The Chris Walken Song and Dance, ARTY: So anyways, basically, the thing about BIKINI is that we're really
into dealing with the present situation, not into asking you to rehash
your entire life and career in some kind of cliched sort of way. People
are like still asking you about "The Deer Hunter"? I'm sitting in this weird old Victorian type thing where my knees come
up past my eyes but I don't want to appear out-of-sorts. The guy is very concise. Every interview I've ever read talks about how
sort of strange he is, but it seems like hyped bullshit. He's just a guy,
very aware of where and what he's coming from. Clear. WALKEN: I wrote a play and I performed it. It was about Elvis. It ran for a month in NYC at the Public Theater and there was a lot wrong with it, but I mean it had its moments... But there were times, I knew they were coming, but there was nothing I could do about it... I'm thinking, 'Oh fuck me, when I get to this part, I know they're going right to sleep, or something.' And I get there and it would go (motions downward) like that, but then I'd know that there was a moment up ahead where I could pick them back again, so they also wouldn't know that that was coming and I'd know... ARTY: Good reviews as a playwright? WALKEN: I got the same kind of reviews. You can tell the audience got a kick out of it and it was all right to them. ARTY: So like, do you still audition for movies or do they just call you and ask you if you want a part? WALKEN: Audition? Well, sometimes they call you in. They want to look at you. I'm not very good at that. I don't go in to read a scene or anything. I don't think that does anybody any good. Good actors are hardly ever good readers. ARTY: It's like that thing, practice heroes. WALKEN: What's that? ARTY: You never want to be too good in practice. WALKEN: Well, sure, in a way... and not only that but if you're trying to impress people in an audition, you're making choices too fast. You're not giving yourself time to schmear around with it, which for me, I can only do around the house. I take the script. I like to cook, so I'll be doing something. I find with any project, a distraction is very good. There's nothing better, for instance, than to be learning two parts at the same time. I wish somebody right now would give me another job. so I could get my head out of this ("Nick of Time" with J.Depp). ARTY: So beyond even acting, you've walked around on this planet for a couple of decades now. WALKEN: Five. ARTY: You said it, not me. WALKEN: That's very hard to believe. ARTY: What do you think of the world now in 1995 as opposed to 1975? WALKEN: Oh I don't know... I really stay in the house a lot, that's the truth. I live in Connecticut and when I'm not working, I stay in the house. ARTY: So are you digging where films are at, or do you not think about it in that way? WALKEN: I don't know, I hardly see movies. I tend to go see actors. I generally go to a movie even if I don't know anything about it because somebody's in it. ARTY: Oldman in "State of Grace" was that way for me. WALKEN: I remember the first time I saw James Dean. It was kind of like, 'Wow, who's that guy?' Oldman was like that in "State of Grace." ARTY: When you were growing up, who were the actors that you dug? WALKEN: When I was growing up it was Brando and Dean. ARTY: How about like Ray Muni? Is that his name? WALKEN: You don't mean Paul? ARTY: Yeah, Paul Muni. don't you think people were still kind of theater acting on camera back then? WALKEN: Yes, sure, and the scripts were that way, too, sure. But wouldn't you like to see Jack Nicholson on stage? ARTY: Yeah, I don't think he ever did it. WALKEN: I'd like to see him in a play. Some sort of anything. ARTY: I just watched that monologue in "The King of Marvin Gardens." WALKEN: See him play Richard the Third or something. ARTY: I was in NYC bumming around and I think you were in "Othello" at the time? WALKEN: Did you see it? ARTY: No, I was broke. WALKEN: I played Iago and Raul Julia was Othello. He was good. ARTY: How do you remember all those lines? WALKEN: Right, exactly! People ask me, I have no idea. I don't learn lines, I just do them, over and over, and in that case, hundreds of times. I put it on a tape recorder, stick it in my ear and walk around with it. You're mouth just starts to learn the muscle movements. Iago is the longest part in Shakespeare. Me talking at a rapid clip was, I believe, an hour and 20 minutes. ARTY: Just your lines? WALKEN: Just my lines. ARTY: They had some faith in you to throw that gig your way, especially with your humble stage beginnings. WALKEN: Right, but then, since I started, I played Romeo twice, three times, Hamlet twice. Richard the Second. I played the dreaded Scotsman. Lots of things. Actually, it's funny. In "Lion in Winter," I had to wear tights, I was a dancer. So from that I got my first Shakespeare thing to play Romeo at Stratford in Canada. I mean, I didn't have a lot of school and I didn't know from Shakespeare whatsoever, and I got that job. And I think it had something to do with the tights. Stupid stuff like that. ARTY: Well, you know, it's important to look the part. Did you actually understand Shakespeare when you did it? WALKEN: Not at all, and I really stunk. You should see my reviews from Romeo. I was terrible. ARTY: You took some heat for it? WALKEN: Ohhh, because especially they were furious that an American had been invited. The guy's not only American, he can't act. ARTY: I think fucking reviews are overrated. (Mainly because all of mine have been bad.) We talk about there not being a master shot (shot of all actors in a scene together) in the famous "True Romance" Hopper-Walken scene. WALKEN: And it took very little time to shoot. It was inside a trailer, and