His hair may be as wild as a brushfire, but each and everything else about this man – Christopher Walken – is friendlier, softer, and more amused than you can anticipate – a domestic cat to the slayer of his most loved onscreen persona. At his house, in a town in rural Connecticut two hours north of Manhattan, he puts on the coffee in the company of his wife of 48 years, Georgianne. Walken turned 77 years in 2020 and walks a little stiffly. However, his famous cat-like blue eyes dart with unclouded vigor. Over the last five decades, he has made over 100 films, some have been terrible while some have been great. When asked about any of his movies, Walken indicates his surroundings – the usual oriental rugs, the lovely flagstone flooring, the lush green grounds with its trees and the barn – and simply remarks that he has a nice house. His concluding, dry smile says the rest.
And at this point, you are possibly wondering: What about Walken and His Poker Face?
Claiming an actor is so talented they could make reading the phone book aloud into a riveting experience is a classic bit of praise. It is definitely true of Walken that there is simply no way of predicting how he will be reading a given line, and that tension keeps his fans always at the edge of their seats. While he has not literally read out his phone book (so far), he has managed to do the next best thing in two talk shows.
In 1993, he was featured on a British talk named Saturday Zoo to read out �The Three Little Pigs’ and if you have missed it, you can still guess that it was worth a watch, if only for the surreal experience of encountering an Oscar winner claim, deadpan as anything, such as: He was a smart pig followed by some �Oink oink’ pig sounds.
Walken returned to the BBC in 2009, this time appearing on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross to narrate the lyrics to Lady Gaga’s �Poker Face’. He read the verses with warmth and naturalism but impressed everyone with his masterstroke when he got to the chorus (which was wordless) with his: Oh ee oh! Oh-oh! Ooh!
Now that we have discussed this already, it’s time to tell you an open secret: In yet more pieces of evidence that suggest that Walken is possibly from another planet, the exemplary actor claimed that he’s never owned a cell phone or even a computer. The Oscar winner recently dropped the bomb in a virtual appearance on the set of “The Late Show”.
He is our go-to actor when it comes to anything about the menace, but does this new King Louie have a mysterious side to himself? Especially one that restricts him from using a mobile phone or computer? We sure will get to that. But if you are liking the story so far, we would request you to pause for a moment to like and subscribe to our channel.
Our answer is no. The thespian is not opposed to technology and admittedly says that he just managed to get to it a little too late. He also thinks that he has reached a certain age where it has just passed by him. And, he never got involved in the latest gadgets, because it would turn out to be strange to have a 10-year-old be better than him at it than he is.
Walken has also confessed that he has never sent an email, text or tweet. Many of you may feel like you are deprived if you don’t possess the latest gadgetry, but the legend claims it is not even that difficult. He opines that mobile phones are similar to a watch: If you actually need one, you will see that somebody else has already got it. The actor says that only under one condition he uses another’s phone, that is when somebody has to dial it for him.
Walken and his brothers were child stars
Christopher Walken had grown up in New York and was the middle child. He had two brothers. His father was a baker and his mother had a fascination for show business, so she took the boys to TV auditions. That’s how Walken ended up in his cameo roles. Despite childhood success, Walken says that he was merely following his friends.
Walken disclosed in an interview that in the 1950s, the world of television was being introduced. And in live shows in the 90s from New York, there were too many kids from Queens, and children especially from blue-collar families, taking part in the TV shows.
Walken was a lion tamer
Walken has long been in the show business. He had started early at the age of 10 with background roles on TV, including one opposite to iconic comedy stars Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. When Walken was just 16, he decided to take up an unusually exciting job: He went on to become a lion tamer.
Lion taming may sound deadly to you or me but per Walken’s description to the Vanity Fair during an interview in 2012, it was pretty easy. He also mentioned that he has taken up the job to earn some extra money during summer vacation. He added further that it would be more appropriate to refer to him as a lion tamer assistant. As the actor explained, the head performer did not have any children and had asked Walken to dress up in an identical outfit to resemble his imaginary son. When their act together would finish, there would be one lion, and it was his duty to have this lioness do a few tricks. Sheba, the lioness, according to Walken was obedient as a dog. It’s not hard to imagine his time in the surreal world of the circus-inspired masterful performances of characters that reside on both the margins of society and that of sanity.
