. You're going to do that instead," I get lost. At that point, I understand why Marlon Brando loves cue cards." - On how he memorizes his lines and mentally prepares himself for each role.

What I used to do was, I'd get the script and see who the character was - a spy, a lumberjack, whatever - then I'd try to dress the part for the audition, to give the impression that I was tough or funny or whatever the part seemed to call for. That was always a disaster. I would never get the job. If I learned anything it's not to do anything like that. Now if they want to look at me, I go in and let them look at me. Let them figure out their own reasons for why they'd want to hire me.

"When I don't have any work sometimes, a kind of thing sets in where my mind shuts down. It's almost like hibernation. It's not that I'm unhappy, but I'm not thinking anything. Then I'll go and watch television. And after an hour or two, I'll think, 'You're just sitting there watching television and it's not even interesting.' And there's nothing to do. Life becomes meaningless." - On why he hates to not be working.

With stage fright you keep on doing it and eventually the fear goes away. If you stick around long enough you become very hard to intimidate. It is very difficult to make me nervous about working these days. There have been so many times when I thought I was finished, but it was not true - you just keep going. I am scared of sickness, pollution and crazy people but, work-wise, there is nothing to frighten me.

"You know. it's really tricky. People have no idea. How do you do it? Most of the time I don't. I mean, I can't. You just do it as well as you can. And, hopefully, you did some good stuff here and some good stuff there. The best part is going home in the car at the end of the day, and thinking, 'I was good.' " - On his process of acting.

I think that movie sets when they're good, are a lot like sandboxes.

People think that my favorite roles to do are villains, but I find comedy to be the most challenging and rewarding.

I would make a very bad killer in real life because I don't think I could even pick up a gun, much less actually shoot one. Guns make me very nervous. They're dangerous. I'm more of a pacifist than anyone could imagine.

== Attributed ==

* I'm the malevolent [[w:WASP|WASP]].


[[Category:Actors|Walken, Christopher]]


[[fi:Christopher Walken]]
[[fi:Christopher Walken]]

Revision as of 04:33, 1 January 2009

Christopher Walken (2007)

Christopher Walken (born March 31, 1943) is an American film and theater actor. Walken is a prolific actor who has spent more than 50 years on stage and screen. He has appeared in over 100 movie and television roles, including A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New York, Batman Returns and Pulp Fiction, as well as music videos by recording artists such as Madonna. He received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the 1978 film The Deer Hunter.