that's exactly what it was. We did the scene, the camera was pointed that way, and then the camera was pointed this way, and that was it. They said, 'Go home.' I mean, we always were acting together, but that's all it was. There was no master shot. I wonder why. Well, maybe the room didn't allow it. ARTY: I'd figure if it was Tony Scott, he'd blow out the back of the trailer. WALKEN: Well, I mean obviously he didn't want to do that. The back and forth, that's all it was. We shot it in one day. There was another small scene in an elevator with me and my gangsters. We shot that in Pasadena, but they cut it. ARTY: You dug the Tarantino script? WALKEN: Oh yeah. ARTY: So now it's this "Nick of Time" thing for the next couple of months? WALKEN: Until June. ARTY: And then back home, unless the new gig comes along? WALKEN: The new distraction. (He laughs.) ARTY: How long have you been married? WALKEN: We had the 25th last February. ARTY: That's the Silver? WALKEN: Silver, yeah. My parents have been married 65 years. My father's 95. ARTY: So are you into this movie, "Search and Destroy"? WALKEN: Yeah, I like the people very much. It's a nice job. ARTY: You must have shot it like a year ago? WALKEN: Oh, "Search and Destroy"?I thought you were talking about this new one. I only worked on "Search and Destroy" for 2 or 3 weeks. It was shot fast, low budget. Yeah, I liked the director and the actors. Did you see it? ARTY: I haven't seen it. I don't know that it's out yet. WALKEN: I thought they had screenings. ARTY: Yeah. No... You know it's funny. Now, looking back on then, it would seem that you and Scorcese and all those other guys were living downtown and making movies together? WALKEN: Well, we were definitely living down there but we weren't making movies, but we all know each other. I never have worked with Scorcese. I'd love to. ARTY: I always think of John Casales. What a great actor. WALKEN: Well, he's gone. (The guy died years ago.) ARTY: I know, but I mean his work. WALKEN: Yeah. We talk until the phone rings and then he goes and answers it. ARTY: So do you find when you come here and you've got to find a place to live and totally uproot, is it hard to keep your own personal life going? WALKEN: I don't have a personal life. I'm happy to say. No, I mean I have a wife, and I move around a lot, but I don't really, I like to be working. It's really my favorite thing. I'm always grateful to be working, and if I'm working I'm pretty OK. It's the times in between when I don't really have anything to look forward to, but in my career, things come up very suddenly. This thing ("Nick of Time")... I was sitting around the house, I'd just finished a job and one week had gone by, and I was already, you know, you get into that sort of like, nowhere place. ARTY: Eating racks of ribs? WALKEN: Yeah, and just like walking around and not having anything to do, you know, which I hate... and then the phone rings. So long as that keeps happening, then I'm OK. But I don't really... I don't have kids. I don't have hobbies. I'm not very sociable. ARTY: So you had some time on your hands? WALKEN: I don't like to drive, and I don't like sports or anything like that. ARTY: It's probably good that you're married then. WALKEN: Yeah, yeah, I like to have a nice place to live. I like this house, very much. I don't know where this furniture came from, but no, if this was my house, I would take out everything, absolutely everything. The paintings, everything. I'd have it empty, a nice rug. A coffee table. Chairs. A good sound system. ARTY: You know, I never like the furniture in anyone's house. My girlfriend always asks me what I like and I like so little of it all. WALKEN: No, I mean this is a nightmare. Look at this thing. (It's an antique floral-painted big chest with glass and shelves)... Jesus... ARTY: I actually think it's kinda cool but I wouldn't want that in my house. WALKEN: No, it's too much... like this thing here. (Points to a massive kind of hanging from the wall votive)... ARTY: That thing's gonna drop in the next quake... not while you're here though. WALKEN: I hope not. We talk about the house he's renting. ARTY: So you said you like to cook, so you just bring your own set of knives and move in? WALKEN: My wife (Georgianne) is Polish from Chicago and Easter is like... there is nothing bigger. She's borrowed all this stuff from people she knows and is gonna cook tomorrow. (It's Easter.) ARTY: Kielbasa? WALKEN: Sure and borscht she makes... ARTY: That's the thing about a girlfriend, they acknowledge things like days and holidays, more than I would... WALKEN: Oh absoluteley, Christmas... all that stuff. Women take it very seriously. It's nice, though. It's a healthy sign. We talk about gaining weight. He tells me he gained a lot of weight during "The Comfort of Strangers," shot in Venice. ARTY; So, are there any roles you'd like to play that you haven't? WALKEN: I'd like to play somebody's father and not have to shoot them... something maybe with a little kid. ARTY: "The Champ"? WALKEN: I think I'm a little old for that. And then he tells me that he might not do any more stage because of one thing. Camcorders. WALKEN: We are a civilization of people taping each other. One thing leads to another and Georgianne comes back with the Easter groceries and I start thinking that maybe it's all over. He tells me one last story as I'm packing up. WALKEN: I used to have an agent that told me socially I was a disaster... I used to tell her that I'd be invited to a party and she'd say, 'Don't go, don't go.' She'd always say, 'Keep the mystery, keep the mystery 'cause you're a disaster... I thank the guy for the tea, thank Georgianne for the coffee and split...
(Thanks to Karen Pearlman for transcribing this) |