The other day, Christopher Walken bumped into an old friend in the street. They´re the same age. They´ve known one another for years. At the time, Walken was on his way to see THINGS TO DO IN DENVER:.for the first time. So Walken invited the friend along and they went to see the movie together. Afterwards, Walkens noticed his friend was horrified by what he had just seen. "Jesus Christ". he muttered, "that`s the most terrible person I ever saw...that`s just the most terrible person I ever saw." Walken looked back at his friend and said, very reasonably, "Well, thank you."


Michael Rosenbaum - Actor "The first day of shooting I walk up to Christopher Walken and Mars is standing there and I said, "Should I call you Mr. Walken or should I call you Chris?" He looks at me and goes: "Call me Flash." Don't ask me why.Like the "Flash" thing. I said, "Chris... Uh... Mr. Walken." He said, "Flash... Call me Flash," then smiled. The next day I go, "Hey Flash!" He looks at me like "Who the hell are you?" I say, "Don't you remember? Flash..." He goes, "Flash?" I say, "You said 'Call me Fla... oh, fuck off!"


Christopher Walken reveals his top dietary tips, November 2001
The BBC's Film 2001 programme tracked down Christopher Walken to the Welsh set of Plots With A View last night, and while they did their level best to get the actor to talk about his role as Frank Featherbed, Walken was happier dispensing dietary tips.
In particular, the New Yorker was keen to spread the word about the power of leeks. 'People don't eat enough leeks,' he told a bemused cameraman. 'You have to wash them because there's sand in them. They're very difficult.' Hmmmn, not unlike Walken's interviewee techniques then?
Finally, the actor was persuaded to shed some light on the role he's playing. 'It's a different sort of part for me,' he revealed. 'I play a lot of villains, but Frank is quite nice...but he is bizarre!'


James Lipton, Host of The Actors Studio
"One night, he [Christopher Walken] and George Plimpton and I went to Madison Square Garden to see the fights. And, finally, we left the Garden and there were the three of us, Chris, Plimpton and I on 8th Avenue and 31st Street and all of the sudden we were surrounded by a tight, unbroken ring of young black men, and the three of us looked at each other and thought, 'well...what's this?' And they just stood there staring at us... and then the leader of them stepped forward, put his belly against Chris', and said, 'Man, you are the coolest white man in America.' And, I said to Chris, 'That is the best compliment you will get as long as you live.'"


Rob Lowe is a collector of Walken stories; one story involves Walken and Graces Jones during the making of "A View T A Kill". On a break, they swing open the door to a pub in some grimy East European village. Three tothless peasants turn around, There`s Jones and there`s Walken, in black leather and a spiked, powdered wig. Walken looks at the peasants, drops his jaw, and roars, "Coleslaw for everyone!"
"That kind of sums him up," says Lowe, chuckling.


The Actor-writer Steven Berkoff is describing when he directed the American star Christopher Walken in a staging of Coriolanus in New York. The death scene was the turning-point in their relationship, and not for the better: Walken refused to enter into the Grand Guignol spirit of things and walked out, though he was eventually persuaded to return. "He was the most difficult actor I've worked with," says Berkoff, in a tone suspended between annoyance and admiration.
[Gerüchteweise soll Chris auch Marihuana in den Pausen zwischen Sweet Birth of Youth oder Coriolanus geraucht haben.]


Walken's Birthday

One day during the production of The Rundown (in 2003), Seann William Scott found Christopher Walken skulking around the set and asked him what was wrong. "I'm just really down. I'm in Los Angeles all alone," he grumbled. "And it's my birthday." Scott offered his condolences and suggested that they go out and have some fun - whereupon Walken suddenly brightened and made a confession: "I'm just kidding, it's not really my birthday," he explained. "I do this on every movie. I'm going to do it in two weeks and, you watch, I'll get a cake by noon."


Miranda Richardson's role in Sleepy Hollow afforded the dubious accolade of being the recipient of Christopher Walken's first screen kiss. And as he was playing a vicious mercenary with teeth filed down to points it looked a less than pleasant experience.
"It didn't really hurt," said Miranda somewhat testily. "The idea was it was meant to look like it did. He said it was his first screen kiss but I can't really believe it.
"I said: 'What about Deer Hunter, that was really romantic?' but he was 'no no, I don't make those kind of films'. So I told him I was deeply honoured."


"What can I say? The guy's a national treasure," director Abel Ferrara has said of his frequent star. Having guided Walken through King of New York, The Addiction and The Funeral, Ferrara offered two teasing insights: "Chris Walken could scare people just walking down the street. Two-year-old babies cry when he enters the room. The guy is scary. He works hard at it though. He hates people giving away his secrets. He wants to be thought of as naturally terrifying, I guess." And: "You only have to look at Chris to realize he has been through some heavy duty shit." Their latest collaboration New Rose Hotel remains unfinished. "It's missing about four juicy scenes," Walken laughs. "He'll finish it but everybody will look older."


While preparing for his first appearance as host of "Saturday Night Live," Christopher Walken met with the show's writers for a pitching session. After about an hour of brainstorming ("You could be a carnival barker," "You could be a police dispatcher") Lorne Michaels asked Walken, who had remained relatively quiet, what he thought. "He gave the best non-sequitur I've ever heard," Dana Carvey recalled: "Bear suits are funny - and bears as well."
According to Norm MacDonald, the line was "Bear suits are funny - and ape suits as well" - and prompted five minutes of hysterical laughter.


Seann William Scott worked with Walken on The Rundown. "One time he walked by me," Scott recalled, "and I went, 'Hey, Chris, how's it going?' And he looked back at me and went, 'He-e-e-y, du-u-u-de.' And then he just walked off."


"By 1964 [Christopher Walken] was in the chorus of High Spirits, a musical update of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit. Coward himself was involved in the production and, during rehearsals, approached pretty boy Walken, then clad in a flaming crimson top, with the words 'Interesting shirt.' Walken, pertified in the presence of the great man, could only blurt out a distinctly unimpressive 'Why... yes... it's red.' 'Well,' retorted the famous wit, 'it's been an exciting day for us all.'"


Es war bei Conan:
During an appearance on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" one evening, Christopher Walken revealed an intriguing factoid to his admiring host: As an homage to Broadway (and his background as a comic actor), Walken explained, he always endeavored to slip a jig (or similar dance) into each of his big screen film roles.


Kuhfladen:
After shooting Around the Bend in New Mexico, Christopher Walken was asked whether he had played any practical jokes with the ubiquitous cowpies which the desert. He had. "You can pick up a [sun-dried] cowpie," he explained, "and you can walk up to somebody ans say, 'Would you hold this please?' And they'll always take it!"


Die liebe Logik:
Walken once failed an adding and subtracting test for a holiday job at Macy's.


In Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead, Jenny McCarthy played Christopher Walken's private nurse.
"He played a paraplegic strapped in this chair," McCarthy later recalled. "He was strapped in the whole day for two weeks" and could barely move. Indeed, McCarthy's duties extended well beyond acting. "Sometimes he would say, 'I have an itch,'" she explained, "and I'd have to scratch him off-camera."


Einer von Walkens Lieblingswitzen/one of his favorite jokes
“A duck walks into a drugstore and he says to the pharmacist, could I please have some lip gloss? The pharmacist says, certainly Sir, here you are, will this be cash or charge? And the duck says, put it on my bill. “




Praise Him (Kim Morgan, 2001)

"Christopher Walken is about as perfect a specimen of human life that ever walked. People are only truly beautiful when they're truly strange and Walken is positively peculiar--hypnotically so. The only man who could have accurately played both Jesus Christ and Satan would be Christopher Walken ("I'm the Antichrist," he told Dennis Hopper in True Romance, and we believed him).

There is something about his gorgeous bone structure, sunken eyes, tall, graceful gait, staggered speaking manner, impish grin, and hair, ALWAYS coolly coifed hair that transfers him from film star to icon. Erotic religious icon. All you Christopher Walken fetishists out there understand what I'm talking about. The man is not only an American original, an extraordinary actor, but sexier than... well, hell... that other icon, Elvis Presley, an entertainer who Walken, not coincidentally, reveres. Not coincidentally because Elvis had the moves. So does Walken.

