Continued.... (Back)
Q: Have either of your parents criticized you about the films you make?
A: My mother, absolutely. She always says to me, "Why can't you make a nice film?"
Q: She probably still has memories of your childhood years on live TV.
A: Absolutely. She'd tell me how to read my lines. In TV they used kids as furniture almost. They'd say, "OK, put a bunch of them over here." It would be holiday shows mostly, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving. I worked with Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin on "The Colgate Comedy Hour" when I was 10.
Q: What were you favorite TV shows as a kid?
A. Kids' shows didn't interest me that much. Maybe because I was there and saw it happening. I worked on the same floor as Buffalo Bob and Howdy Doody. J. Fred Mugs, the chimp, used to drive his miniature motorcycle up and down the halls of the eight floor at NBC. You know the movie My Favorite Year? The show some of that kind of stuff, but I actually remember the Chesterfield or Lucky Strike girl with the woman's legs coming out of the bottom of a life-size package. I remember Mr.. Peanut wire a hat on.
Q: Was it like a hallucination?
A: Except that it was real. It was it's own kind of life, and that's whar I mean about planet Show Business.
Q: Did your opinion of TV change after you appeared with Glenn Close in Sarah, Plain and Tall?
A: TV's very tricky. When Sarah, Plain and Tall came out, I was in London, where the Agatha Christie play The Mousetrap was celebrating its 40th anniversary. They estimated eight million people had seen it. Glenn Close called me and told me that 80 million people in America had seen Sarah in one night. That's what being a TV actor is. Mary Tyler Moore, James Garner, Johnny Carson, those people who have been on TV a long time, that's really amazing. Henry Winkler is one of the best TV actors I ever saw. The Fonz? [Lee] Strasburg loved him­ he used to talk about him in class.
Q: Was Strasburg a good teacher?
A: I found him rather severe. He had humor, but you rarely saw it. Elia Kazan was the best acting teacher I ever saw. He says such simple things. At the Actor;s Studio there were these people who'd [act like] some kind of Delphic mysteries were being imparted. Such seriousness. I said to somebody once, "Please, I'm getting a headache." She said to me, "You just don't understand." I haven't been there in 10 years for that reason.
Q: Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect" show had a topic that asked: does showbiz make you an asshole or do assholes go into showbiz? How would you have responded?
A: That's a terrible question. I thought he was intelligent. I know a lot of successful people in show business and that's the last word I'd call them. Most people in show business are bright.
Q: How bright were you when you got taken in a Ponzi scheme?
A: Boy, did I. It was my fault for not paying attention. My wife, thinking she was doing me a favor, go me involved in it. A typical stock thing out of Chicago. The guy was my wife's mother's boss. I had my lawyer go to Chicago and check him out, and he seemed very legit. I would send him a chunk of money and two weeks later he's send me back maybe a third. So it looked like I was making a big profit, but basically all they'd do is send you some of your own money. And I lost hundreds of thousands. At the time it was all the money I had. I was a real jerk.
Q: What's your most embarrassing moment?
A: I was at a cocktail party with this actor who always cracks me up and he said something and I pissed myself. I had on a beautiful pale gray suit. I couldn't have had on a black suit, right?
Q: Is your wife your best friend?
A: Definitely.
Q: With her being a casting agent, does she give you any insights about the process?
A. We never talk about it. I know that she works much harder than I do, They don't get paid that much but they're always going to see something, somebody. She's temperamentally that way. If she wasn't doing that she'd be doing something else. I'm lazy physically.
Q: Is laziness the trait you most deplore in yourself?
A. Yes, I can sit in a chair all day and ponder what I'm gonna do, even id it's about going down to the corner for a quart of milk.
Q: What fictional character would you like to be?
A: Ivanhoe.
Q: What sports figure would you like to have been?
A: Joe DiMaggio. There's no bigger hero on Earth, and I don't even know about baseball.
Q: What famous quote would you like to have uttered?
A. Veni, vidi, vici.
Q: What annoys you most?
A: I know definitely what that is: it's that machine that blows leaves around. That should be against the law.
Q: Do you remember your first acid trip?
A: I took it on the night of the New York blackout. I was in an acting class with Raul Julia and Vaughn Meader, the Kennedy imitator, and we were in a small room and the lights started to get brown and we went outside and walked up Seventh Avenue and saw all the lights going out. This guy in our class asked if we wanted to take some acid. So we went to where he lived and I took it. I must say I had a great time. I believe there was a full moon that night, what they call a bomber's moon, and the city was so beautiful. We got in a car and I was doing all that bullshit, "Oh, I can fly."
Q: What's your drug of choice.
A: Vodka. Russian vodka, Polish vodka, Czech vodka. I was a vodka expert. It goes right down, but it's not good for you . And I don't do that anymore.
Q: If you were to receive a letter today from anyone you have known, who would it be from and what would it say?
A: It would be from Ed McMahon and it would tell me that I'd just won a million dollars.
Q: Who would you like to punch in the nose?
A. My dentist.
Q: What is your favorite journey?
A. Going from Katmandu to the Chinese border, a four hour road trip. The most beautiful scenery I ever saw. I did it right after The Deer Hunter.
Q: How would you behave if someone tried to assault you?
A: I'd cover up. I'm an actor, I can't afford to get hurt.
Q: Ever been robbed?
A: Sure. I was robbed recently of my script of The Prophecy II. I put my bag down at the airport in Venice. It's a very strange story. We were waiting to catch a plane. So the bag was gone­ it had my driver's license, credit cards, keys, glasses, a hundred dollars, and the script with three months of notes in it. I saw the guys who took it­ one of them asked me for my autograph and I remember giving it thinking, this guy does not collect autographs. I mean, he looked like he'd slit your throat. Anyway, a week later a friend of Julian Schnabel's who lives in Venice whose phone number I had written on the outside of my script calls me and says, "Christopher Walken, I am a friend of Julian Schnabel's. I have a call from a lady in Sicily who says she found a bag by the side of the road and it's got your stuff in it." She had found it on her way to Sicily in a small town outside of Verona, two hours from Venice. So I got the bag back with the script! All they took was the hundred bucks. Isn't that bizarre?
Q: What is it that you most dislike?
A: I don't like to do anything I don't want to do.
Q: What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
A: Being inward-looking. It's possible to be focused on yourself to the point where that's all you see. That's where real depression comes from.
Q: What is your greatest extravagance?
A: Time. And what I do with it. I tend to spend it mostly on myself.
Q: What is your idea of perfect happiness?
A: Happiness is if I have something hard to do at work and on the drive home I think, "Oh man, I nailed that. You are so good!" That's usually not what happens.
Q: What is your greatest regret?
A: I have nothing that I have to go to a shrink to deal with.
Q: What do you consider your greatest achievement?
A: I've been in about 50 movies.
Q: What is your most marked characteristic?
A: I am very focused.
Q: What or who is the greatest love of your life?
A: My wife. My work.
Q: On what occasion do you lie?
A: I don't.
Q: Do you have a motto?
A: Be comfortable.
Q: How would you like to die?
A: Very old, very successful, working, booked on "Saturday Night Live" for the following weekend.
Q: What would you like posterity to recognize you for?
A: The Nobel Prize for acting.
(Back to beginning)
(Previous Page)