In real life, he’s kind of boring, he says. He wants his bills paid, and he hangs out alone with his wife and cat. He takes pretty much any job that’s offered, though he doesn’t want to go to the jungle again. He’s done that a few times, and it’s difficult, and he’s lazy. In fact, he works as much as he does because he’s too inclined to just sitting around not doing anything, and he doesn’t like that tendency in himself.
Basically, the theory I’ve had about Christopher Walken all these years has been right—he doesn’t say no. He says that you can get something of value out of any job you take. You can learn something from any movie you act in. And otherwise, he’d just be sitting around, watching TV without paying attention to it. But not, apparently, watching some of his own movies, because he is well aware of how bad they are.
But not all of them. While it’s not an argument I’d make, there is an argument to be made that the movie of The Dead Zone, as discussed when we covered Martin Sheen, is better than the book. While The Deer Hunter is not particularly my thing, small wonder that his tortured performance caught the eye of the Academy, even in a good year for Best Supporting Actor. Catch Me If You Can, his other nominated performance (he lost to Chris Cooper in Adaptation), is a rare light role for him, though of course his character still isn’t normal.
He’s used to that. There’s something about him, and he knows it. The voice. The distinctive pauses. The hair. The heterochromia—I never noticed it, but he has one blue eye and one hazel one. Even if you can’t quite tell that, there is something odd about his gaze. He’d quite like to play the Fred MacMurray role, but the closest he tends to get offered is Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity.
Even when the movie around him isn’t good or interesting enough to be called a hot mess, he still gives each performance his all. He’s played a ton of villains, because that’s how people think of him, but he has a deft touch for comedy when it’s offered as well. And, of course, the man can dance; he was dancing before he was acting, and when he’s allowed to really let loose, that shows. He doesn’t have a great singing voice, but he has a decent one, and I think more people would know that if we had a real return of the big-budget Hollywood musical more frequently than once every three or four years.
Actually, he was born Ronald, not Christopher, named after actor Ronald Colman. For some of his earliest roles, including Naked City, he was credited as “Ronnie Walken,” before a friend convinced him that he really does look more like a Christopher. His family, including his wife of forty-seven years, call him Ronnie, but pretty much everyone else these days calls him Chris. And they like him. He is apparently a likeable guy, if a quiet one. He’s welcome to host Saturday Night Live every season, if schedules permit. And let’s face it—he hasn’t made the news for killing someone who interrupts him in a restaurant to talk about watches or cowbell yet, and that probably takes more patience than I have.