Have you noticed? In his earlier career, Dr. Strange was a hoofer on Broadway. He also brilliantly played a dancing pimp in Pennies from Heaven. Watch the dance steps he admits to putting into almost every one of his films lest a bastard director leave them on the cutting-room floor (CW doesn't like it when that happens).Without one word of dialogue, Christopher Walken, alone, dances through the entire video. Jonze, who made that genius, weirdo actor movie Being John Malkovich and who also directed Fatboy Slim's hilarious "Praise You," showcases the actor's stepping talents with jaw-dropping celestial sublimity.
Walken moves with menace, charm, humor, glee, and eroticism as he grooves, tap dances, leaps, does an Ariel (!) and even flies (which I believe he is actually doing) in beautiful, signature style. Can I truly explain his awe-inspiring moves? No. You just have to see it to believe it. "


"Christopher Walken ist wie Clark Gable im Körper von Boris Karloff." (A. Ferrara)


 

"Words don`t matter to Chris. He lets them fall where they will. Sometimes it`s amazing, and sometimes honestly, it sucks. Sometimes it sounds awful to me, you think `this doesn`t sound real at all, man, wow, where is that coming from?`But he trusts himself...and I really give him credit." (Dennis Hopper)

"(..), Christopher Walken is one of a kind, he really is. He’s great. I remember when we were doing interviews for True Romance and one reporter said, “You guys are great actors together.” And Walken said, “I don’t know if we’re great actors, but I started out as a dancer, and Hopper and I really partner well.” I always thought that was a good line. (Dennis Hopper)

"There are a very few actors who train as dancers, and he stands like Baryshnikov with hist chest open like a god. Juxtaposed with hist menace and loose-canon aspect, it just gives him this crazy beauty." (Meryl Streep)

 "His body has brains. Dancing has enhanced that, but it's really a God-given gift. He moves in such an insinuating way. His pelvis is talking, his knees are talking. The way he handled his body in Sweet Bird turned everybody on. The girls with the production were affected by it, and so were a lot of the fellows, consciously or otherwise." (Paul Mazursky)

"The fascination of his performance has to do with the way he holds things back, with the way his various twitches and hesitations hint at something without ever revealing exactly what it might be. It´s a fascination which spills over into his real life. If he actually confessed to be a monster coke habit, say, he wouldn´t be half so interesting. It´s much better to be left to wonder, to be drawn in by those cold, reptilian eyes.” (Interview The Face, 1994)

"No one can unsettle an audience quicker and more effectively than Chris Walken." (P. O`Fallon, Suicide Kings)

"He is a very giving actor and really a genuin person but there`s no question he has an edge to him. It may have all been acting at one time but it`s definitely part of his personality now." ( Jeremy Sisto) , Suicide Kings

"He's got everything: God-given talent, dedication to the work. His mind -- he's a brilliant cat. He's got it all going." (Abel Ferrara)

"I'm a huge fan. Chris is unbelievably funny. You either get him or you never get him, And if you don't get him, you go, 'Oh, Chris Walken— isn't he a weirdo?' (Rob Lowe)

"Walken has a perception of being weird because of his speech patterns and his mannerisms. That weirdness lasts about seven minutes and then he`s just an ordinary guy who has a funny kind of accent." ( S.P. Flanery , Suicide Kings)

"He's a truly gifted comedian. He's just a natural. He speaks in a voice that could only be him. His sense of timing is so unique. So much comedy is about timing, and he's just endlessly surprising." (Lorne Michaels, SNL-Producer)

"He (CW) brings all his other castings and roles to his comedy. You see that face, and you associate it with lots of other things. So when he's playing light, he's that much more powerful. . . .He's very funny. He's a truly gifted comedian. He's just a natural. He speaks in a voice that could only be him. His sense of timing is so unique. So much comedy is about timing, and he's just endlessly surprising." ( Lorne Michaels , Producer (SNL)

"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." ( Brendan Frazer, Blast from the Past)

"I don't know why everybody thinks he's so crazy. I think he seems so adorable. I think maybe I was his mom in a past life or something. He's supercharming and funny. He touches something in me and I just want to give him a big hug. He's just a big squishy bear. "( Alicia Silverstone, Excess Baggage)

"... well he's frightening in a lot of films, but when you meet him he's so charming! He's very impish...and tall!"
"I find him attractive!" (Bridget Fonda, Touch)

"You look at him and you know there's a lot going on-- yet you have no idea what." (Tim Burton)
" Es gibt eine Menge Schauspieler. Eine Menge ganz guter und einige sehr guter. Und dann gibt es noch solche wie Christopher Walken." (A. Ferrara )

"I think Christopher Walken is the sexiest man alive (*hm*), he's a babe. Willem Dafoe, too. No offense to these younger actor guys. They don't have that thing yet. A chemical gets released in the lower back that makes the thing. It makes all the difference in the world". (Christina Applegate)

"(...) you feel the power coming from him. He's not just a good actor. I'm not reacting to the actor, I'm reacting to the man. He has some kind of mythic power. He's charming, but with that Satan smile. You never really know what he's thinking. There's something so deep in him, be it good or bad, I don't know. Watching him act is like watching a volcano erupt."
"Some people got poetry in their blood and some don't. Chris's is difficult to track. It's hard to figure whether it's angelic or satanic, but whatever it is, it's certainly poetic." (Sean Penn, At Close Range)

"He's great. I said, “Oh my God! Christopher Walken is going to be my husband! I'm afraid.” But no, he's such a sweet man. He's a very good actor and he's great to work with. He's wonderful."
"Christopher Walken is a star," Baye emphasizes. "I was very excited to meet him because he's very famous, and French people like him very much, and everyone is a little scared of him. It's like, 'That guy is a strange guy who came from another planet.' He's going to be my husband. I was a little afraid, and when I met him, he's a very sweet man. He was scared, like I was, the first day of shooting, and very anxious and has a big sense of humor and loves cats, like me. There were cats on the set, and he was talking to the cats all the time." (Nathalie Baye, Catch Me If You Can)

"I love tap dancing. I think it's great. Christopher Walken... he's a great tap dancer. He's amazing." ( Sir Michael Caine, Around the Bend)

"Y'know, he's really hard to work with, because you get so entertained you forget about what you're doing." (Benicio Del Toro , Excess Baggage)

"The sensitive side of him is feminine. There is a marvelous ambiguity about seeing this very sexy, good looking man move quite eloquently onstage." (Regisseur J. Papp)

Dwayne Johnson said in an interview that Chris doesn't have any "primadonnash airs" behind the scenes and he wondered why. "Chris isn't arrogant at all like other actors". Ok, sometimes he may be a little bit harsh, but who isn't?? (Welcome to the Jungle)


The following is a paragraph from an article about playwright, Doug Wright. While he was a senior in college, Doug had a small role in a play with Chris Walken. This hilarious little anecdote has Walken’s wry personality written all over it.
As a senior, Wright snagged a bit part in a play starring Christopher Walken. Each night, Wright, dressed as a servant, had to walk onstage carrying a tea tray. And each night, Walken would fill each tea cup to the brim, leaving Wright struggling not to spill anything before his exit. "He was a charming sadist," Wright says. Instead of being angry, Wright felt privileged to be noticed by Walken. "Every time I'd walk by him he'd give me this knowing grin," Doug Wright says.”

The actor-writer Steven Berkoff is describing when he directed the American star Christopher Walken in a staging of Coriolanus in New York. The death scene was the turning-point in their relationship, and not for the better: Walken refused to enter into the Grand Guignol spirit of things and walked out, though he was eventually persuaded to return. "He was the most difficult actor I've worked with," says Berkoff, in a tone suspended between annoyance and admiration.

