Christopher Walken On Infamous Hairstyle | Friday Night With Jonathan Ross

you must know london fairly well i guess you've been here a few times over the years pretty well yeah do they look after you in london you like being in the city they do i'm always looking the wrong way when i cross the street well that's uh that's an american thing uh do you get a venture how much do the fans i mean you're very recognizable fellow do they stop you do they come to you do you encourage them sometimes when they don't i get sad if i go out and nobody knows me i get sad that can't happen often it happens and do you do you kind of do a little bit of a movie speak to get their attention do you kind of do it uh you look tremendous i mean you you must stay in shape i guess we saw you dancing man i know you you have a kind of song and dance background way back when don't you i do i i started in in show business uh in musicals which musicals we and which ones when you first lots of them tours of i did a lot of tours of west side story and i was in the chorus you know i was a chorus boy for a long time and uh when i became an actor i used to get criticized because i always turn to the audience and talk to them and why did you do that what was that that's musicals i see so you would like hey there's a picture here of you i think that's you on the right with your two brothers yeah is that right so you got an older brother and a younger brother that's right and you did a lot of acting work as a child all the tv work yeah we were in in in new york in the 1950s television was getting started and there were 90 live shows it's before videotape and they used a lot of kids television was very family oriented and uh and there were schools for those kids and uh we weren't actors but you know you sing a little you dance a little and so i've been in show business since i was about five years old wow uh you know the the fascinating about your career is you know you've played any number of different roles i mean you but you you kind of get uh you haven't been pigeonholed but something i think people think of you as being an offbeat character actor someone who plays these kind of slightly unusual unconventional walls um is that something that surprised you when you started getting those parts was it a an unexpected thing when i got into movies the first movie i got i think was annie right hall i was driving headlong into traffic you know oncoming traffic you played it he was kind of suicidal suicidal and uh then right after that i i was in the deer hunter where i you know i shot myself in the head and i think i think they kind of got a ball rolling [Laughter] and i guess they were big hit movies so people think well yes he was good in these and that's yeah the fact that they were a lot of people saw them you know when we were hosting the show earlier we're looking at what clips to show and we put on a clip from the dear humber uh and both the clips we had were you in the kind of washington lessons and i think they're just too intense to show certainly out of context of that that's a gripping and grueling movie and those scenes in particular are quite hard work i mean dramatically very rewarding to watch but at the same time really tough going is it harder to shoot that kind of thing is that does it take it out of you emotionally or is it actually in that way well it does but the the you know it depends on the director and those sh those scenes were shot under uh duress which helped in that case they were shot in the middle of the night in difficult conditions and uh you know you can see it did you uh how was it working with danielle about them because right you know i i haven't worked with them since but i suppose everything i've done after that i had a lot to do with what i uh observed at that time so he was uh he was an inspiration oh absolutely i mean and to a lot of people you know and just to watch him do what he does uh i've never forgotten that you know the uh thing i notice when people try and impersonate you of course but when you watch movies you have an unusual phrasing uh quite a strange way of saying a sentence but this is a deliberate thing or just the way it comes out i don't know both my parents had rather uh heavy accents they were both from europe and uh maybe that that has something to do with it because your father was from germany yes and my mother's from glasgow and the neighborhood i grew up in uh it was almost everybody was from europe and so i it could be then that i i grew up having an accent of some kind there i i would imagine it was quite hard to follow the conversation if your father's got the thick germany mumbai and your mother's got the ball glass we should they spoke english but they spoke with that yeah heavy accidents and all their friends too um your hair is in itself a remarkable achievement that's right i've i've had my ups and downs but my hair has always been famous well your hair people talk about your hair tonight they do but from the time i was a little kid they'd say what's with his hair you know and what is the secret of the hand well i i have a lot of hair and uh i always have and i suppose when you're my age to have a lot of hairs you know it's a great thing yeah what's been the regime to keep the hair a long time ago somebody told me oh it had to do with when when uh kennedy was president he apparently he uh you know he he he said that he'd like to read ian fleming and he also said that he pulled his hair every day and he had a great head of hair so i started pulling my hair in the morning and i think that's why i'm still you know so to stimulate the scalp