He has been called chilling, psychotic, reptilian, sinister, ruthless,
spooky, surreal, haunted, dangerous, cold to the touch
and the creepiest man onscreen.
How Strange Is Christopher Walken?
(The answer may surprise you)
An interview By Wallace Terry
"I know I look strange," says Christopher Walken, the actor who has put his
own stamp on creepy villainy.

"It's Hard For Me To Play The Guy Next Door"
-- By Wallace Terry
"Offscreen, I'm ordinary, predictable and very conservative,"
Christopher Walken was saying. "I have two houses, a station wagon, cats,
the same wife of 28 years, and I like to save money."

Since the age of 3, Walken has appeared in more than 100 stage roles,
and 30 films, one of which, The Deer Hunter, won him an Oscar. Critics have
described him admiringly as chilling, psychotic, reptilian, sinister,
ruthless, spooky, surreal, haunted, dangerous, cold to the touch and
vulnerable menacing. And to some moviegoers, he is a cult hero. Walken does
not mind being typecast.
"I'm lucky there's something they want me for in Hollywood," he said.
"The one advantage I have is that if you're looking for a Chris Walken type,
you have to get Chris Walken." Walken adds that he "didn't expect this much
success."
"I always felt I would do okay, but I assumed I would be fairly
anonymous," he went on. "The fact that I get some respect in my craft is
something I didn't anticipate. I am financially better off than I ever
thought I would be. I've already done more than I thought. That amazes me."
Walken, 54, attributes his acting success to his religious beliefs (he
was raised Methodist) and his lifelong resilience.
"God is very mysterious to me," he confided, "but I know the power of
belief. It's my source of strength." He said he prays for harmony and
humility.
When I traveled to Hollywood to visit him, Walken was completing scenes
for the film Excess Baggage, which opened last month. He has another movie
awaiting release on Christmas Day, called Mouse Hunt. His films have
included Batman Returns, Pulp Fiction, Nick of Time and the TV movie Sarah,
Plain and Tall.
With his pale skin and an all-black outfit, Walken emerged like a
specter from the elevator of the Chateau Marmont Hotel. He spoke quietly as
he guided me to the garden and ordere us tea.
"Black is practical," he said. "It always looks clean and fairly neat.
It's certainly simple. It's cool.It also makes you look thinner." He smiled.
The King of Strange has a sense of humor, I thought.
He was born Ronald Walken in Queens, N.Y., on March 31, 1943. He was
named for the British actor Ronald Colman. Walken is the second of three
sons of Paul and Rosalie Walken.
"My parents were classic immigrants," Walken said. His father is from
Germany and his mother is from Scotland. After working in bakeries, Paul
Walken saved enough to open his own bake shop in Queens, where his boys
worked after school.
"My father was the hardest-working man I ever knew," Walken recalled.
"I think I inherited that compulsion. That's the frustrating thing about
being an actor: the hiatus between jobs."
Hard work paid off for the elder Walken. "All he talked about was
owning a home," his son recalled. "And he did too." (Now 95, Paul Walken
lives in Florida with Rosalie.)
It was Walken's mother who wanted Ronnie and his brothers, Kenneth and
Glenn, to enter show business. Catalog models as toddlers, they graduated to
TV during its golden age, playing bit parts on live shows. On weekdays they
attended the Professional Children's School, and on Saturdays - like
children of other blue-collar families in Queens - they took tap-dancing
classes.
"I grew up with singers, dancers and comics," said Walken. "At NBC, I
would see a big pack of Chesterfields with beautiful legs. At 10, I worked
with Jerry Lewis, Sid Caesar and Ernie Kovacs." For years, Walken harbored a
secret ambition to be a stand-up comic.
At 15, he discovered Elvis Presley. A girl whom he wanted to take to
the prom showed him a magazine cliping of her "boyfriend." It was Elvis.

