CHRISTOPHER WALKEN: The Hollywood Interview

(Christopher Walken, above.)

[We continue with our postings of some of the best interviews from the previous decade that have thus far only appeared in print, but not on our site. This interview was conducted by our good friend in New York, filmmaker Michael Wechsler. It originally appeared in Venice Magazine in 2003. Walken was just coming off a terrific performance in Catch Me If You Can. This is one of the better talks Walken has ever given. He speaks a lot about his process, in very entertaining fashion, making this a must-read for any aspiring actors.]

CHRISTOPHER WALKEN: Dancer in the Dark

by Michael Wechsler

He dances. He can carry a tune. He has become a regular host on "Saturday Night Live." He loves Jerry Lewis, cats, Bugs Bunny, cooking and painting.

Oh, wait, I'm forgetting a few small details. He also won an Academy Award in 1978 for playing a suicidal soldier in Vietnam, gave audiences a lifetime of nightmares and sadistic chuckles playing a heavy in King of New York and a thug amongst thugs in True Romance, and to this day has one of the most recognizable hairstyles of anybody gracing the Silver Screen.

Frankly, I was more than a little nervous about interviewing Mr. Walken, based purely on his resume of psychologically unstable characters. My initial thought was ‘I hope he's nothing like the folks he's played.' Looking through Walken's roles of the past three decades, it feels like a Zagat Guide of every classification of Antagonist—a Villain du Jour menu that only Satan could cook up. Fortunately, when I was greeted by the actor at his home in Connecticut, he didn't pull out a gun and strong arm me. As a matter of fact, forget everything you think you know about Christopher Walken based on his body of work because the man couldn't be farther from the toxic characters he's played. He's instantly likeable, very accessible, down to earth, and, uh, would you believe, just a regular good guy. If there's ever a person for which the adage, “Don't judge a book by its cover” applies, it would be Christopher Walken. The fact is, he knows it, and he wants everyone else to know it, as well.

Lest you think he was hatched by the imagination of Edgar Allen Poe, the story of Christopher Walken begins in Queens, New York, when he was born March 31, 1943. Raised the middle son of three boys, Chris spent a good portion of his childhood working for his father, Paul, at the bakery he owned. Had the Golden Age of Television never arrived, Chris could very well have been groomed to become the next great pastry chef. But his mom, Rosalie, once an aspiring actress before becoming a full time mother, transferred her thespian passion to her boys, and Chris fell in love with being in front of the camera. During the fifities, Chris spent much of his time jumping from one live telecast to the next, racking up appearances on "The Ernie Kovacs Show," " Colgate Comedy Hour," and "Playhouse 90," to a name a few of the shows going at that time.

So that these shows wouldn't conflict with his education, Walken enrolled in the Professional Children's School in Manhattan, an institution that allowed children to work and study side by side. Here, his focus and training was dance, an art form that to this day he continues to utilize in almost every movie or show he appears in. Chris dropped out of college when he got his first big break, starring alongside Liza Minnelli in the Broadway Musical, Best Foot Forward, and from there went on to dance in a number of musical theater productions. The shift moved away from dancing when he was cast in his first major acting role in 1966 as King Philip in The Lion in Winter.

For years, Walken worked steadily on and off Broadway, hoping to eventually break into movies. After nearly getting cast in two roles that would've insured an immediate leap into stardom— Star Wars and Love Story —Chris finally landed his first leading role alongside Sean Connery in 1971's The Anderson Tapes. His next standout performance came in a brief but very memorable role as Diane Keaton's menacingly funny brother in Woody Allen's Annie Hall. Though he was making a name for himself in the seventies in film, it wasn't until he was cast in the part of Nick in Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter, that the public took notice. His portrayal of a suicidal American soldier in Vietnam not only won him acclaim, it won him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 1978. That changed everything and, at age 35, Christopher Walken occupied his own constellation in the pantheon of great actors.

In 1980, Walken starred in what would become MGM'S last musical, Pennies from Heaven, turning in a dance number that was so memorable that at a party he was complimented by two of his favorite dancers of all time—Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire.

After Pennies, the evil side of Christopher Walken was introduced to the movie-going public with his acclaimed performance as criminal syndicate head Brad Whitewood Sr. in At Close Range. Not worried or bothered by being typecast, Walken continued to take on the bad guy whether it was a Bond villain in A View to a Kill or an irascible drill sergeant in Neil Simon's comedy, Biloxi Blues.

