Everyone has their favorite Christopher Walken moments, whether it's the monologue from Pulp
Fiction, the devastating end of The Deer Hunter, or that epic video for Fatboy Slim's "Weapon
of Choice."
He's such a distinctive character in his own right, it's almost as if he's made a career
out of playing himself.
But is he?
Here's the untold truth of Christopher Walken.
"I tell you this, because as an artist, I think you'll understand."
Performer or actor?
You know how actors like Daniel Day-Lewis immerse themselves in a role, staying in character
even offscreen for as long as the movie takes to make?
Christopher Walken is exactly the opposite.
When it comes to preparing for a role, all Walken does is memorize his lines, his least
favorite part of the job.
His approach to acting is simple: he says,
"No matter what character I'm playing, it's me.
I'm the only person in my life that I can refer to."
Just a little something to keep in mind the next time you see him onscreen playing a sadistic
avenging angel or a resurrected horseman from hell.
He's unambitious
Guardian reporter Emma Brockes once described Walken as so aggressively modest it made him
seemingly immune to criticism — and she was definitely onto something.
Walken isn't self-important; if someone doesn't want him for a part, the actor doesn't get
offended.
And if he goes for a while without working, he doesn't panic; actually, he embraces it.
"If I'm not working I don't leave the house."
Ultimately, Walken credits his long career in showbusiness — and his lack of an ulcer
— to not trying too hard.
He describes himself as "lazy," and when it comes to his work ethic, he says,
"I don't chase stuff."
His secret identity
Even Walken super-fans might be surprised by these little-known facts: For one, he's
the star of the best tap-dancing striptease ever caught on camera.
And for two, Walken's real name isn't actually Christopher!
It's Ronald, after old-school British actor Ronald Colman.
Christopher, on the other hand, is the name randomly bestowed upon him by Belgian star
Monique Van Vooren when he was working as a backup dancer in her cabaret.
"She'd try out different names on me. One night he said, I'm gonna call you Christopher.
And I said, fine.
Just don't call me late for lunch."
Walken liked "Christopher" enough to keep using it professionally.
His friends and family, however, still call him Ronnie.
A Hollywood tragedy
In 1981, actress Natalie Wood drowned while sailing off the California coast — and Christopher
Walken found himself unexpectedly tangled up in one of the most sensational and mysterious
accidents in Hollywood history.
Walken and Wood had been filming a movie together at the time, and he was on the yacht that
night along with her husband, Robert Wagner, enjoying what some witnesses described as
quite a rowdy party.
The devastating accident is a tragedy Walken has been trying to put behind him ever since;
in 1986, he responded to a reporter's questions about Wood by saying that it was, quite simply,
"a conversation I won't have."
He really talks like that
"Wow!"
"Wow."
Wow, indeed.
Ask anyone to do an impression of Christopher Walken, and they'll imitate the actor's well-known
habit of arbitrarily emphasizing random words and pausing in odd places — but that's not
just an on-screen affectation.
It's actually how he talks.
Walken attributes his unusual speaking style to growing up in a Queens neighborhood where
English was everyone's second language, saying,
"It's a rhythm thing - people who speak English where they have to hesitate and think of the
right word.
And I think it rubbed off."
Walken also changes his scripts to suit his speech patterns, removing punctuation and
swapping periods for question marks.
But despite being one of the most mimicked actors in Hollywood, he still doesn't recognize
his voice when it's coming out of someone else's mouth — so don't bother trying to
wow him with your Christopher Walken impression.
"When people do that I never know what they're doing"
Stolen wardrobe
In 2010, Walken showed up to an interview with The Independent sporting a jacket he'd
worn on screen twenty years earlier in The Comfort of Strangers — and when someone
asked about it, he freely admitted that not only did he lift the jacket from the set,
but it wasn't a one-time thing.
He said,
"I never buy clothes.
Whenever I do a movie, all my clothing is from that movie set.
They don't give me anything.
I steal."
Apparently, Walken's reputation for petty theft preceded him on at least one movie set:
When he was in Batman Returns, the clothing department cleared out his dressing room while
he was filming his last scene — which means he didn't get to take home a single statement
bow tie from his turn as the evil-yet-dapper Max Schreck.
Unusual fears
Despite playing many characters who would be right at home in your nightmares, Walken
has plenty of fears of his own: including driving, flying, airports in general, and...
horses?!
Yep, it's true: as far as Christopher Walken is concerned, the scariest thing in this horrifying
scene from Sleepy Hollow isn't the headless rider, but the horse — which was actually
a mechanical animal augmented with CGI in the few scenes where Walken had to appear
on horseback.
He hates parts written just for him
If nothing confuses Christopher Walken more than a Christopher Walken impression, then
nothing annoys him more than seeing one in a script.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, the actor admitted that he hates when writers revise
a script with him in mind, a process he calls Walkenizing.
As a result, the actor turns down a lot of roles that he feels are deliberately weird
— although that still leaves plenty of room for wholesome, organic weirdness like this.
"Did you ever take a picture of your nose?"
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