Christopher Walken famous quotes

I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell.
-- Christopher Walken

#Fever

I don't think I'd be a good director because people would ask me, you know, "What is it? What's going on here? Where should I put the camera?" Or, "What's my motivation?" And I would say, "Do whatever you want!"
-- Christopher Walken

#Motivation #Thinking #People

I have this theory about words. There's a thousand ways to say 'Pass the salt'. It could mean, you know, 'Can I have some salt?' or it could mean, 'I love you.' It could mean, 'I'm very annoyed with you'. Really, the list could go on and on. Words are little bombs, and they have a lot of energy inside them.
-- Christopher Walken

#Love You #Mean #Annoyed

In rehearsal you have a good accident that you can repeat.In the movies if you have a good accident you hope the camera's running.
-- Christopher Walken

#Running #Cameras #Rehearsal

Acting has to do with saying it as if you meant it, so for me the words are always very important. It's very important for me to know my lines, know them so well that I don't have to think about them.
-- Christopher Walken

#Thinking #Important #Acting

In the theater you rehearse in order to do the performance. And in the movies the rehearsal and the performance are kind of the same thing. You're figuring it out and hopefully the camera is pointed at you when you're doing it.
-- Christopher Walken

#Order #Cameras #Rehearsal

I like cats a lot. I've always liked cats. They're great company. When they eat, they always leave a little bit at the bottom of the bowl. A dog will polish the bowl, but a cat always leaves a little bit. It's like an offering.
-- Christopher Walken

#Dog #Cat #Offering

Usually in the first performances I'm completely panicked. And I pull myself together. By the time you get to the end of the play, you really start to have fun.
-- Christopher Walken

#Fun #Play #Together

I became very critical of zoos and circuses and keeping animals in captivity. I wish it was against the law.
-- Christopher Walken

#Zoos #Animal #Law

In the theater you rehearse for a minimum of five to six weeks. And then you get to play it. Which means you get to get better. That's the great thing about the theater.
-- Christopher Walken

#Mean #Play #Get Better

I try not to worry about things I can't do anything about.
-- Christopher Walken

#Worry #Trying

I got to playing villains-I don't know how. I think it's like anything else, in the movies in particular that if you establish yourself as something and you're lucky enough to keep getting hired. You know, there are guys who play the guy who gets the girl, guys who are the best friend of that guy, there's the funny guy, the villain.
-- Christopher Walken

#Girl #Thinking #Play

An actor really is a kind of intermediary between an audience and the piece, whether it's a play or movie.
-- Christopher Walken

#Play #Actors #Pieces

I've made one or two movies that I haven't even seen, because they were never released. I have made things that I never even saw. But I will always go see the movie I'm in.
-- Christopher Walken

#Two #Saws #Made

I'd love to do a character with a wife, a nice little house, a couple of kids, a dog, maybe a bit of singing, and no guns and no killing, but nobody offers me those kind of parts.
-- Christopher Walken

#Dog #Couple #Nice

I've made a couple of movies in the jungle, and I don't want to go back to the jungle.
-- Christopher Walken

#Couple #Want #Made

There are people who are able to plan their career, their future, but I've never had any talent for that. I just do things and hope for the best. Say yes, take a chance, and sometimes it's terrific and sometimes it's not.
-- Christopher Walken

#Careers #People #Able

I do like to work. Some jobs are better than others. That's the thing: You really don't know. I've enjoyed making movies for lots of different reasons. Sometimes, it was the other people. Sometimes, it was the fact that I was really good in it. Sometimes, it was the location. Sometimes, it was the paycheck.
-- Christopher Walken

#Jobs #People #Location

As an actor you become that lighting rod between the person who made the play and the audience.
-- Christopher Walken

#Play #Actors #Made

I have a lot of trouble with scripts. I have a lot of trouble imagining things while I'm reading them.
-- Christopher Walken

#Reading #Scripts #Trouble

No, improvising is wonderful. But, the thing is that you cannot improvise unless you know exactly what you're doing.
-- Christopher Walken

#Wonderful

When I'm on the road making a movie in another city, on my day off, I always go to the movies. I love going to the movies. You get a ticket and sit there, and it's very interesting to be around people who aren't personally invested in you, in any way. They're just going to the movies
-- Christopher Walken

#Cities #People #Interesting

I remember that. I was talking to him and I said how great it would be if actors had a tail because I have animals and a tail is so expressive. On a cat you can tell everything. You can tell if they're annoyed. You can tell whether they're scared.
-- Christopher Walken

#Cat #Animal #Talking

I don't need to be made to look evil. I can do that on my own.
-- Christopher Walken

#Evil #Needs #Looks

Yeah, well I've always played comedy. My background is musical comedy theatre and that's really where my training is. As an actor, that's my training.
-- Christopher Walken