The nineties established Walken as an icon of the independent film movement, and it's an association that exists to this day. Currently, you can find his countenance on the posters and billboards of this year's Sundance Film Festival campaign. Whether delighting audiences with a lengthy monologue in Pulp Fiction or shocking them with his sinister ways in King of New York, Walken quickly became the poster child for hip, artsy, and edgy cinema.

But being versatile and wanting to show that behind the dark exterior lurked a rich sense of humor, Walken turned on his funny bone. He became a regular host on Saturday Night Live, and to this day is—with Alec Baldwin— a member of the exclusive “5 times club,” with an open invitation to host anytime.

Neither his comedy nor his film roles could prepare audiences for what would come in 2001, when he danced his way through the Spike Jonze-directed music video of Fat Boy Slim's "Weapon of Choice."

In the last few years, Chris has expanded his horizons beyond acting, creating a cooking show for Split Screen, writing and directing the short film, "Popcorn Shrimp," for Showtime, and writing the play Him, which he starred in playing Elvis Presley as figured in the afterlife. He's also an avid painter, though he considers that part of his life more of a hobby. Considered one of Hollywood's busiest actors, Walken's hard work looks like it may pay off once again. Walken could be up for another Academy Award in 2003, judging from the heat he's already received for his sensitive and spirited performance as Leo DiCaprio's father, Frank Abagnale, Sr, in Steven Speilberg's highly-touted, box-office smash, Catch Me If You Can. Though he appreciates the attention, Walken doesn't rest on his laurels or abandon his love of small cinema either. This month he will return to the indie screen in Poolhall Junkies, a movie about a pool hustler struggling to make his way. To look at these two films is to understand that Christopher Walken is an actor who can play both sides of the film fence without alienating either camp—the Hollywood studio system and the American Independent. That, above all else, is what intrigued this writer enough to quell my nerves and meet him on his home turf.

Arriving at his house in Connecticut (which for some reason I imagined might be a dark castle at the top of a hill), I encountered a scene more Norman Rockwell than Max Shreck, the villain he played in Batman Returns. Despite his non-stop work schedule, Christopher Walken leads a relatively “normal,” quiet life with his wife of 34 years, Emmy-Award-winning casting director Georgianne Walken. Within moments in his home, he has made me a delicious cup of coffee which fuels the conversation that follows. We cover his beginnings, his processes, his opinions on everything from acting to cooking. If only every breakfast could be this much fun.

How do you prepare for a role? What's the Christopher Walken process?

Christopher Walken: I do the same thing every time.

Which is?

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.

If you have a scene and the director comes over and says, “We're cutting this,” is that what you're talking about?

Well, cutting is another thing. I'd love to be a silent movie actor. [laughs] If I had a day in movies where I get on the horse, come to town , tie up horse, come out, shovel some hay, that would be great.

What about research for your roles? Does that come into play?

I used to do that. It's everything I was taught, but it didn't work for me. I found I did my best when I found something in [the material] that was kind of like a “secret.” Often it has to do with humor. I've played scenes in which I had a secret. I would be playing a scene like “so and so,” but I don't tell anybody. It's just on my mind. I pretend I'm somebody else. Not necessarily anybody to do with the movie. Suddenly I'll be in a scene with you and I decide in this scene I'm Elvis, but I'm not going to tell you.

Can you give me some other examples of this “pretend?”

I do it all the time. I'll pretend I'm a U-boat commander. I do a Woody Allen thing. I'm a terrible impersonator. I'm the worst, but it's good for that because I'm doing something and nobody knows what it is.

You ever find you have time for rehearsal? How do you feel about it as an actor?

I love rehearsal. It's something that if I ever got to direct a movie, I would do. It's restrictive because agents will say, “You use him for a week, you pay him for a week.” So a rehearsal can be enormously expensive. When I worked with Sidney Lumet, we went into a big room with tape on the floor, the way most plays are initially rehearsed, and we went through it scene by scene, just like a play. And then, when it came time to shoot it, it did make things a lot easier. I'm all for that.

Rehearsal allows you to go home and sleep on it. If I'm shooting a scene with you next week, and the director says on your day off, let's go to the locations, go through the lines. It makes an enormous difference because you go home and you know where the door is, you know where the stove is, you know that you don't want the chair there, and a few days go by and even if it's subconsciously, you're working on it and it makes a huge difference.

Ingmar Bergman, on all of his movies, his actors knew, no matter what happened, you would shoot the first two weeks over again. If good stuff happened, he'd keep it. He'd shoot it again. Because getting started on a movie is sometimes difficult.

