Walken shtick

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/entertainment/9968499.htm?1c

Movie weirdo Christopher Walken actually believes he may have outgrown his
trademark wacko roles.

BY CHRIS HEWITT

Pioneer Press


When was it that we stopped thinking of Christopher Walken as an actor who
plays psychos and started thinking he is one?

Was it when he blew his brains out in a game of Russian roulette in "The Deer
Hunter"? When he was behind the wheel of a car in "Annie Hall" and fantasized
about veering into oncoming traffic? When he got tangled in the real-life
rumors about Natalie Wood's drowning death (he was in the vicinity)? When he
danced like a maniac in Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice" video? Or was his trip
to the dark side more recent — when he turned his full, snarling,
teeth-baring menace on Walt Disney's "Country Bears"?

Walken isn't sure, but he acknowledges he has not been Hollywood's go-to guy
for nice-guy parts. Even when he plays people who don't rip anyone limb from
limb — Ben Stiller's spiritual adviser in this year's "Envy," Leonardo
DiCaprio's frustrated dad in "Catch Me if You Can" — they tend to be weirdos.
But Walken thinks that is changing, as evidenced by "Around the Bend," opening
Friday

"As I get older, I'm moving into kind of a grown-up stage, where I get to play
husbands and fathers. Ordinary people," says Walken, 61, who made more than 40
films in the past decade alone. "In this movie, I play a grandfather for the
first time and that's nice, because it could mean I have a whole new career
ahead of me, instead of playing all these villains who want to take over the
world."

In "Around the Bend," Walken plays a mystery man who vanished from the lives of
his son (played by Josh Lucas) and father (Michael Caine) but who suddenly
turns up to make amends. The movie benefits from the tension between our
expectation that when Walken turns up, somebody's going to lose a major body
part, and the reality that his character is just trying to make peace.

"The director said that was the idea: that people bring these expectations
about me to a role and that this would surprise them," says Walken. "It never
occurred to me, really. I don't worry too much about that, although I know
people do expect certain things of me because of the movies where I haven't
been sympathetic."

It's ironic that Walken has become the king of creeps because, in his own life,
he rarely gets into knife fights or holds toddlers hostage. "I guess nobody is
really a regular guy — I'm not, because I've been in show business since I
was 5 years old, starting out as a singer-dancer — but I live a conservative,
exemplary, solid-citizen type of life," says Walken. "I keep to myself, I've
been married for 35 years to the same woman, I pay taxes, I live in the
country."

And, in the interest of full disclosure, I can add that Walken did not threaten
my life once during our phone interview.

Good guy or bad guy, Walken's preparation for each role is similar: He tries to
find the music in his lines. "A lot of other things — the rhythm, the tone,
the body language — are just as important as what words you're saying," says
Walken. "It's the reason why if you listen to people talking in another
language, sometimes you can understand what they're saying, just from the
rhythms."

When he gets a script, Walken reads his part over and over, trying to find its
rhythms. "It takes a long time to find it. But, if I'm working on a script for
a long time, when it starts to sound OK coming out of my mouth, then I'm
satisfied. If I say the line and I think it sounds like I mean it, I am ready."

And once he's ready to go, he's not big on surprises. Because it takes him
forever to memorize lines, Walken says he's not a fan of script changes: "If
they throw a scene at me at the last minute and say, 'Learn this,' I have a bit
of a problem. I don't like surprises."

But, as he moves into cuddlier, gentler roles, one surprise may be inevitable.
"The shocking thing that has happened is, one day, you turn around and you're
the oldest person on the set," says Walken. "I was always the youngest person
around. I was always the kid. Now, I'm usually the oldest one there."

Maybe so, but with roles coming up in a musical about adultery ("Romance and
Cigarettes") and a drama about a supermodel spy ("Domino"), he's not getting
older. He's getting weirder.


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Movie critic Chris Hewitt can be reached at chewitt@pioneerpress.com or
651-228-5552



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