Christopher was Madonna’s Guardian Angel
Recall seeing Walken’s literally soaring act in the �Weapon of Choice’ music video? Well, that was not Walken’s only music video performance. In 1992, he has also appeared as Madonna’s guardian stalker (read: angel) keeping an eye on her self-destructing activities in �Bad Girl’.
Christopher Walken, theme park ride host
If you visit or have already visited Walt Disney World, you must have met Mickey Mouse, Queen Elsa, and Cinderella. But, if you have managed to go across the town to the Universal Studios Florida, you could meet someone more important – Christopher Walken!
An opening day attraction in 1990, Earthquake: The Big One showed guests how some of the effects had been used for the film Earthquake. In 2007, the attraction was turned into a Disaster!
In the newly tweaked version, Christopher Walken started playing the role of director Frank Kincaid and welcomed guests to experience the production of his film “Mutha Nature.” The actor’s part was implemented with the help of Musion technology, the use of which we find in the Wizarding World when Dumbledore takes part in the queue for the Forbidden Journey. The sequence with Walken is spectacular with interaction involved with a real Team Member on stage.
The audience then goes into another area, where – with green screen technology – they observe how the action scenes were shot. Finally, guests would have to board the tram to witness the original Earthquake ride. However, in Disaster! after the spectacular tram sequence there was a bonus: “The Rock” Johnson in “Mutha Nature.” It has some tongue-in-cheek scenes starring The Rock mixed with shots the guests performed in the attraction.
Walken Got His Stage Name When He Was a Dancer
Walken is �Ronnie’ to his friends and family. Wondering how? Well, Walken’s mother had named him Ronald after Ronald Colman, a Hollywood star. So how did he wind up as Christopher? He received the stage name from Monique Van Vooren, a previous boss. In the initial days of his career, Walken used to be a dancer in Monique’s nightclub act alongside two other men. Monique was known to introduce her teammates with fake names, and one fine day she tried out the name �Christopher’ and nobody knows why but that one just stuck.
Walken starred in a play about Elvis
Like his contemporaries, Walken’s first hero was the famous American singer, Elvis Presley. As a child, he would mimic Presley’s trademark hair, and when he became an adult, he envisioned and wrote his first and play, Him, based on the King of Rock and Roll’s afterlife. The play was a look into the inner happenings of Walken’s mind, and what we see suggests that he is as strange as any of his reel life characters.
The play, which Walken starred in during its 1995 off-Broadway run, opens with Elvis in an otherworldly limbo besides a couple of Elvis impersonators and the star’s stillborn twin, Rob. Among the strange revelations that Walken revealed in this play is the idea that Rob was visiting Earth, and is the reason for the world’s posthumous Elvis sightings. Audiences also saw a foam rubber Elvis being tossed back and forth on the stage along with a recreation of his funeral where his mourners were only wearing their underwear. The second act shows that Elvis is not dead but faked his demise to escape to Morocco for a planned, gender reassignment surgery. This play ended with Elvis leading a low-key life as a truck-stop waitress. Reviews were not kind to Him, but we cannot also deny that it wasn’t unique.
Now, let’s end it with something Walken dreads doing: Horseriding
Walken – A Pro Horse Rider: Well, Not Really
Although he had to ride horses while working, Walken reportedly admits that he has never quite liked him. When he was compelled to ride one every day during the shoot of Heaven’s Gate for a stretch of eight months, he grinned and somehow put up with it. But while playing his villainous role in A View to a Kill, the crew came up with a smart solution for a horse racing shot. Walken recalled that, in reality, it was a stuffed horse on a trolley with tires, which the people on set towed behind a truck.
By now, it must be clear to you all that whether Christopher Walken is trying to make us believe in all his outrageous reel or real-life stories, he is surely the kind of character we can’t find in anybody or anywhere else.
If you know of more incredible facts about this man, do let us know in the comments section. And, before you move over to playing the next Facts Verse video, please take a moment to like and subscribe to our channel, and don’t forget to press the bell icon to stay updated about all our latest videos.
