Christopher Walken, 78, is an Oscar-winning actor who has appeared in more than 100 films, including “The Deer Hunter” and “Catch Me If You Can.” He’s one of the stars in Apple TV’s “Severance” series and in Prime Vidan’s “Lawbreakers” series. He talked to Mark Myers.
During my film career, I was cast in playing a lot of weird characters. The trend started with “My Romance with Annie” in 1977, and somehow playing that kind of personality stuck with me.
But in “Annie,” my role as Diane Keaton’s suicidal brother, Dwayne, sitting in his room in the dark, has nothing to do with my childhood. Nothing terrible happened to me when I was growing up, thank God. It was just a game, and I started at a very young age. The area where I grew up in Astoria, Queens, was his and aimed at families. Many of the people who lived there spoke the language of their countries of origin as a first language and English as a second language.
“In our family bakery, Walken’s, everyone who worked at the front and back spoke German. The grocery store owner and butcher down the street spoke Italian. It was like growing up in Europe. We lived in a small ground floor apartment. I shared a bedroom with my little brother Glenn. My big brother, Ken, had a room His own.
“My mother and father came to America around the same time in the 1930s. My mother, Rosalie, was Scottish and my father, Paul, was German. They were both adults when they came here and they both ran away from a difficult life. My father’s father was a baker, and his brother was a baker. Until he left Germany. , He was also a baker in New York, working for another baker until he opened Walken’s.
“My mother was a housewife who was in love with the world of entertainment. She had a passion for movies and theater, especially musicals. She asked people to call her Rose, like the actors Rosalind Russell. My real name is Ronald. She named me after actor Ronald Coleman.
“My father worked hard and was a quiet man. My mother was the one who had a prominent personality. When I was 5, she made me study dance until I was 8, then I went to a dance school in Astoria. In those days, families would send the children there. It did not matter. Of the entertainment industry.Dancing school was like piano lessons – it was something cultural that children do.Boys went to learn tap and girls learned ballet.
“Both my parents loved movies. We would get on the subway and get to Times Square in 15 minutes. They would pick a movie from one of the dozens of movie theaters that were there. When I sat in the dark and saw actors who were bigger than life, my imagination developed. I wanted to do what they did.
“I was not particularly sensitive as a child. In fact, I was quite wild and noisy and would run around a lot and people would tell me to sit and be quiet. My first role came at the age of 5, as an amateur producer of the play ‘Madame Butterfly’. When television began in the early 1950s, Need programs.Many radio programs were adapted for television, and many programs for the whole family were in constant need of children for various roles.
“You didn’t necessarily have to be an actor kid. If you could sing and dance a little and say a line or two, that’s enough. There were constant auditions. My mother belonged to something called the Stage Mothers Association. She also read Ross Report and Variety, where they recorded. The places where auditions were held.
“My mother did not push me or my brothers into acting. She pushed us into the entertainment business. Simple acting opportunities were more common then. My brother, Ken, was a regular actor in the radio soap opera ‘The Guiding Light.’ Because we had a similar voice.
“After high school, my father wanted me to work full time in his bakery. It was a good business and I worked there delivering wedding cakes. But I was drawn to the stage and thought I would be in musicals. My film career was casual. A friend urged me to audition for a play, so I did and got the job.
“Then I got a director’s role in Robert Frank’s play” Me and My Brother. “After that there were other small roles, but I had the talent to be tireless.
“Today my wife, Georgian – who runs a casting, and I live in Connecticut in an old and comfortable country house on an area of several acres. We moved here 45 years ago. Our house is bordered by a nature reserve that has lots of animals and we have a beautiful and open view. I do not I live in Los Angeles, and when I do movies, I live in hotels.
“At home I like to cook, but I don’t eat cake or ice cream. We always had it around when I was a kid. I ate enough.”
Christopher’s The Kitchen
Do you work while you cook? I do. I read scripts on the kitchen counter.
The process? I read my lines, half aloud, over and over. Slowly, I memorize them.
Character? When I memorize, I start to notice things about my character and develop a personality for her.
Lesson? As an actor, it does not matter if the audience knows what you are talking about. They just need to know that you know what you are talking about. That’s a big difference.