"I saw Christopher Walken him on this Actor's Studio program on TV last night, and almost everything he said I identified with 100 percent. Including when they asked him what his favorite word on the set was and he said Lunch. He's a great actor. Why is it that someone who's as good and as versatile as he is--let also that Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire said that he was a good tap dancer--isn't a major player?
Someone like Chris Walken, the real cream of the crop, is going to be able to assume a power position in this industry if it's going the way it seems to be going.   (Robert Downey)


"He is such an amazing actor. He just sort of envelops the character, or lets the character envelop him...I don`t know of an actor who has his quality. There`s just a tremendous uniqueness to him." ( Frank Oz , Director The Stepford Wives) "On the set he`ll sometimes just shout out a word for no reason or do something else to wake himslef up and stay fresh... he`s a very smart actor."(Oz)


Toronto filmmaker Cronenberg says his old friend, star Christopher Walken (The Dead Zone), is an example of assuming too much about the Oscars, especially when you're young. Walken bought a tuxedo when he was nominated for The Deer Hunter (1978).
"He won -- and then he never wore the tuxedo again," Cronenberg says. "He thought then: 'I'd better buy it because this is easy. I'll do this a lot.' He told me that."
But, of course, Walken never got nominated again -- until this year for best supporting actor for playing Leonardo DiCaprio's loving father in Catch Me If You Can. Now the antique tuxedo is too small to fit Walken's middle-aged body. But Cronenberg is rooting him on. "I think it's wonderful he's nominated again."

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, Photographer
[Journal entry] MARCH 13, 1995 Christopher Walken arrives for portraits with jet black hair. He is quite thin and rather easy going. On set Walken is flawless, every frame special. We talk about Jen Nathan and her London Sunday Times interview with him. He confirms the story about driving as a teenager for his father's bakery business. To this day he drives very slowly, still imagining birthday cakes piled high next to him on the front seat, terrified that a quick stop or a careless right turn could ruin them... Later, I want to ask him for more details about my favorite scene between him and Hopper in True Romance. But I don't.

"You look at him and you know there's a lot going on-- yet you have no idea what." ( Tim Burton )

"With Christopher Walken you never know what you are going to get." ( James Foley , Regisseur von At Close Range)

"You have that sense that ther`s a hidden agenda. He is saying one thing while something else is going inside his head--it makes him seem inhabited." ( Paul Schrader , Regisseur von The Comfort Of Strangers)



Georgianne:

"It's very interesting being married to a man who is constantly playing a different person. You're always living with a different person. He never tells me what part he's playing when he's getting ready. It just descends on me one day. Very interesting."

"So how have you managed to stay married to this guy for so long?"
"It`s fun. Yes. It`s different all the time."

"I don`t know you, and you don`t know me, and you don`t know him."

"I wish my wife was a little more afraid of me." (CW)



Links:

http://www.anecdotage.com/
http://www.rosenbaumcreative.com/walken/wotws/quotes.htm
http://www.50plusmag.com/50pluspeople/070105chriswalken/070105chriswalken.html
http://www.ojai.net/swanson/giggles_and_goofs.htm
http://german.imdb.com/name/nm0000686/bio

"I'm always dissatisfied.
Sometimes I'm very happy with what I've done and sometimes I get depressed that I'm not better."



"Acting is my favorite thing to do, and I don't have a lot of other interests, so my inclination is to say yes, even when there's a lot of doubts. You sort of hope for the best and try to figure it out as you go along. With movies, there's always an editor, that's the great thing. You can make a lot of mistakes. And if it's really awful, chances are they'll cut it out. I've had very good actors say to me, "You know, you really ought to be more choosy." Because I've made movies that I haven't seen. But I don't regret that. I do a lot of stuff. Someone once said to me, you're an actor who throws a lot of stuff at the wall and sees what sticks. And I think that that's true."

"I`ve been averaging four or five movies a year. Sometimes the`re just a few days`job . I`m glad to have these jobs otherwise I start walking around the house talking to myself."

"Occasionally there would be a guy in his 40s and he was making the same money, doing the same steps and I always thought, 'Please, I hope that doesn't happen to me.' I was lucky."

"The key is the director. I`d work with anyone I trusted and that includes John Irvin again, Scorsese, Kazan, Spielberg. I´ve already worked for James Ivory in Roseland and Woody Allen in Annie Hall so they`re on my list as well. The trust is vital because I never feel I have the control over what I´m doing in a film that I do in a play. The movie is a director`s medium and I find I´m surprised how it turns out because it has so much more to do with his point of view than mine."

"I think it'd be interesting for me to play something really different, like that guy on the TV show, Father Knows Best. I'd have sons and they'd come to me and say: 'Dad, what do you think I should do?' And I'd have a pipe and say: 'Well, son, just try and do the right thing.' That would be a good part."

"Actors are like priests. They are a consuit from something very powerful to the people. That`s why when you go to the theater or to the movies you are moved in some way- to laugh, to get a hard-on, to feel compassion. Good acting has a lot to do with the way you were when you were eight years old-you play. I usually has to do with having a good time. Most good actors are very playful".

"Good acting is not all that different from good cooking: start with the best ingredients and keep it simple. Buy really good stuff and then you cook it simply. If you`ve got a great piece of fish and you broil it, it`s going to be good. That`s the kind of cook I am."

"Most actors don't work. I think it's about 90% who don't get any kind of regular work. If you are lucky enough to work on a regular basis, you eventually fall into a niche. It's not a bad thing. I have been given the opportunity to do so many little unexpected things along the way, so I can't complain."

"I don`t think it`s that different when you get older, there`s still the thing of being like a kid."

"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."

"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."

"My first job was when I was very young in musical theatre. I was a chorus boy. Nobody wanted to be a chorus boy. I never thought about being an actor, but it was a job and I was young and at that time it was a lot of fun. You're travelling around with crazy gypsy people and when I was a kid that was enormously fun."

“I’m a big Jerry Lewis fan. I heard him say once in an interview that his big secret is he is only nine years old, and I thought, yes, absolutely. He’s like a kid. You get that feeling within certain people. Mick Jagger has it. I think that is a wonderful quality, especially when you get older."

"If I was anywhere near as weird as the characters I play, I`d never have lasted as long as I have in this business and I`ve been acting more than 30 years".
"There is a story about John Gielgud (ein englischer Schauspieler, Anm.) that I really love. I think he was 96 years old and the royal family, I think, were all set to throw him this big party and he had to apologize and say he couldn`t come because he was on location shooting a movie. I thought thats the way to be an actor--96 years and working!"

"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."

"You make a movie and hope that it's going to be terrific," Walken says. "Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, but there's nothing you can do about that. There's an element of getting lucky, but my feeling is the more stuff you throw at the walls, some of it sticks."

The professed zombie-film fan adds that playing in a mediocre movie just for the paycheque can sometimes be more stressful than not working at all.

"There's an aspect of making movies that's a role of the dice. It's just as hard to make a lousy movie as it is to make a good one," Walken says. "As a matter of fact, it might be harder in the sense that there's a sort of ease to things that work."
"I don't really know what the people closest to me are about or what they are thinking. The more I know people, the more surprised I am all the time."

"Good acting is not all that different from good cooking: start with the best ingredients and keep it simple. Buy really good stuff and then you cook it simply. If you`ve got a great piece of fish and you broil it, it`s going to be good. That`s the kind of cook I am."

Q: What do you think the industry is like today for young actors as compared to when you were in the same position before "The Deer Hunter" brought you both an Oscar and stardom?
Well...I’m lucky because I got to make all of these mistakes. I was in theater and I was so lousy that I got fired-I had 30 years of experience before I stumbled into making movies. I was very lucky-I tested for things early on; when I didn’t get them, I was disappointed but in retrospect, I am so lucky that I didn’t get them. I tested for "Star Wars" for Han Solo. Can you imagine? If I had gotten that part, I wouldn’t be here right now-that would have been the end of my career and maybe the end of "Star Wars". I tested for "Love Story" Can you imagine that-I would be out of here. (CW)
 

"Morning is the best time to see movies.

It all happened when I did The Deer Hunter. Suddenly — I'd already been in show business for thirty years, and nothing much had happened. I mean, I really was laboring in obscurity, and then suddenly this movie. It was kind of infectious, and I really did become rather social. Gregarious. And that lasted, I don't know, ten years.

Movie scripts are usually pretty loose — things usually change a lot. But not with Quentin. His scripts are absolutely huge. All dialogue. It's all written down. You just learn the lines. It's more like a play.

