Christopher
Walken was dangling from the Golden Gate Bridge when he looked up and saw Roger Moore.
“Tell me,” Moore said, cocking an eyebrow. “Do you always die in these kinds of movies?”
“Yeah. Pretty much,” Walken replied before Moore kicked him into the bay.
That little exchange took place on the set of “A View to a Kill,” a second-rate James Bond movie made tolerable by Walken’s memorable turn as the villain plotting to blow up Silicon Valley.
As Moore dryly observed, Walken’s made a career out of playing wackos and ice-cold sociopaths — Diane Keaton‘s suicidal brother in “Annie Hall,” a laughing gangster in “True Romance” and, most famously, a soldier with a penchant for Russian roulette in “The Deer Hunter.”
Walken, 67, says he never sought out such parts — “I did one and they just started coming my way” — and says he’s growing weary of them.
“You hope something different comes along once in a while,” he says. “I’d like to play a nice guy with a wife and kids. Or a grandfather, now that I look my age.”
Right now, though, he’s still in psychopath mode, playing, to a fare-thee-well, a one-handed killer in Martin McDonagh‘s black comedy “A Behanding in
Spokane.”
He’s doing it with his customary blend of menace and humor, along with the kind of quirky, unexpected line readings that have spawned a cottage industry of Walken imitators.
He’s almost certain to pick up a Tony nomination next week in a category that will be packed with major actors giving major performances — Denzel Washington (“Fences”), Alfred Molina (“Red”), Liev Schreiber (“A View From the Bridge”).
It’s hard to imagine Walken, a serious actor who seems removed from the politics of Broadway, caring all that much about the Tony Awards horse race.
But when I ask him if he’s paying any attention to it, he says, “Absolutely. I’ll do anything to win.”
Delivered deadpan, it’s impossible to know if he means it.
Although he’s best known for his movie roles, Walken’s been knocking around Broadway for years.
Born and raised in Queens, he started out as a chorus kid, dancing in a national tour of “West Side Story” and, on Broadway, in “Baker Street” and “High Spirits.”
Noel Coward directed him in “High Spirits,” and Walken remembers him with great affection.
“On the first day of rehearsal, we all lined up to meet him. He came into the theater and was wearing a cashmere coat and a fedora. I was in the line, wearing a fire-engine red T-shirt. He got to me and said, ‘Interesting shirt.’ I said, ‘Yes. It’s red.’ He said, ‘Well, it’s been an exciting day for us all.’ ”
During the musical’s run, another legend — Beatrice Lillie — thought Walken could become an actor.
“She threw a Samuel French copy of ‘Hamlet’ at me one day and said, ‘Read it.’ I played Hamlet three times. I was lousy. I played Richard II once and people came backstage and said, ‘Loved your Hamlet.’ ”
The subject of bad Shakespeare gets Walken talking about his dream project: a musical version of the campy old movie “Theater of Blood,” in which Vincent Price played a much-maligned Shakespearean actor who murders the members of the London Drama Critics Circle.
“It would make a great musical,” he says.
It’s a fun idea, and enterprising producers should get on the case.