Is typecasting a problem?

I'm grateful to work. No. Occasionally you get to do something different like Catch Me If You Can or the Spike Jonze video "Weapon of Choice."

You have played an eclectic group of characters. What inspires you in choosing your roles and films?

I don't hear actors talk about it that much. I hear people ask actors about their choices. I can tell you that with my career, there is very little about it that's planned. I more or less just take the best thing in front of me. I've always been that way. I was in show business since I was a kid. When I was in musicals someone asked me to be in a play and I was then in a play. Someone asked me to be in a movie, I auditioned and got the part. And now, it's still the same. I don't have children and I don't have hobbies and I like to go to work. It's better for me physically and mentally, everything. So I've made a lot of movies. Most are independent movies. I haven't made that many big studio movies. Part of that is because I lived in New York all my life. I've never lived in California. The other part is that you know independent films usually take less time to make ‘cause they don't have a lot of money. Most movies that I make— even if I'm in them from first day to the wrap party— it was usually five to six weeks. So there is something to be said about those small movies. In fact, a lot of the movies people consider the classics— those movies from the 30s or 40s in black and white— they were shot on sound stages for like six weeks. I think those Bogart movies, like Casablanca, took six weeks.

The classics were shot in the same amount of time as today's low budgeted indies.

Not only do they have great writers/and actors/directors/stories, but they were done on soundstages, very controlled environments. They were black and white, which always helps. You see black and white and you say, ‘This is a movie.' Even if it was harbors with docks and boats, it was soundstages. Very controlled environments where shots weren't screwed up by helicopters or the sun going behind a cloud. You can see it in the movies. There's something to be said of making movies fast.

You were at the Actors Studio. You studied under Lee Strasberg. What was that experience like for you?

I had apprenticed at the Actors Studio for a long time. For years. It was an interesting place to go. A regular thing to do. And sometimes the moderators would be fascinating. Every Christmas, Kazan would do a session. He was great. They had people who were very interesting moderators: Ellen Burstyn, occasionally Al Pacino. And I worked there. I helped them do sets and stuff. At one point I auditioned and got in. Strasberg was there a lot when I was there.

To be frank, there's something about the method that I've never understood. I'm not sure what it is, even now. There was one single thing at the Actors Studio that made something clear to me that I've carried with me my whole life. After I'd been a member, I was doing a scene from "Death of a Salesman" with another actor. There's a famous scene where two brothers are talking in the bedroom. Somebody in the middle of my scene dropped a cardboard box full of dishes and it made a tremendous noise. I noticed the whole audience go like this [shifts his head] and I went on. Afterwards, Strasberg said to me, “What do you think?” I said I thought it went well. He said, “You know somebody dropped a big box of dishes when you were performing. Everyone jumped except you. You didn't even react.” I said, ‘Yes, I was concentrating.' “That's not concentrating, that's bad acting.” [laughs]

You can't exclude life from what you're doing. You bring it with you. You make it your own. You use it. If I don't feel well one day, that's going to affect the scene and it should. If I'm mad at somebody, that's going to affect the scene and it should. And it's a good thing because it's real.

There are things about movies that don't make sense to me like the notion of ‘Action' and ‘Cut.' It's funny. Movies still are the same as they were with D.W. Griffith. They go from reel to reel. The scene starts with ‘Action' and ends with ‘Cut.' The best directors are aware of the fact that things segue; that what you bring onto the set with you should be part of the scene; that the scene begins way before ‘Action' and is over way after ‘Cut.' I've worked with directors that don't say ‘Cut.' You run out of lines and the scene is over and nobody says ‘Cut.' Sometimes very interesting things happen. Actors keep ripping it. It's like jazz. Sometimes you get your best stuff from accidental scenes.

Good directors know that. Interesting movies are full of stuff that nobody knew was there. Abel Ferrara does that a lot. I think it's true that you can look at a script and say, ‘That's my big scene,' when that's not your big scene. The big scene isn't something in the script.

It hasn't happened.

It hasn't happened. You can't surprise anybody if you can't surprise yourself. Surprise is a big thing. There are so many great things. Dancers have a great mentality about what they do. They say great things. A choreographer used to say to me, “Show me something I never saw before. I don't care what it is. Just do something original.”

Speaking on the subject of dance, with the Fat Boy Slim music video “Weapon of Choice,” that was the first time I became aware that you started out as a dancer.

