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
Even in the limo, I buckle my seatbelt. I got that seatbelt on before the car moves.
I have a lot of trouble with scripts. I have a lot of trouble imagining things while I'm reading them.
I grew up in the '50s, in New York City, where television was born. There were 90 live shows every week, and they used a lot of kids. There were schools just for these kids. There was a whole world that doesn't exist anymore.
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.
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.
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.
I like to stand in my kitchen with the script on a counter that's about chest high. Usually I do something else at the same time - make a chicken or slice vegetables - and all day long I just read it over and over and over.
I think if you do something effectively whether you're the lover or the comic or the action guy or the villain like I play; movies are very expensive to make. Chances are you'll get asked to play that part again.
For me, in movies, it's always a mixed bag. I've never made a movie where I thought, "You were really good in that movie; you were good all the time." No. It's always, "You didn't get it, you didn't do it in that scene, but the other scene is pretty good." So I just hope that in balance there's more good scenes than not.
I'm in a place in my life where I get offered parts that I didn't get offered before - fathers and uncles and grandfathers and so on. And it took me a long time to get to that place, but I'm glad because it opens up new territory.
My background is in musical comedy.
You never forget how to dance. It's just a matter of your bones working and things like that.
In England, and all over Europe, and all over the world, actors act until they die. They get old, really old, and they're still working. They just keep doing it.
When you're onstage and you know you're bombing, that's very, very scary. Because you know you gotta keep going - you're bombing, but you can't stop.