The Dancer:

"From the time I was a teenager, I was a professional dancer in musicals. In fact, I got a job as an actor while I was dancing in a musical. So, I became an actor a little bit by accident. Being a dancer is what I did for a living."

"I think most people, if you asked them in the street, 'How did you get to be doing what you do today?' they'd have to admit it was an accident. My brothers and I were in show business when we were kids. In the 50's, there was a lot of TV in New York, and it was live. I was a tap dancer, so choreography seemed the logical way I would go. But dancing hurts."

"When I was a kid, especially in the part of Queens that I come from, Astoria, it was very typical for people--and I mean working-class people--to send their kids to dancing school. You'd learn ballet, tap, acrobatics, usually you'd even learn to sing a song. It was kind of a social activity, almost a tribal thing. I'm sure there's a whole generation of men my age from that part of Queens who can tap-dance. Dancing is really what I did until my early 30s."

"My first job was when I was very young in musical theatre. I was a chorus boy. Nobody wanted to be a chorus boy. I never thought about being an actor, but it was a job and I was young and at that time it was a lot of fun. You're travelling around with crazy gypsy people and when I was a kid that was enormously fun."

"My background is musical comedy theatre and that's really where my training is. As an actor, that's my training… You know, where the audience is part of the show.”

"My whole training and background up until the time I was in my 30’s, I was really all about musical comedy. That’s my whole background, my education. I’m still a dancer I think."

"When actors have that flow, and that rhythm, and that give-and-take, they feel each other like a dancer."

“It was very unexpected at my age to be in a music video [Weapon of Choice]. I heard the tune, it was very catchy. Spike Jonze called. I’ve done a couple of musical movies and when I was young I was a dancer in shows. I guess Spike knew about that. It was very quick to shoot. We shot it all in one night in the lobby of a hotel in downtown Los Angeles.”

“I consider Pennies From Heaven, the musical, as a turning point in my career. I’m very happy to have done that because it was the last musical made by MGM. I remember I dubbed my taps on the same little parquetry floor that Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor – all those people – used.”

"Dance is a purer form of expression than most types of acting. It`s non-verbal and I definitely prefer non-verbal. I`ve learned how to deal with words, but I´d much prefer not to have to say anything. It must have been great in the silent movie days."


 

When asked what he thought was the sum total of his work, Chris replied, "Oh, I have an answer for that. It is what Don Quixote said. I hope to add some measure of grace ."


Why do you work so much?
"I like to work. I have no hobbies. No sports. No golf. No computer. No cellphone. No wristwatch. I do exercise every day. I have a treadmill."

Do you mind people doing impressions of you?
"I like it. It's flattering."

How do you feel about being a celebrity?
"If I was an actor at my age and people didn't recognize me, I'd be depressed. When I walk down the street, I know when people see me. If I walk down the street and nothing happens, I get sad."

Why do you play so many bad guys?
"Physically, it's how you look. I'm naturally pale. Very early, people thought there was something wrong with me. But if there were something wrong with me, I wouldn't be here."

You're not a father, so is it difficult to play one?
"It's a good thing I didn't have children -- good for them. Children are a big responsibility. Expensive. You have to think about them all the time. I have cats. They just do whatever they want."

 

HIS Foreword to
K.I.S.S. Guide To Cat Care


IT SEEMS TO me that we humans sometimes forget that we are animals too; in the best sense - the pure sense of the forest where our first memories were made. And there are as many kinds of us as there are of them: solitary, gregarious, monogamous; the beach master with his harem; those who meet once and move on; the hunters; the vegetarians.

We have domesticated many animals, but cats seem to have retained a sense of the forest. Their cleanliness is famous. They have grace in so many ways. From the tintinnabulation of their walk, to the way they tend to leave a small amount of food in the bottom of their bowl in what looks to me like an offering. Their self assurance and ability to articulate their needs to us with such clarity and insistence. They pose for us as naturally as Garbo because they are entitled to.

When it comes to dogs, size does not matter. Cats are fearless. They are fierce and nice - a wonderful combination of qualities. I can think of no other familiar animal with such natural confidence. And self confidence sounds like self awareness. These things combined with inquisitiveness and communication skills suggest genuine intelligence. They seem to possess an independent mind. And what about that purr? No one knows the mechanism of it. It is a mysterious as human laughter.

I've heard that the symbol we use to signify a question (?) is, in origin, an Egyptian hieroglyph that represents a cat as seen from behind. I wonder if the Egyptians were expressing suspicion or an inquiring mind...or something else?

I had a cat who lived a long time. Long enough to enjoy a number of places my wife and I had lived in, finally settling in the country, where he hunted, played, groomed, slept, ate. Then it came time to die. He grew very thin and fragile over the course of a few months. He kept his chin up, but it was sad to see the good nature of his spirit struggling. I work at home a lot, often in the kitchen, which has a large window looking out over a long driveway full of trees. One morning, having coffee, I felt a familiar bump against my leg. My old cat was looking at me in a powerful way. I rubbed him for a while. He purred. He drooled. I got up and gave him what he wanted, and then I let him outside and went back to my coffee. For the next ten minutes I watched him creak his way down the long driveway. He was almost out of sight when my wife walked into the room. "Look," I said to her. "Isn't it wonderful? He knows it's time to die. He said goodbye and now he's back off to the woods to be by himself, listen to the birds and the wind, and go to sleep. Nature is so pragmatic, so amazing...."

My wife took a long look at him, then at me. She went to the front door, flung it open, and yelled, "Pookie, get back in here." My ancient cat stopped in his creaky tracks, looking exactly like a question mark from my angle (though in my mind's eye I could see his face). He looked confused, then suddenly determined, energized, victorious. He bumpily made a 180-degree turn and headed back toward the house. My wife waited out the whole journey, standing at the open door. He reached the stairs, and, with a sudden burst of youth, mounted them and ran into the house. He placed himself in the middle of the living room rug, which seemed odd since he had a favorite chair. He cleaned himself for a while and took a nap.

He was up and down that day a few times for a bite of turkey baby food and a drink from his bowl. Later, a demand to be rubbed; then back to his nap in the middle of the rug. My wife and I kept him company as we watched TV, then we left him there and went to bed. The next morning, he was dead; as if he'd said, "That was good. I was brave. Time to go....See you again???"

He had spent his last days hunting, playing, grooming, sleeping, eating - being a cat, being happy. What more can we want from our feline friends?


CHRISTOPHER WALKEN
Feb 2001
NYC, USA



------“I posed naked, snuggling with two cats, for a series of calendar pictures which were a big success. I haven’t seen those pictures in a long, long time, but I remember doing it and I’ve always wondered what kind of cats those were. Finally, I’ve just accepted that they were just cats and I'll never know what kind.”

 

"The thing about interviews is that you say something and then 20 years later they say "did you say that?". Yes. What did I mean? I´m not really sure."


 
"I`m a little creepy, sure, but a little creepy provides a powerful counterpunch to funny."

'IF I CAN TELL SOMEONE TO DROP DEAD AND GO TO HELL, THEN IT'S A GOOD DAY'

"I hope I'm not creepy. Creepy is not a mammal. Creepy is like an insect. Spooky is OK. Anybody who gets to know me is surprised. I am a good guy, no doubt about it. Just ask my family."

"I can't imagine being somebody else. And anything I play, my reference is completely from the planet Show-business. 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."

"I am a solitary person, as an animal. There are animals who live alone and animals who live in groups, there are aggressive ones and the ones that are as the lilies of the field."

"My wife takes care of everything of me. She takes care of the bills, money. I don`t have any part of it. Everybody has to do something, I do movies, and she takes care of me."

"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."

"I enjoy being recognized, If I walk around in New York and nobody recognizes me, I get depressed. And then somebody will yell 'Hey Chris!' from a truck or something, and then I'll feel much better. It goes up and down like that. So sometimes I stay home just because I'm afraid nobody will recognize me."

"I wear a lot of black because I think it’s attractive, but also because it looks neat and clean and sensible. Hundreds of millions of Asians wear black - they know what they’re doing."

