UK Play Magazine - January 2002

Strange
Attraction
 

If you are a director looking for a romantic lead, you probably won’t call Christopher Walken.  If you are looking for an undead philosopher with a thirst for human blood, however, you will know exactly whose phone number to dig out of your Rolodex.  Vampires, psychopaths, alien abductees: Walken’s underground pallor and ethereal stare have equipped him perfectly for a life on the dark side.  He has played a suicidal soldier (The Deer Hunter, 1978), a damaged psychic (The Dead Zone, 1983), a Bond villain (A View to a Kill, 1985) and Batman’s nemesis (Batman Returns, 1992).

His latest film, The Affair of the Necklace, sees him take on the role of Count Cagliostro, the sinister mesmerist who enchanted pre-Revolutionary France.  By rights, the 58-year-old actor should be considered a victim of typecasting, little more than a lazy film-maker’s shorthand for the strange.  Yet while there might be an element of self-parody in Walken’s work, it has never been destructive, nor has it stopped him being held in high esteem.  It is rare for an actor to appear in a film such as the children’s caper MouseHunt (1997) and still be hailed as a cult figure.  There is little doubt that Walken’s charisma and acting ability are such that he could transform a Pizza Hut commercial into a work of Abel Ferrera-like darkness.  The highbrow cultural website Salon described him as "the Peter Lorre of the pre-Millennium", a character actor who transcends the limitations of a particular role to make any film his own.  Driven by a fierce work ethic, Walken has no problem with the threat of typecasting.  "I work," he once said, with a cheering lack of pretension, "a lot of actors don’t."

Even when playing the slightest of roles, Walken always brings more than plain weirdness to a part.  He can suggest a complex array of thought processes, even managing to seek out a profundity in the role of the Headless Horseman in Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow (1999) – a role that required him to do little more than growl.

By examining Walken’s personal life it is possible to understand what allows him to transcend the potential pitfalls and restrictions of his career path.  His Scottish mother, Rosalie, belonged to an organisation called the Stage Mothers’ Society and enrolled the young Walken and his two brothers in tapdancing classes, often driving them to auditions.  By the early Fifties, the boys were regulars on shows such as Philco TV Playhouse and The Colgate Comedy Hour while also attending the Professional Children’s School.  At the age of 15, Walken added a splash of vaudeville colour to his career when he worked as a lion tamer’s assistant.  It is easy to attribute his unabashed work ethic to his old-fashioned stage childhood, the professional training and commitment that is a world away from the film star flightiness that is endemic in Hollywood today.

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Profile:  Christopher Walken

After learning how to dance in his youth, Walken always tries to inveigle a dance routine into his films – his appearances in Spike Jonze’s video for Fatboy Slim’s Weapon of Choice last year was a delight, a riot of stylish syncopation through a hotel lobby that was utterly devoid of menace.  He might be considered by some to be one of the most sinister actors in the world, but he also dances, and it is this unpredictability that deepens his appeal.  After all, he has been married for 32 years, owns cats and is a keen cook.  Clearly, he leads a life that has little to do with the supernatural or the criminally insane.

No matter how much people think they know what to expect from Walken, after a lifetime in showbusiness he still has the ability to surprise, startle and shock.  He may have once described himself as "the malevolent WASP" but, somehow, he has managed to make everyone love him.