It's just too good to be true for Walken

Christopher Walken

Despite an arduous day of interviews promoting his new comedy, Wedding Crashers, when we meet, Christopher Walken is, thankfully, still in high spirits. The 62-year-old actor grazes on a platter of fresh fruit in a Beverly Hills hotel suite, dressed in a charcoal grey suit which offsets his pale complexion, sunken green eyes and sandy, spiky hair, which is standing so erect you'd think he dropped his toaster in his bath this morning.

Walken often responds to questions by giving short, unrevealing answers. For example, when asked if Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978) stands out as a pivotal role in his career, he simply nods, and then monotones: "It was a wonderful movie. Very popular. Many people saw it. Oscar."

Walken's nervous disposition, slightly odd pronunciation and off-kilter, monosyllabic line delivery keep his performances mesmerising. Sean Penn, his co-star in At Close Range (1986), said: "Some people got poetry in their blood and some don't. Chris' is difficult to track. It's hard to figure whether it's angelic or satanic, but whatever it is, it's certainly poetic."

Walken, though, says the biggest misconception about him is that he is intimidating. "I don't think people are intimidated by me," he offers, wryly. "It's just I play a lot of villains and they tend to think that maybe I'm nasty in real life. That's why it's good to sometimes defy expectations.

"I think it'd be interesting for me to play something really different, like that guy on the TV show Father Knows Best. I'd have sons and they'd come to me and say: 'Dad, what do you think I should do?'

And I'd have a pipe and say: 'Well, son, just try and do the right thing.' That would be a good part. But what I'd really like to play is a psychiatrist. I think I'd be very good in that role."

Blinking slowly, he starts on an anecdote of how he once went to see a shrink. "I didn't need a psychiatrist, but somebody thought I should go and talk to this person. So I said: 'Okay.' And I went and I thought they should go to a psychiatrist themselves. The psychiatrist was so strange that I left. I thought, 'I can't take your advice. You're crazy.'

"Needless to say, it was a very strange experience. This psychiatrist saw clients in his apartment in Manhattan and I remember the phone rang in another room and he had a swinging door, and for a minute, I could see into his kitchen. Just for one minute I saw the rest of where he lived. There were all these dirty dishes. He was obviously very dirty, and I immediately thought: 'You can't tell me about my life if you can't wash your dishes!' "

Walken does admit, however, that he once managed to scare himself. "I was filming The Comfort of Strangers," he says of Paul Schrader's 1991 film of Ian McEwan's novel. "That was a particularly hard character to play every day. I was so glad when that was over. But I remember one day I was sitting in my dressing room, reading a book ... just killing time, when I quickly glanced at myself in the mirror. And almost as quickly, I looked away as if I didn't want to see that person. I then remember thinking to myself, I hope he leaves ... without saying goodbye."

Born and raised in Queens, Walken began acting on television at 10. He made his Broadway debut by the time he hit puberty, graduating from chorus roles to dramatic leads over the next two decades. He believes these roles contributed to his developing screen persona.

"At that point I was 35, and I had already been in show business for 30-plus years," he says. "In Woody Allen's Annie Hall, I played the strange suicidal brother to Diane Keaton who wanted to drive into oncoming cars. Immediately after that film, I play this nice guy who shoots himself in the head in The Deer Hunter."

He won a Best Supporting Acting Oscar for the latter role. Shaking his head, he ponders: "No wonder I've been labelled as disturbed. I almost believe it myself."

Walken thinks it would be great if actors had tails. "A tail is so expressive. On a cat you can tell if they're annoyed. You can tell whether they're scared. They bush their tail.

"If I was an actor and I had to play scared in a movie all I'd have to do is bush my tail. I think that if actors had tails it would change everything."

One of his favourite pastimes on a film set is to pretend it is his birthday.

"I always do that," his eyes lighting up like a mischievous 5-year-old's. "But there's a way to do it. I sit in the makeup trailer very early in the morning and while the lady is patting my face with a brush, I look very sad.

"And sooner or later she'll ask: 'What's the matter? You look a little down today.' So, I'll say: 'I'm all right.' Then she'll finally ask again: 'Come on. What is it?' Then I reply: 'It's my birthday, and I'm sad, because I'm alone ... and I don't have a cake.' I then wait a few beats, and whisper: 'But don't tell anybody!'

By lunchtime a cake is wheeled out with bottles of champagne, and we all have a lot of fun." Walken smiles, looking ever so pleased with himself.