I danced from the time I was a little kid when I was a chorus boy until I was about thirty-something.

Is it true you try to incorporate a dance move into every one of your roles?

I do that a lot. Lots of times they've kept it in.

Can you give some examples?

King of New York, At Close Range. I dance for a minute in Catch Me If You Can.

Talk a little bit about doing “Weapon of Choice.”

It's a very catchy tune. The big thing about that for me was to work with Spike Jonze. He's terrific. And young. He asked me to do that based on my work on a movie twenty years ago, Pennies from Heaven. The best thing about that for me was I'm going to be 84 years old [kidding] and at this point [it's nifty] to be able to be in a music video and actually have kids think it's cool. I suppose musicals have always been my favorite thing— I'm talking about movie musicals. If somebody asks me if I want to go see a show, my choice is almost always musicals. I think if I was in the movies at an earlier time, I might have been in a lot of musical movies. But certainly MTV and music videos, some are brilliantly done, little movies.

I would think it's difficult to dance to something electronic like “Weapon of Choice.”

It is good for tap because it has a deliberate almost drum-like beat. They say tap dancers are like drummers.

Who or what had the single greatest impact on you as an artist?

I think certainly my movie-going as a kid. I was a religious moviegoer. In those days, going to the movies was different. You never went to see a movie. You always went to see at least two movies and on Saturday, usually three features, 27 cartoons. Wasn't any particular movie or actors but it was that whole experience of going to the movies. When I was growing up, there were a lot of movies influenced by the Second World War and then the Korean War. Also a lot of great westerns.

Would you say that's how you caught the acting bug? Going to the movies?

It was typical of that time. My friends and I would go to the movies, go to some vacant lot, and then act it out. Particularly war movies. It was the thing that kids did. Also kids in those days went to dancing school. Parents would send their kids on Saturday to dancing school. This was a working-class neighborhood. It was a typical thing for kids to go to tap class, girls to go to ballet or acrobatic class.

Touch on how you got involved in TV as a child actor.

It sounds odd but it wasn't at all. It was the late forties to late fifities. The so-called Golden Age of TV was born to the world. Came from NYC. Came from a six-block radius from Rockefeller Center. Three networks had their facilities in that small area which was connected to suburbs by subways. Ninety live shows every week; some were only 15 minutes, some 30 minutes. And they used a lot of kids. They weren't child actors necessarily. They were put there as set dressing. I didn't often have a lot to do. I would occasionally have a line. I did that and my brothers did that. The thing those days was to be a “triple threat.” My brother did a TV show which had a radio show connected to it, a soap opera called "The Guiding Light." Sometimes he would be too busy doing other things and I would do the radio show because we had a similar voice, and the thing was to be a triple threat, which meant you could sing, dance and remember a few lines. That made you eminently hireable. I remember my older brother went to an audition once. They said, “We're looking for a young man who can play an accordian.” My brother raised his hand. He didn't even know what an accordion was. He rented one, had a few lessons, played “Home on the Range,” and got the job.

You like to cook. You shot a cooking show with Julian Schnabel called “Cooking With Chris.”

The thing about cooking is it's so interesting to watch. I don't know why, but if you go to somebody's house and they're making something, they usually say interesting things while they're cooking. I watch cooking shows a lot. I don't watch them as much now because the commercialization of them has become greedy. If you watch a cooking show, a half hour will rarely be 18 minutes. If you watch them, the host is almost always saying, “And when we come right back.” "Cooking with Chris" was really amusing. Julian and I and this other guy, a friend who has a restaurant in Little Italy decided to do this cooking show that had to do with buying the food, cooking it, then eating it. Three acts. I thought it was entertaining.

Let's talk about the short film you directed, “Popcorn Shrimp.”

The same people who did the cooking show came to me. They were doing five-minute shorts. They had a bunch of actors do their own pieces and they asked me. I hung up the phone and wrote it. The story is about a case of mistaken identity. The police had seen these people who were suspicious. They thought they were dangerous looking. Whenever we cut to them they are talking about food. The experience demonstrated that I'd be a lousy director.

So directing is not something you're interesting in doing?

My weakness as a director was if somebody would ask me something I'd say, ‘Just do whatever you want.' [laughs] My impression is that a director must be a little like a general. You'd hate me to be running a war because I wouldn't know what anybody is doing. [laughs]

Let's talk about some of your movies that are out now. Catch Me If You Can was a much different role for you.

Oh yeah. It's really important. One of the reviewers really hit it on the head. They said I finally got a part where I play a human being.

