Christopher Walken Talks Career and That ‘More Cowbell’ Sketch
For a while, Christopher Walken felt like “troubled guys” were the only types of roles he was being offered, and he knows when it began. “In Annie Hall, I played a suicidal guy who drives his car into traffic,” he says in his matter-of-fact, stilted, utterly Walkenesque way. “Then in The Deer Hunter, which came immediately afterward, I shot myself in the head. I was playing these disturbed people. That might have been when that started.” When asked if that bothered him, he plainly says, “Listen, I’m lucky.”
It’s a bright spring day in Manhattan, but Walken is dressed head-to-toe in black right down to his trench coat, which he wears inside. He isn’t playing the sort of anxious guy that won him an Oscar in the mid-Seventies; he’s just a native New Yorker, seated at a table in a nondescript conference room where he is discussing The Family Fang, the Jason Bateman-directed comedy in which he plays an icy performance-artist patriarch. “I hope this character is entertaining,” Walken says, gesticulating broadly as he speaks, “but let’s face it: He’s not a nice man.”
Few entertainers have enjoyed as many second, third and even fourth acts as Walken, who at age 73 maintains a steady schedule. He’s even become somewhat of a cult figure, thanks to embracing quirky and intense roles in movies like True Romance and Pulp Fiction; indulging his silly side in Saturday Night Live’s now-classic “More Cowbell” sketch; and bouncing around the room in Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice” video. He may be loath to admit it, but there is a one-of-a-kind Walken type and it’s something only he can bring to life.
Over the course of an in-depth, entertaining interview, the actor looked back on his varied career and unique life, and he discussed everything that makes Walken so “Walken.” To him, it’s just doing what feels right. “I think I just I pop into people’s heads when they get a script and there’s some crazy guy in it, and they say, ‘I wonder what Chris Walken is doing,'” he says, smiling. “I avoid that to the extent that I can.”
You’ve said in the past that you typically don’t turn down scripts. Why?
To keep engaged and to work. I wouldn’t do something if I really didn’t like it. But if it’s OK, I’ll do it.
What appealed to you about your role in The Family Fang?
In this case it had to do with being with Jason [Bateman] and Nicole [Kidman] and Maryann [Plunkett]. I’ve admired Jason for a long time. He’s a terrific actor, and as a director he was very impressive. Also, it reminded me of my show-business family background. I was a child performer. Not like a performance artist, but I had a stage mother. So I was very familiar with that.