"I`m a big Jerry Lewis fan. I heard him say once in an interview that his big secret is he`s only nine years old, and I thought, Yes, absolutely. He`s like a kid. You get that feeling within certain people. Mick Jagger has it. I think that`s a wonderful quality, especially when you get older"

"I am not silent at all. I talk like crazy. But if I don`t know somebody I am very silent. Because I`m watching them--watching and listening."

"One of the reasons I can play the people I do is that I have a distance from them. I'm not neurotic. I don't have paranoia. I never imagine something is happening unless it actually is. I'm actually very positive."

"It's funny, huh? It doesn't strike me as that unusual, but it's interesting how many people do impressions of me. I have friends who do me on their answering machines.  I think my rhythm is a bit like someone whose first language isn't English. I could get away with being a German commandant and not really have to do a lot of accent, because I already sound like I don't speak English that well."

Christopher Walken on why people impersonate his voice: “I don't know. I come from a certain part of New York. Queens. And the truth is that that's the way that people talk there.” Walken can’t recall exactly when he figured out that impersonating him had become a staple for comedians. “I don't remember exactly when it happened, but I do remember at some point people started doing that. It's nice. For me, it's nice.”

"When I was a kid somewhere in the beggining I decided to for the rest of my life to ignore punctuation. It's one of the things I do with scripts. The first time I get them....I cross out all the stage direction and punctuation....it's to much information, because the other actors are gonna tell ya what they're talking about anyway. It's better to hear it from them."
"I have a peculiar way of speaking, I guess. It's the punctuation, I think. I just have odd punctuation. When I was a kid, it used to bother me that they would say, 'The period goes here. A comma goes here. This is this way.' I thought, 'No, it's not. It is if I feel like it.'

Walken speaks like a man keeping time to a metronome with a wicked sense of humor. The fickle cadence of Walkenese is his calling card. 'I get that from my days as a dancer,' Walken says. 'I'm still counting off dance steps as I cross a room. Two-two four. Three-three four. I'm doing that when I talk."

Kids:

"I am too selfish to have children- besides, my wife has enough trouble with me.."
"(...) I couldn`t have any, because if you you have any responsibility at all, you have to give them a lot of time. People take a lot of time. I`ve always contented that you can possible have only two or three friends in your whole lifetime."

"It`s just grown-up who thinks I`m creepy", laughs Walken in a very creepy way. "But kids don`t. Kids love me."

"I posed naked snuggling with two cats for a series of calendar pictures which were a big success.  I haven't seen those pictures in a long, long time, but I remember doing it -- and I've always wondered what kind of cats those were.  Finally, I've just accepted that they were just cats and I'll never know what kind."

Hobbies:

"I love Mexican cooking. It`s so much more than people know. (...). And I like eating spaghetti. I could eat it every day and I have to watch that. I like French food but sometimes it`s very rich."

"During movies, I bring my own food. I have various Tupperware containers."

"I try to keep the icebox (Kühlschrank) fairly empty, and just buy things as I want them. I only eat once a day. Usually about 7 o`clock. If I have things to do, eating slows me down. I feel like I`m under water."

"I am an abstract painter, but I don't mix colours up too much. I like clear reds and yellows and greens and orange. My paintings are not a mess. They are sort of neat abstracts. Very colourful, but not about anything in particular; they are not bowls of fruit or anything. But very nice, very pleasant."

"...I don't play golf. A lot of actors play golf. It's amazing how many actors play golf."
"...what's with that game? People are so obsessed with it. It' something I'll never understand. I've actually lost a few friends to golf."

"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."
Chris loves to buy fresh fish at "Cinderella" New York. It's expensive, but "fish is good for the hair.."

I'm amazed people let total strangers mess around with their food," he once said. "When I cook for myself, I know what I'm getting. I use good stuff. I'm not a great chef, I don't have a repertoire, but if you buy the right things and cook them very simply it has to be good."

Walken admits to his own "sort of a midlife crisis. I don't know what it was about. But that's pretty typical," he says. "I went through a time where I . . ." -- he pauses, searching -- "I got nervous. But I got over it."

Ladies:

He "says the role of Vanni Corso in A BUSINESS AFFAIR (1994) is more like himself than any other character he's ever played."

Q: Is your relationship with Georgianne still romantic?
CW: I don’t know if I was ever romantic, but I’m still married.

Q: There were never flowers and candlelit dinners?
CW: I was never like that.

Q: Well, she says that you are, in surprising ways. Like, you’ll call her up out of the blue and ask her to hop on a plane and join you on the set in some exotic locale.
Q: I don’t consider myself like that, but I’m happy she thinks so.

Q: In the ladies’ department you’ve never failed .....
CW: I do like their company very much. I’ve always gotten along with women very well.
Q: Better than with men?
CW: Yes.
Q: Why is that?
CW: I don’t know. I’ve thought about it. I have a heavy streak of competitiveness that probably doesn’t apply to women. I get jealous of men but never of women. Professionally, I mean. Women are very honest and funny with me. I don’t know if they always are with men. With me they use their best jokes.
Q: Are you seductive?
CW: I hope so. What would an actor be without that? [laughs] I think in order to be seductive you have to be trustworthy. As far as women go I notice they’re very keen on who they can trust. I think that’s a good part of being attractive to them.
Q: So you’re a trustworthy man?
CW: Yeah. I don’t fool with anybody.

Q: That’s the dark side of you that people pick up on - a sense of contained wildness.
CW: It’s what I mean by the heart ruling the head. I cry very easily and laugh very easily. In a way that’s what kids have. It’s interesting to me how good actors keep their youth in a funny kind of way. I remember watching Richard Burton on the stage a couple of times. With that life - all that publicity and fame and the difficulties - he still had some kind of innocence. I mean that in the best way.

"I'm glad I'm not a woman for a lot of reasons. Guys have a better deal, that's all there is to it. There's no comparison in terms of anything. Getting a hard-on, that's something a woman will never understand."
"I am a solitary person, as an animal. There are animals who live alone and animals who live in groups, there are aggressive ones and the ones that are as the lilies of the field." (CW 1993)
Q: What kind live alone?
A: Hunting animals.
Q: Do you have a circle of friends?
A: No.


Cats:

CW has feline envy:
He says, "A tail is so expressive. On a cat you can tell if they're annoyed. You can tell whether they are scared. They bush their tail.
"If I was an actor and I had to play scared in a movie all I'd have to do is bush my tail. I think that if actors had tails it would change everything."

Tails versus the Ability to Fly: Surreal as it may sound, Christopher Walken and Jay Mohr once had a conversation about which would be the better to have – the ability to fly or a tail. “I remember that. I was talking to him and I said how great it would be if actors had a tail because I have animals and a tail is so expressive. On a cat you can tell everything. You can tell if they're annoyed. You can tell whether they're scared. They bush their tail. If I was an actor and I had to play scared in a movie, all I'd have to do is bush my tail. I think that if actors had tails it would change everything.”

"I love cats; they`re beautiful. They are so interesting, and not only that, they`re low maintenance. I have three cats. They actually don`t want you to make a fuss with them too much. They want to be rubbed constantly. That`s o.k."

He always keeps 3 cats at a time. He thinks the "3" is an adequate number.



Creepy and scary?

“I think my strength… it’s my only strength. It’s the only thing I have. I know I’m original. And sometimes it’s not good and sometimes it’s very good. But I know I have that. Weaknesses are all around.God. You name it. I recognize a certain kind of vanity which I’ve dropped because it’s so stupid. It has nothing to do with what people generally think of as vanity…a sort of narcissism. It’s a vanity of pride … of not entering into something because one thinks one doesn’t need it. I really like the idea of doing everything I can. What Blake called, ‘The wisdom in extremes’."

"As a person, I have a quality that is eccentric. I have always played people who are kind of disturbed, or at least rhythmically different. It’s very fortunate that I’m an actor. If I worked doing anything else, I would probably be fired just for the look in my eye.."

"I didn't need a psychiatrist, but somebody thought I should go and talk to this person. So I said: 'OK.' And I went and I thought they should go to a psychiatrist themselves. The psychiatrist was so strange that I left. I thought I can't take your advice. You're crazy.--
Needless to say, it was a very strange experience. This psychiatrist saw clients in his apartment in Manhattan and I remember the phone rang in another room and he had a swinging door, and for a minute, I could see into his kitchen. Just for one minute I saw the rest of where he lived. There were all these dirty dishes. He was obviously very dirty, and I immediately thought: 'You can't tell me about my life if you can't wash your dishes!'"