Not a monster.

Somebody who doesn't want to take over the world with radon [laughs].

You weren't the headless horseman.

Playing the part of the father, I was a person, and a person who was struggling.

I don't know much about a movie until I see it. There were a couple things I thought immediately after reading the script. I'm a big Jerry Lewis fan. I heard him say once in an interview that his big secret is he's only nine. That all his life he's only been nine years old, and I thought, yes, absolutely. He's like a kid. You get that feeling with certain people. Mick Jagger has that. I think that's a wonderful quality, especially as you get older. I did get the feeling that Frank Abagnale, Sr. and his son were like a couple of juvenile delinquents.

What was it like working with Spielberg?

It was wonderful. I know because of watching his films, among the many things that's amazing about his movies is how good the actors come off. Every actor in every movie he's made is good. I figured he cast me for his own reasons. There's a physical believability between me and Leo. I never discussed it with him and we never discussed it while we were making the movie. It was very efficiently done. There wasn't a lot of sitting around. He's very fast.

You also have another film coming out. A much smaller movie but an enjoyable film called Poolhall Junkies. This was a classic case of a first-time director with very little clout, Mars Callahan, and you helped get the ball rolling on this script he's had floating around for years.

I was in a play in New York and Mars came to see it. And he told me this film he was doing. He sent me the script. We shot my scenes for little more than a week. Mars did an Orson Welles on it. Wrote, starred, directed, did the publicity for it. It's his baby.

Let's talk about comedy. I watched your “Saturday Night Live” shows (five total). You have an open invitation to host. You obviously enjoy working with the troupe.

I think I enjoy funny people. Olivier has said no matter what the part is, even if it's King Lear, look for the jokes. I love watching comic actors. People who are funny are just a blessing to work with. I'm hosting my next Saturday Night Live on February 22.

Do you approach comedy differently?

I think of everything I do as comedy. Even when I'm holding a machine gun.

The villains you've played always seem to have a chuckle behind them, like a wink to the audience.

I've never gotten away from the idea of the performance thing. I come from musicals where there is no fourth wall. I grew up watching Zero Mostel in pieces like A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum. And Jerry Lewis, with Damn Yankees, he'd walk out and do the scene and always turn to the audience and [makes funny expression]. There's always in the cast list of a play an unmentioned character. It's the audience, and I carry that with me into the movies. When I play these villains, I think people can see that's Chris, pretending to be Max (from Batman Returns) and Max knows he's really Chris, and Chris knows that you know that Chris knows that.

You are a genius with monologues. Movies like Pulp Fiction and True Romance are memorable because of your speeches. You have a gift for them.

People don't have monologues in movies. I get monologues a lot. I worked with Peter Berg in the last thing I did, Helldorado. He was directing and he came in and gave me this big speech that was three pages. He said, “You're good at big speeches.”

Berg wrote it after he hired you?

He did. I think it comes from doing so much theater.

What about the long speech in Pulp Fiction?

Pulp Fiction was eight pages long. I was talking to the camera. It was great. I had the speech for months. I must say in that case every time I went through that long speech, every time I got to the end, it cracked me up. It stayed funny.

Do you have any favorite directors?

I've enjoyed working with almost everybody I've worked with. And there are people I'd like to work with. I've never worked with Scorsese.

That's shocking to me.

I almost worked with him once. He tried to make The Last Temptation of Christ a number of times. At some point I was going to play Jesus. I spent some time with him and it was fascinating, but then the studio wouldn't let him make it and ten years went by. I almost got to work with him. So many wonderful directors I'd love to work with: Sydney Pollack, Spike Lee, Bernardo Bertolucci, to name a few.

What do you hope the next 10 to 15 years will bring for Christopher Walken, the actor?

As I get older, I think the whole thing with Catch Me If You Can is maybe the beginning of something where I play uncles, fathers— you know, decent people.

I have my James Lipton question: When all is said and done and you're gone from this planet, how would you like to be remembered?

There's something about movies. You know when I sit there and watch Bogart. I watch Cagney. I watch Olivier. Are they dead?

That's what I want.

(Michael Wechsler is an award-winning writer-director with his own production company, Modern Primitives Films. He has directed television series for the BBC, Bravo, and TLC. He won numerous film festival awards for writing and directing the feature film, Slaves of Hollywood. His internet series, "The Last Date," is one of the most successful in the history of the web, with some 25 million views to date. His next feature directing project is entitled The Red Robin and is currently in pre-production.)