"This guy looked like a Greek god," Walken said. "Then I saw him on
television. I loved everything about him."
Walken became a fan, changing his hairstyle to be more like The King.
Years later, Walken wrote a play about Elvis, Milk-Cow Boogie.
Walken made his professional acting debut in 1959 in Archibald
MacLeish's J.B., a reenactment of the Book of Job.
The summer before he graduated from the Professional Children's
School, in 1961, Walken joined the Tarryl Jacobs Circus as a lion tame.
After Jacobs put several lions through their paces. Walken would walk up to
a very old female lion named Sheba.
"She would be sitting on a box. I would yell out, 'Sheba!' She would
go... (Walken imitated a bored sigh.) She would raise her paw and go,
'Arrrggghhh.' Then she would flop back down. They would open the door, and
she would go back into her cage." Walken laughed. Was he ever frightened?
"No."
Walken entered Hofstra University to study English and drama with the
intent of becoming a teacher. But just before completing his freshman year,
he decided to return to show business. Still in his teens, Walken landed a
role in an off-Broadway musical and went on to dance in several chorus
lines, billed as Ronnie Walken.
One night the singer Monique Van Vooren asked if she could introduce
him in her act as "Christopher," she said. Walken agreed, though today he
prefers the name Chris.
"Christopher sounds like a sneeze," he said with a chuckle. "Short
names are more sexy."
His big break came while dancing in the musical Baker Street. A casting
director asked him to audition for the Broadway play The Lion in Winter.
"I didn't know how to act," said Walken. When the company tried out in
Boston, Walken was awful. "It was fear," he said. The producer decided to
fire Walken, but he begged for three more days to improve. The show's star,
the late Robert Preston, showed Walken how to relax, and as a result he won
the Clarence Derwent Award for best nonfeatured performance by an unknown
actor.
"Everyone thought I was this great actor because I won this award,"
Walken said. "I wore tights in the show, so they figured I could play
Shakesepeare." He was invited to Canada to play Romeo. "I really stunk," he
said."They were furious. Not only was this guy an American, he can't act."
Walken tapped into his father's work ethic to master his craft. He
recited stretches of Shakespeare without taking a breath to make it sound
conversational. He fed lines to actors at the Public Theater in Manhattan.
He did odd jobs at the Actors Studio for 10 years until he wa accepted.
Meanwhile, Walken met his wifre, Georgianne Thon, while dancing in a
summerstock production of West Side Story. She played his girlfriend. They
were married in 1969. Today she is a casting director. They have an
apartment in a Manhattan brownstone and a home near Westport, Conn. "She is
my best friend," Walken said. The couple have no children.
In 1975 Walken won an Obie Award for the title role in Kid Champion.
The next year he starred in a Broadway revival of Sweet Bird of Youth.
Despite his stage successes, Walken, at 35, almost gave up his career. Fro
the most part he never earned more than $11,000 a year. Georgianne was
selling cosmetics.
"I was working," said Walken. "I just wasn't making much. And sometimes
I lived on unemployment."
Walken made his film debut in 1971 in The Anderson Tapes. Six years
later he played a deranged man in Annie Hall.
"In that movie, I'm talking about driving headlong into traffic," he
recalled. "That image of a psycho and my already pale skin translate before
the camera into a certain image you are stuck with."
Then came The Deer Hunter in 1978. Walken played Nick, a veteran who
kills himself after being driven to madness by the Vietnam war. Walken won
an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor. To prepare for that role, Walken recalled
his deep loneliness when he was sent to camp as a child.
In the '80s, his roles delved deeper into the mysterious and the
macabre. He played a soldier in The Dogs of War, a pimp in Pennies From
Heaven, a gunfighter in Heaven's Gate, a scientist in Brainstorm, a man with
second sight in The Dead Zone and a gangster in At Close Range. He danced on
film for the first time in Pennies From Heaven. In a hilarious scene, Walken
strips to his boxer shorts, revealing a huge, absurd valentine tattoo on his
chest.
In the '90s, Walken is still refining his portrayal as the scariest of
gangsters.
"I'm the Antichrist," he says to Dennis Hopper in True Romance. In
Things To Do in Denver When You're Dead, he played a paraplegic mafioso.
After watching that film, a friend told him he had just seen the most
terrible man on earth. "Thank you," Walken replied modestly.
Does he tap into a darker side to play those dark roles?
There's a certain tongue-in-cheek at play here," he said. "Anybody who
knew me for five minutes wouldn't think that's my persona. One reason I can
play the people I do is I have such a distance from them. I'm not neurotic
or any of those things. I'm very positive."
He paused. "Oh, I know I look strange, and strangeness equates into
villainy through the camera. If you saw pictures of me when I was a kid, I
always looked pretty strange. But I really don't feel strange. It's hard for
me to play the guy next door. But it's an advantage too, because other
actors don't have it."
How does he feel about violence in movies?
"I don't particularly like violence unless it's a good movie and the
violence fits," he said. "What I find strange are people living in a society
where teenagers have automatic handguns. Serial killers patrol highways.
Crack cocaine is everywhere. That's real violence. The whole world would be
a lot better off if we melted down every gun."
Walken takes care of his health. He rises early, jogs daily and, even
when on location, shops for and prepares his own food. Besides acting and
cooking, Walken has few interests.
"My favorite hobby is working," he said. "I go on vacation every time I
work."
What advice does he offer to young people?
"You've got to want whatever you go after," said Walken."Work at your
craft or career every day. You have to respect yourself and others. If you
fix your own life and take care of your family, you will make a
contribution."

(thanks to Karen Pearlman for transcribing this)