"All sorts of dopey people go crazy. Going crazy has a certain amount of vanity connected to it. I found that I was the least interesting when I was introspective. I did the least interesting work."

"I don't really know what the people closest to me are about or what they are thinking. The more I know people, the more surprised I am all the time."

Walken often responds to questions by giving short, unrevealing answers. For example, when asked if Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978) stands out as a pivotal role in his career, he simply nods, and then monotones: "It was a wonderful movie. Very popular. Many people saw it. Oscar."

"I am not a Christopher. I am a Ronnie."

"I wasn`t that comfortable with Ronnie. I don`t know why. I didn`t like the sound. Ronald, Donald, dorky."

"I don`t really care for it. It doesn`t suit me. I need something more to the point, a little dark. Jack. Nick. Christopher looks strange on the screen. And Chris... I try not to get Chris on the screen--there`s something too happy-face about it."

"I love Elvis, but I wish he had eaten more fish and vegetables."

"Sometimes, in a scene, without telling the other actor, I'll pretend that I'm Elvis. I'll just pretend I'm Elvis and the other actor will not know. And it'll make me smile. Or even just smile inside. I'm doing Elvis and this guy doesn't know I'm doing Elvis. I do it when things are getting stale. I'll do it to, like, juice things up a little. Or, if you're off-camera, you can substitute the word 'gorilla' for whatever it is you're talking about."

The Moon-Worshipper:

The success came about due to his wits and hard work, but no real ambition. Walken was never one for logical progression - as was proved early when he failed an adding and subtracting test for a holiday job at Macy's. He liked to bounce from job to job, never starring in a Broadway hit because he refused to sign the year-long contract that would entail. His mind was hungry for novelty and new truth. He later admitted to being a changeable religious fanatic, at one point worshipping the moon.

“I spent a time as a sort of religious fanatic, for instance - a moon-worshipper.” (CW)

Qu: “Whatever got you into that?”

“The moon,” he smiles slyly. “What else? Well,” he goes on, “I spent several years with that, and then it passed. I remained very close to the moon but I don’t make myself miserable about her any more. Moon cultures are maternalistic, and,” he admits, “I’m a tremendous feminist. I look for the women in wisdom very much. Women,” and now I realize he isn’t really digressing after all, “have provided the momentum for enormous steps in my life. And I don’t know what they think - there’s a great mystery involved and maybe that’s what I like. Moon cultures,” his surrealistic logic is becoming more and more apparent, “are much more ancient than sun cultures, and I think of myself as a sort of pre-Christian person.”

“I had a discussion with a man just the other day,” I interrupt, “about whether there are Druids in the world today.”

“Oh, there certainly are,” he laughs. “You can give him my phone number.”

“Another thing ....” Walken gets up and strikes a pose, easily identifiable as that of a man about to release an arrow. “I’ve studied - I know a little about the art of Zen archery, and I’ve found it enormously important in my acting. The idea being that when one is a Zen archer, there’s a thought and an action, whereas the Western idea tends to be a thought, a decision and an action, and I believe that acting has a great deal to do with cutting out that middle period. There’s something non-verbal about Zen archery: when you pull the arrow back, it goes - and it goes exactly where it’s supposed to because you know how to do it. There’s no judgement involved. It’s not ‘Was that a good shot?’ Like,” his voice, heightening in excitement, is no longer falling pebbles, but water rushing over the fallen pebbles, “when you’re acting on the stage, it has nothing to do with ‘Oh, did I do that well?’ It’s much more important that you did it than that you did it well. But,” he shrugs, “I’m not seriously bound up in Eastern thinking. In anything. I wouldn’t want to be harnessed to anything. Including that.”

Qu: “The word harness certainly keeps coming up in your conversation.”
“Yes. It comes up in my life, too.”
“Well, you are married,” I jab. “Isn’t that a sort of harness?”
“No. Not at all,” Walken insists. “I think marriage, if anything, is a liberating thing.”

....he calls his green eyes "Pre-Christian-Eyes"....



"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."


"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 live sort of in the country and I like that. It's very quiet, it's beautiful. Really almost everything I do is by myself. When I come to work, usually I just come to work. I never ask anybody anything. I get confused when people tell me things. Information can be very confusing."

"There are people who always play the lover or the action guy or the best friend or the funny guy. With me, there have been al lot of bad guys. And I like having fun with them. And people respond to that, I think."

"I think that (pause) the more I do it, the better I get at it. I might make a lot of movies that nobody sees -- I shouldn't say nobody but I've made movies that I haven't seen," he smiles. "But it kept me busy and it made me some money and it made me better." As far as acting is concerned, Walken puts it in this way: "It's good to be good in a movie, it's better to be good in a good movie and it's even better than that to be good in a good movie that a lot of people see. (pause) So that triple thing is hard to come by. You've got to get a little lucky, too."

Question (1999)"What was the best year of your life so far, and what made it so good?"
"My best year, the one I could afford to have my Mom`s teeth fixed."
 

"If I had a billion dollars, I wouldn`t live any differently. I`d eat the same food and do the same things(..)"



Question: Why do you play so many bad guys?
"Physically, it's how you look. I'm naturally pale. Very early, people thought there was something wrong with me. But if there were something wrong with me, I wouldn't be here."

 

....Wenn Ihr nach einem Chris Walken-Typ sucht, dann müsst ihr Chris Walken nehmen. Es gibt nicht viele Leute, die sich mit mir messen können... ich habe meinen Platz....der steht mir zu, das heißt, ich habe die Gelegenheit zu arbeiten. Gelegenheit, lange arbeiten zu können...


 
* Mir macht das nichts aus, ein bisschen die Kontrolle zu verlieren. Schauspielern ist der einzige Weg, aus seinen Problemen Gewinn zu schlagen. Deshalb verstehe ich auch nicht, warum Schauspieler zum Psychiater gehen.

* Ich spiele dauernd diese Schurken aus dem gleichen Grund, wie manche immer die Blödler spielen oder wie manche immer die Überhelden. Ich spiele deshalb eine Menge dieser Bösewichte, weil ich es immer getan habe und es bei den Leuten immer angekommen ist. Filme zu drehen ist sehr teuer, diejenigen, die das machen, gehen immer ein großes Risiko ein.

* Ich kann mir nicht vorstellen, jemand anderer zu sein. Und immer, wenn ich etwas spiele, habe ich den Planeten Showbusiness im Hintergrund. Ich weiß sonst über niemanden Bescheid, über Leute, die ich mein ganzes Leben kenne- meine Familie, meine Brüder- ich kenne nur mich.

* Die meisten Leute glauben, ich spiele am liebsten Schurken, aber die größere Herausforderung und lohnendere Aufgabe für mich liegt in Komödien.

* Eigentlich wollte ich nie Charakterschauspieler werden.

* Ich bin froh, ein Schauspieler zu sein. Wenn ich in einer Werbeagentur oder so arbeiten würde, man würde mich feuern, schon alleine wegen dem Blick in meinen Augen.

* Wäre ich 25-30 Jahre früher im Showbiz aufgewachsen, ich glaube, ich hätte eine Menge Musicals gemacht. Ich wäre der Schlager geworden. Aber zu meiner Zeit waren diese Filme rar, weil viel zu teuer und aus der Mode.

* Ich habe am liebsten zwei Rollen zugleich in der Arbeit. Ich mag es, zwei Sachen auf einmal zu machen.

* Man muss mir nicht sagen, wie ich es machen muss, um böse dreinzuschauen. Ich mach das auf meine Art. (auf eine Regieanweisung Paul Schraders, der Walken von unten beleuchten wollte, damit er gefährlich aussah)

* Ich sah hübscher aus als ich wirklich war- ich glaube, ich sehe heute besser aus. Ich war so ein hübscher Junge, speziell in den ersten Filmen. Ich mag die nicht so gerne anschauen. Da sehe ich fast weiblich aus.