uh dara is quite jealous of your hair i can tell that he's uh but that's that's a spider he's [Applause] he's we were in the in the green room and he was trying to convince me that that was his hair but it's obviously a spider i i think it's the two eyes that give it away to be honest with you i think that's the thing but a lot of people try to do that yeah yeah well the wig yeah if you uh if you were well now you wouldn't have to worry but if you hadn't been using it would you have gone the the shaving route or would you have uh put the wig on do you think no i got a wig you gotta wait sure maybe i do have a wig yeah no i don't think exactly it wouldn't be styled quite as strangely as that i'm admiring i love it but it's not a wig uh christopher somewhere in the region of 100 movies that's quite something i mean that's a big commitment in time and effort energy uh do you like watching yourself on screen do you if you came on if you're at home when you see one of your movies and let's face it you made a hundred chances are one will be on do you stay and what should ever do you look at the performance i have made a lot of movies that i haven't seen that's true uh just recently i made two that i haven't seen and why is that why do you not see them they don't get released or they go to dvd or uh one reason another but sometimes i i i come across them on the cable and sometimes they're good and sometimes they're awful and can you can you sense when you're making it whether it's going to be the the good or the bad yes yes you can feel that and what how do you feel that what's the kind of feeling is it a general thing you know that's going to be okay or you know i'm worried about that okay and and when something if you're worried about it presumably you have to finish it you commit sure nothing you can do does it change the level of commitment or the performance you give is it hard to keep the enthusiasm it's just a sense of dread you know have any surprise you you thought this is going to be terrible when it comes out and people go nuts for it no [Laughter] [Applause] sometimes it's not as bad as you think [Laughter] maybe it's not as bad as i thought it would be yeah that's right uh you know um sometimes you see a movie in there it might get dismissed as being a kind of a low budgety thing or kind of a non-intelligent movie and yet it transcends the genre that it's in and one such movie you in i think was a dead zone yeah because here's a movie which when it came out it was kind of you know low budget he kind of horror movie early 80s and yet uh it was not a huge hit it survives to this day people talk about it i love seeing that movie it's a powerful and really kind of remarkable film once again we're making that did you have the feeling this was going to be a one that survived and people enjoyed yeah but a good director you know david cronenberg and making a movie for an actor has a lot to do with that first of all a good director will cast you correctly and uh you know i've been lucky in certain in certain uh cases and that one's certainly one of them let's have a look at the kid because i adore this movie and i i must have seen it dozens of times and every time i watch it i get called right up in it if you haven't seen it already get this on dvd and give yourself a treat but this is the dead you get hooked in just from that scene i i like it when the goldfish tank starts the bubble oh you like that do you huh uh were you or you were filming that with actual flames around you because these days they would put that in with a computer but you were guessing those were flames yeah that was before digital do you uh you must have heard people trying to do you trying to do impersonations yeah okay it must be easy well who who who does it well who have you heard who does it well and what's the secret you think it's interesting because i i've heard a lot of people do it i've heard i've had people come up to me and say would you would you say hello this is you know for my cell phone yeah no and i and i do that and i've heard people do that and uh i never know what they're doing when people impersonate me i i always think what is that my my wife says that uh kevin spacey's the best one he does a good one yeah but if you were to try and teach someone what i mean what do you think is the kind of distinctive quality you have what is the what is walken-esque it's probably a lack of punctuation yeah i've never paid attention to punctuation it i i remember when i was a kid in school uh when i was told that you know the period is here and the comma is here and that's a question mark i always thought well don't tell me what to do i'll you know if it's a question i'll know and i'll do it if i and if you tell me it's a question i'll definitely make it a statement i think it was just a rebellious thing you're a grammar rebel a grammar rebel yeah good good not an easy place for me to say um but i'm going to remember that yeah you a grammar whatever aguama [Applause] will you join me in saying thank you to the wonderful mr christopher walker [Music] you

Channel: Friday Night With Jonathan Ross

Views: 147,191

Keywords: British host, Hollywood career, Hollywood interviews, Hollywood legend, Mouse Hunt, Pulp Fiction, TV show guest, The Deer Hunter, acclaimed actor, award-winning performances, box office hits, comedic moments, entertaining talk show, entertainment industry, famous hairstyle, filmography showcase, iconic haircut, memorable characters, red carpet moments, talented performer

Id: mRiVqFJ5mbw

Length: 11min 50sec (710 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 02 2022