Sourced

  • I play a lot of those parts, and it's a chicken-and-egg thing. I don't know whether you get scary because you play those parts or did you get those parts because you were scary? But I do believe that there's a very close connection to what's scary and what's funny. So I think if you have the ability to do one, you might have the ability to do the other.
    • The Toronto Star staff (July 20, 2007) "How Walken makes us laugh in fear", The Toronto Star, p. E01.
  • Well, I don't play heroes obviously. I never played the guy who gets the girl. It might be interesting to do a part where I was a father in a functional family.
    • Hap Erstein (October 29, 2004) "Walken Doesn't Mind Playing Creepy Type - As Long As He's Cast", The Palm Beach Post, p. 9.
  • I won't retire. When you're an actor, you're forced to retire every few months. John Gielgud was 96 when he died, and he was working. It's good to work, whatever it is that keeps you interested. I would like to do that, I would like to keep going. I don't have kids, and I don't have hobbies. I don't particularly like to travel. If you're an actor, you have to travel anyway.
    • Dixie Reid (October 24, 2004) "'Bend' it like Walken - Actor has more to say about food and hair than acting", The Sacramento Bee, p. TK31.
  • I look for good possibilities in movies. I don't look for perfection.
    • Glenn Lovell: Knight Ridder Newspapers (October 18, 2004) "A mellow, reflective Christopher Walken", The Seattle Times, p. E8.
  • I'm not a big fan of other people's punctuation. When I read a script I've got a sort of automatic eraser. I don't see punctuation or capitals or instructions. I want to decide when the sentence is over. Who's to say when a sentence ends and the other one begins? Sometimes it begins in the middle of the next sentence.
  • I believe in saving money. I believe in having a house. I believe in keeping things clean. I believe in exercising. Slow and steady is a very good thing for me. It works for me.
    • Douglas J. Rowe: The Associated Press (June 14, 2004) "Film bad guy Walken: 'Slow and steady is a very good thing for me'", The Grand Rapids Press, p. D5.
  • Careers are not often as chosen as people think they are. People talk to me about my choices. I don't make choices, hardly. Things happen, and you say yes or no - usually 'yes', because it's always better to do something. What's the choice? Somebody will say, 'Don't do that part, you don't need to do that part.' And I'll say, 'Why not? What am I going to do? Sit around the house? I'd much rather go to work, and see actors, and have fun.
    • William Leith (January 25, 2003) "Dancing in the Dark: He was a baby when he got his first showbiz break in the 1940s, and then firmly schooled in the song-and-dance tradition. So how did Christopher Walken end up as a master of evil?", The Guardian.
  • I think it's sort of a compliment. Jay Mohr does it in front of me all the time. I've got another friend who does me on his answering machine. When I call him, I hear myself.
    • On individuals' impressions of Walken, interview in Randy Cordova (December 22, 2002) "Workaholic Walken Is Marvelous 'Catch'", The Arizona Republic, p. E3.
  • I have a theory, that there is a terrific link between what is funny and what is scary. I think there is a very close connection between what frightens people and what makes them laugh. Laughter is a kind of nervousness. Animals don't laugh. Smiling is, anthropologists agree, directly linked to the baring of the teeth.
    • Jan Moir (March 11, 2002) "'You're not scared of me, are you?': Christopher Walken has cornered the market in movie menace. But, as Jan Moir discovers, he is just as unsettling in real life", The Daily Telegraph, p. 18.
  • I think that my strength as a villain is that the people watching me know that Chris knows that he's in a movie. He's playing. He's having fun. He's going bang, bang. You know, "What's that?"
  • It's a natural aspect of the marketplace. It's always been that way in storytelling. The guy who was good at playing the lover plays the lover, the funny guy gets the comic role. Movies are so expensive, when they put them together they want to have a couple of solid blocks in what they're building. I accept that. In theater, though, I tend to look for other things, I think I tend to be best in comedy.
    • Terry Lawson: Knight-Ridder Newspapers (February 18, 1996) "Weird, As In Walken - No, He's Not Really Nuts ... Maybe", St. Louis Post-Dispatch, p. 3D.
  • I'm a better actor now than I ever was, I wish I could have hurried that up, but there's no way. Anyway, I always wanted to be around for a long time. Like a European actor, I hope I live a long time and that I'm acting until I finish.
    • Associated Press (February 4, 1993) "Christopher Walken shows charming side", The Toronto Star, p. F7.
  • I'm very nervous when I work in a film and very relaxed before a live audience. I like theater because it's more of an actor's medium. You can control your performance. In film you depend on the director to watch out for your ass, but in the theater you can take care of yourself.
    • Michael Blowen (August 17, 1980) "Walken's Success Spells Old Lifestyle, But Better Wines", The Boston Globe.

About

  • Walken is fascinating because he has a complex and fearless process -- each take is wildly different and he does that until he finds the one that is true perfection.
  • Everybody always wants to work with Christopher Walken. I think he's the most interesting actor working today. His choices are always dangerous, which makes for interesting work. You can watch him eat a bowl of cereal and you'd be riveted because he's just unpredictable.
    • Mars Callahan, interview in Bob Strauss (February 24, 2003) "Still racking them up - Christopher Walken, Oscar nominee and star of 'Poolhall Junkies,' has no intention of slowing his prolific career", The Whittier Daily News.
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