*Seit Kindesbeinen bin ich im Showbiz. Wenn Leute mir etwas erzählen über Einkommenssteuer, Klemptner oder so alltägliche Dinge, ich habe keine Ahnung, worüber die sprechen.

* Ich hätte mir nie gedacht, als Schauspieler zu enden. Ich komme vom Musical her und war bis im meine Dreißiger auf Tour. Ich nahhm eine Weile Schauspielunterricht, aber ich war im Grunde schon geformt. Ich bin ein Ableger der Musical-Komödie.

* Meine Brüder und ich waren im Showbiz seit Kindesalter. In den 50ern gab es viel Live-TV in New York. Ich war Steptänzer, und so war die Choreographie eigentlich der logische Weg, den ich einschlagen würde. Aber tanzen schmerzt. Viele meiner damaligen Kollegen sind heute in ganz normalen Berufen. Es muss hunderte steppende Polizisten in New York geben....

* Es ist enorm wichtig, dass wir Schauspieler uns untereindander gut verstehen. Es ist schon interessant, dass wir niemals über die Schauspielerei reden, sondern z.B. über andere Filme:`Did you see that? Terrible.`Wir sprechen über Restaurants, das Essen. Schauspieler scherzen untereinander. Es gibt auch solche, die todernst sind. Aber die sind selten. Die meisten von uns sind sehr albern, aber in einem positiven Sinn. Das bringt Leben rein.

* Ich recherchiere nicht für einen Film. Die Seele liegt in den Worten, kommt von den Worten, nicht vom Erforschen von Fakten. Das ist vergeudete Zeit. Und mühsam.

* Emotion ist die wertvollste Eigenschaft, die ein Schauspieler haben kann.

* Wenn ich eine besonders irre Person darstellen muss, hält sich meine Frau von mir fern und ist froh, wenn der Film abgedreht ist. Manchmal ist ihr das emotional einfach zuviel.

* In manchen Filmen war ich nicht so gut. Dann denke ich, Chris, lass dein Maul nicht so hängen wie das letzte Mal. (...) Aber manchmal, wenn ich mich sehe, denke ich mir, ich bin schon sehr furchterregend, und das ist wirklich schön.

* Ich suche mir die Rollen nach vielen Kriterien aus: nach dem Skript, den Kollegen, der Bezahlung, der Dauer der Dreharbeiten, und normalerweise sage ich immer ja, besonders, wenn die Dreharbeiten nicht allzu lange dauern.

* Ob ich selber schon beknackt bin von diesen vielen beknackten Rollen? puh, zeigen Sie mir jemanden, der nicht ein wenig komisch ist. Aber ich glaube, ich kann deshalb diese vielen Psychopathen so gut darstellen, weil ich es nicht so ernst nehme. Wenn ich einen Film drehe, weiß ich, dass es eben nur ein Film ist. Und die Leute merken das und wissen, hey, das ist Chris, und es macht ihm Spaß.

* Ich wollte immer schon in einem Toga-Film mitmachen, aber bis zu "Julius Cäsar" hatte ich noch nie die Gelegenheit. Als Kind liebte ich die Filme Spartacus und Ben Hur. Diese Toga war wirklich bequem, allerdings bin ich immer über die Falten gestolpert und kam mir vor wie Harpo Max mit dieser römischen Perücke.

* Manchmal bin ich zufrieden mit dem was ich mache, manchmal depressiv, dass ich nicht besser bin. Es ist doch das einzige, was ich kann.

* Als Regisseur von Popcorn Shrimps (ein Film von 5 Minuten) erwiderte ich immer nur: 'Mach, was immer du willst', wenn mich jemand nach Anweisungen fragte. Ich bemerkte, dass das nicht der richtige Weg war, Regisseur zu werden.

* Gutes Schauspielen ist gutem Kochen nicht unähnlich: man nehme die besten Zutaten und koche nicht allzu kompliziert herum.

* Was auch immer ich machen würde- wenn ich Koch wäre oder Schriftsteller, wenn ich Häuser bauen würde, ich würde allem meinen Stempel aufdrücken, meine Einzigartigkeit verleihen.

* Es ist ziemlich schwierig, mich heute beim Drehen aus der Ruhe zu bringen. Ich hatte früher ziemliches Lampenfieber, und es gab sogar Zeiten, da dachte ich, es geht so nicht weiter, aber ich schaffte es trotzdem. Ich habe Angst vor Krankheit, Umweltverschmutzung und Psychopathen, aber was die Arbeit betrifft, da kann mich nichts mehr erschüttern.

* Ich bin ein großer Fan von Jerry Lewis. Er sagte mal in einem Interview, sein großes Geheimnis ist, dass er sich noch immer wie ein Kind mit 9 Jahren fühlt. Ja, genau, er ist wie ein Kind. Manche Leute haben das, Mick Jagger zum Beispiel. Eine wundervolle Gabe, besonders, wenn man älter wird. Und ein bisschen geheimnisvoll muss man sich immer geben.

* Wissen Sie, ich bewundere Leute, die einer Arbeit nachgehen, was immer das auch für eine Arbeit ist.
* Ich würde auch gerne mal einen Psychiater spielen- oder einen hundsnormalen Familienvater mit Kindern, die mich um Rat fragen.

* Viele Schauspieler haben keine Arbeit. Ich denke, so an die 90 % gehen keiner geregelten Arbeit nacht. Wenn man Glück hat und immer wieder Rollen angeboten bekommt, kann es schon geschehen, dass man einer bestimmten Nische zugeordnet wird. Aber das ist nicht unbedingt schlimm. Ich hatte die Gelegenheit, so viele kleine unerwartete Dinge auszuprobieren, ich kann mich wirklich nicht beschweren.

* Ich würde auch gerne mal in einem Zombie-Film mitspielen. Nicht den Zombie, sondern den Helden, der die schöne Dame rettet. Obwohl ich Zombies an sich nicht uninteressant finde. Zombie-Filme sind auch nicht so vom Budget abhängig.

* Tanzen ist die pure Form von Ausdruck. Viel mehr als schauspielen. Es geschieht ohne Worte, und ich bevorzuge definitiv Szenen ohne viel Rederei. Ich habe zwar gelernt, wie man mit Worten umgeht, aber würde viel lieber nichts sagen. Ich glaube, ich wäre grandios gewesen in der Zeit der Stummfilme...

* Wäre ich nur annähernd so sonderbar wie meine Rollen, die ich spiele, hätte ich es nie so lange in diesem Geschäft ausgehalten, und ich tu das jetzt schon über 30 Jahre lang.

* Ich habe Filme immer gerne aus verschiedenen Gründen gemacht. Manchmal wegen der Kollegen. Manchmal, weil ich einfach gut in meiner Rolle war. Manchmal wegen des Drehortes. Manchmal wegen des Schecks. Manchmal aus verschiedensten Gründen. Dann gibt es wieder Dinge, die man gerne vermeiden würde. Zum Beispiel den Dschungel. Ich habe viele Filme im Dschungel gedreht, und ich muss nicht unbedingt wieder dorthin zurück.

* Schauspielen: sehr raffiniert. Die Leute haben keine Ahnung. Wie macht man das? Ich mache es so gut ich es kann und hoffe dabei, ein paar gute Szenen abzuliefern. Wenn man nach einem arbeitsreichen Tag zufrieden nach Hause gehen kann und sich denkt: heute war ich gut, dann ist das das Höchste der Gefühle.

* Ich würde gerne bis ins hohe Alter schauspielern. Ich bin froh, dass ich schon so lange tun kann. Man muss gut sein, aber auch Glück haben. In jeder Beziehung, aber besonders, wenn man Schauspieler ist. Ich habe nie Beschwerden erhalten.

 


* Mein Resume? Don Quichote sagte: Ich hoffe, ich kann ein wenig Würde/Grazie hineinbringen.

"Er ist unberechenbar. Er kann oben charmant grinsen und unten brutal treten. " (Aus einer englischen Übersetzung)


 

~ Der Haken an Interviews liegt darin, dass man etwas behauptet, und 20 Jahre später wird man gefragt: das haben Sie gesagt? Ja.- Was meinten Sie damit?- Da bin mir nicht mehr sicher...


