Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken
Christopher Walkenis an American actor who has appeared in more than 100 films and television shows, including Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, The Dogs of War, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, Batman Returns, True Romance, Pulp Fiction, Sleepy Hollow, Catch Me If You Can, Hairspray, Seven Psychopaths, and the first three Prophecy films, as well as music videos by many popular recording artists. Walken has received a number of awards and nominations during his career, including winning...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth31 March 1943
CityAstoria, NY
CountryUnited States of America
People think that my favorite roles to do are villains, but I find comedy to be the most challenging and rewarding.
I always like to watch comics and it's interesting that you can tell if someone's funny in 10 seconds.
I come from a part of New York that was almost entirely immigrants. I was born in America, but all of my friends' parents, everybody's parents, including my own, had come to America from Europe.
I know that whenever I think about death, I come up against a stone wall.
Some people can do things and get away with it. Comics are famously like that. Why is it that some guys can say the most horrible things and it's not offensive, it's funny?
I certainly have never been an actor who can play the Everyman guy - or, I don't tend to get those parts. I've tended to play eccentrics. I've played a lot of villains, of course.
I became an actor by accident. I suppose I figured since I was in musical comedy from the time I was a teenager, I suppose I figured that I'd always been in that world to some extent.
One of the difficult things about being an actor is to stick around.
Early on, I played one or two disturbed people, and I guess I must have been good at it, because it stuck. But, you know, I'm a regular guy. I stay home a lot, I make an effort to keep a distance from the whole social thing, the openings, the parties. I try to live in a calm way.
By the time I was 7, I did walk-ons, catalogue modeling, you name it. In the Queens where I grew up, you didn't go bowling on Saturday; you went to dancing school.
Both my parents had heavy accents, and so did everybody they knew. It's a rhythm thing - people who speak English where they have to hesitate and think of the right word. And I think it rubbed off.
If you're an actor, a hard thing is to stick around, to stay viable. I try to do that by taking the opportunity to do something different every once in awhile.
Also for me it was different because I play a lot of villains and in this one I play a dad and I play a good guy, basically. He's the Secretary of the Treasury. I never had a job like that.
Acting is a bit like being an athlete. You spend all your time getting ready to do something for two minutes. All the things that made my career in the movies happen took two or three minutes, which is the time that it takes for a 'take'. In that time, something happens. That's what people know you for, just like someone running the hundred metres.