* Ich bin eigentlich ganz normal. Ich mag das Unerwartete nicht, ich mag es nicht, überrascht zu werden, obwohl ich als Schauspieler Überraschungen liebe. Ich werde ziemlich wütend, wenn meine Rechnungen nicht gleich bezahlt werden.

* Für manche Leute erscheine ich deshalb ein wenig merkwürdig, weil ich vom Planeten Showbiz komme. Ich bin nicht abartig oder bizarr oder gefährlich. Nur ein bisschen anders als die meisten Leute.

* Eigentlich bin ich kein Christopher. Ich bin ein Ronnie. Aber mit Ronnie bin ich auch nicht zufrieden. Ich weiß nicht, warum. Es klingt so komisch. Ronald, Donald, dorky. Aber Christopher ist so lang. Sieht auf der Leinwand aus wie ein Zug... ich würde was Peppiges brauchen, ein wenig Mysteriöses: Jack. NIck. Ich möchte nicht, dass auf der Leinwand "Chris" steht. Das sieht nach einem glücklichen Gesicht aus..

* Die Leute reden andauernd über meine Haare. Es ist unüblich für einen Mann meines Alters, so dichtes Haar zu haben.

* Ich stach schon als Jugendlicher etwas hervor: meine Klamotten, mein Haar....

* Im Grunde bin ich sehr misstrauisch und kein Gesellschaftstiger und vermeide enge Tuchfühlung.

* Ich würde gerne einen Schwanz haben wie ein Hund, damit ich meine Gefühle ausdrücken kann gegenüber den Leuten, die sich mir nähern.

* Ich ziehe gerne schwarze Sachen an, weil es attraktiv aussieht, sauber und sensbiel. Hunderte Asiaten tragen Schwarz- sie wissen, warum.

* Wenn ich daheim bin, mache ich jeden Tag die selben Dinge. Genau zur selben Zeit. Ich esse jeden Tag zur selben Zeit, um ca. 6 oder 7 Uhr- ich stehe zur selben Zeit auf, ich mache alles in der gleichen Reihenfolge. Ich lese, trinke Kaffee. Dann gehe ich meine Rollen durch, ich dreh meine Runden auf der Tretmühle, mach mir eine Kleinigkeit zu essen. Ich bevorzuge die Mediterrane Diät-Küche. Ich esse kein Dessert, kaum Süßes.

* Während der Dreharbeiten bringe ich mein eigenes Essen mit. Ich habe verschiedene Tupperware-Behälter, sammle sie aber nicht. Wenn es möglich ist, koche ich mir am liebsten selber.

* Ich esse keinen Kaugummi und auch keine Schokolade, in meinen Kaffe gebe ich Molasse. Ich stimuliere mein Haar nach einem Rezept von Anthony Perkins. Mein Schönheitstipp: legen Sie nach langen Nächten warme, feuchte Teebeutel auf die Augen. Rauchen tu ich seit 30 Jahren nicht mehr.

* Ich war ein Wodka-Experte. Russischer, polnischer, tschechischer Wodka, der geht runter wie nichts. Aber gut ist das nicht. Ich hab auch damit aufgehört.

* Ich versuche, den Kühlschrank möglichst leer zu halten und dann Frisches einzukaufen, wenn ich es benötige. Ich esse nur einmal am Tag um ca. 7 Uhr. Essen macht mich müde, wenn ich arbeiten muss, dann fühle ich mich wie gerädert.

* Ich liebe die Mexikanische Küche. Und ich mag Spaghetti. Ich könnte sie jeden Tag essen, aber ich muss aufpassen wegen des Gewichts. Und ich mag die Französische Küche, aber die ist mir manchmal zu üppig.

* Meine Emotionen kommen besonders dann auf, wenn ich ein wenig müde bin oder mir langweilig ist. Ich esse Knoblauch, Zitronen und Pfeffer vor meinen Dialogen. (Anm: Am Set von Blast from the Past lagen überall ausgezuzelte Zitronenschalen herum, erzählt Brendan Fraser)

* Ich wünschte, meine Frau würde sich ein bisschen mehr vor mir ängstigen.

* Ich bin zu nett und rede zuviel.

* Ich bin ein Einzelgänger, wie ein Tier. Es gibt solche, die alleine und solche, die in Gruppen leben, es gibt wilde und zahme. Die jagenden leben alleine. Ich habe keinen großen Freundeskreis (1993) (Anm: Robert de Niro, Woody Allen, Andy Warhol, Sean Penn, Julian Schnabel. Sein Bekanntenkreis setzt sich aus den Schauspieler-Kollegen, Regisseuren, Agenten und seinem Zahnarzt zusammen -beachtet die Stellung seiner Vorderzähne im Kindesalter und heute!- Freundin hat er aber nur eine: seine Frau)

* Eigentlich vermeide ich gefährliche Dinge. Ich würde mich nie auf ein Motorrad setzen, mag nicht Autofahren, und wenn, dann nur sonntags, um die Zeitung zu holen, da weiß ich den Weg schon auswendig- ich denke, diese Bungee-Jumper haben einen leichten an der Klatsche. Bei den Dreharbeiten zu Die durch die Hölle gehen/The Deer Hunter war ich mitten im Dschungel und im Gebirge. Als Schauspieler kam ich an Plätze, die ich sonst nie im Leben besucht hätte. Aber es war trotzdem interessant.

* Sollte ich einmal mit dem Auto fahren, dann so langsam, dass mich die anderen überholen und mir den Vogel zeigen. Ich habe schon mit 16 den Führerschein gemacht, lasse mich aber lieber chauffieren.

(Frage an Georgianne: wie haben Sie es so lange mit ihm ausgehalten? Antwort: Weil es interessant ist. Ja, es immer etwas los.)
* Meine Frau kümmert sich um mich. Sie zahlt meine Rechnungen, achtet auf mein Geld. Das interessiert mich nicht, ich kann nur Filme machen, aber sie passt auf mich auf.

* Ich bin zu egoistisch, um Kinder zu haben, überhaupt, meine Frau hat schon genug Ärger mit mir allein...
Ich könnte nie welche haben, weil Kinder viel Verantwortung und Zeit brauchen. Menschen brauchen im allgemeinen Zuwendung. Man kann in seinem ganzen Leben wirklich nur 2 oder 3 richtig gute Freunde haben. Ich warte immer noch auf sie.

* Kindern sollte man eine grundlegende Erziehung angedeihen lassen. Rechnen, lesen. Ja, Lesen, das ist das Um und Auf. Eigentlich schätze ich den Umgang mit Kindern nicht so. Wenn ich mit ihnen zusammen bin, denke ich, hoffentlich ist das bald zu Ende, damit ich wieder eine normale Unterhaltung führen kann.

* Ich war auf einmal einer Cocktail-Party mit einem Kollegen, mit dem ich immer Witze reiße. Und auf einmal sagte er was, und ich piselte mich an. Ich hatte einen schönen grauen Anzug an. Hätte ich doch einen schwarzen getragen...

* Als Student auf der Hofstra Universität im ersten Jahr stand das Fach Psychologie auf dem Lehrplan, unterrichtet von einer sehr netten Dame. Sie dachte, ich hätte ein psychisches Problem, glaub ich. Mein Problem war, dass ich nicht studieren wollte. Eines Tages suchte ich sie auf und sagte zu ihr."Hören Sie, ich kann nicht, ich muss hier raus." und sie erwiderte:"Oh, ich verstehe." Also verließ ich die Uni und kam nicht wieder zurück. Das war das beste, was ich tun konnte, weil ich wusste, ich würde mit Sicherheit kein Raketenwissenschaftler werden.

* Ich fiel mal in jungen Jahren bei einem Aufnahmetest für einen Ferialjob durch. Ich konnte nicht addiern und subtrahieren.

* Bis 2o hatte ich definitiv keine Ahnung, was ich eigentlich machen wollte.

* Ich mag es, wenn mich die Leute erkennen. Wenn ich in New York spazieren gehe und niemand erkennt mich, dann werde ich depressiv. Wenn dann jemand aus nem Auto herüberruft: hey, Chris, dann fühl ich mich schon besser. Manchmal bleibe ich aus Angst daheim, niemand erkennt mich.