#Musical #Training #Theatre

My hair was famous before I was.
-- Christopher Walken

#Hair

Emotional power is maybe the most valuable thing that an actor can have.
-- Christopher Walken

#Emotional #Actors #Valuable

I have a friend of mine who does me on his answering machine, and when I call him, I answer. It's pretty strange.
-- Christopher Walken

#Doe #Machines #Answers

The minute I start to talk about acting, I realize that I can't. You know, it's an abstract thing, a little bit mysterious even if you do it for a living.
-- Christopher Walken

#Acting #Littles #Mysterious

When I was a kid I joined the circus. I did that. It is true. But it's not like you think. There was a guy, he had his own circus. His name was Carol Jacobs and he owned it. It was a small thing.
-- Christopher Walken

#Kids #Thinking #Names

To me, there are things you're good at and things you're not so good at. For some reason, I'm good at darker characters. It has to do with how you look.
-- Christopher Walken

#Character #Looks #Reason

The thing about cooking is it's so interesting to watch. I don't know why, but if you go to somebody's house and they're making something, they usually say interesting things while they're cooking.
-- Christopher Walken

#Interesting #House #Cooking

Usually directors hire me because I'm what they are looking for. But once in a while, and it's very rare, they will hire me and then try to make me over.
-- Christopher Walken

#Trying #Directors

When I was a kid, I worked in the circus. It was a touring circus that was owned by a man named Terrell Jacobs. It was just one big tent, and he was a lion tamer. He didn't have any kids, but the bit was that I would dress up as his son in an identical outfit.
-- Christopher Walken

#Kids #Son #Men

The last time I did a movie that needed a horse, I said: 'If it moves, I'm out of here.' The worst thing is, they know when you're afraid and act up accordingly. I've had them run off on me. Horses I do not like.
-- Christopher Walken

#Running #Horse #Moving

I think that if I had grown up and had been in show business and the movies twenty five, thirty years earlier, I think I would have made a lot more musical movies.
-- Christopher Walken

#Business #Thinking #Years

I think that sometimes when they see me in a movie they expect me to be something nasty. I mean, I play a lot of villains and you show up and they think maybe... That's why it's good to defy expectations sometimes.
-- Christopher Walken

#Mean #Thinking #Play

I think the fact that I grew up in show business had a real effect on my personality. If you were born in New York during the golden age of television, and you grew up on Broadway, that marks you.
-- Christopher Walken

#New York #Real #Thinking

I think the fact that I was raised in show business, in New York City, in the '50s, that's affected my personality to the point that I'm a little different.
-- Christopher Walken

#New York #Thinking #Cities

I've always been a character actor, although I'm not quite sure what that means. All my scripts are absolutely covered in notes, so any time I say anything - even 'pass the salt' - I have six subtexts, comments on what I really mean when I'm saying that. Maybe that's what gives the impression that I'm saying one thing and thinking something else.
-- Christopher Walken

#Character #Mean #Thinking

I've made movies that I thought were okay, but then I was very good. And sometimes you're in a movie and you think, 'I wish more people saw that' - because you're good. And it just works out that the movie gets lost. But that's show business.
-- Christopher Walken

#Thinking #People #Work Out

I've made three musical movies which is pretty good considering that not many are made but I was lucky in other ways. I came along when independent movies were starting to boom.
-- Christopher Walken

#Movie #Independent #Starting Over

Laurence Olivier said in an interview once that when he plays a tragedy he always aims for the funny parts, and the other way around. Because in a comedy you look for what's serious. I think that's true. Sometimes things are really funny if you're absolutely earnest. If you're really serious, it's hilarious.
-- Christopher Walken

#Funny #Thinking #Play

My background is in musical comedy. I didn't know I was going to be an actor. But all my points of reference have to do with musical comedy and in being kind of a showoff.
-- Christopher Walken

#Musical #Actors #Be Kind

My life is really quite conservative. I've been married nearly 50 years. I don't have hobbies or children. I don't much care to travel. I've never had a big social life. I really just stay home, except when I go to work.
-- Christopher Walken

#Children #Home #Years

My own way of thinking is very conservative, very linear and not particularly imaginative, but if I look for things in different places, sometimes things happen.
-- Christopher Walken

#Thinking #Different #Looks

One thing that's happened to me is I've been around a long time and I've played a lot of villains and so forth. I think it had to do with, well one thing is that I looked younger than I was for a long time. Now I think I'm suddenly starting to play people's father.
-- Christopher Walken

#Father #Thinking #Play

Quite often, I'll be sent a script for a movie. And I find that I like it, so I say I'll do it. But then they rewrite it for me. They make it quirky. Odd. I find that rather annoying. I call it Walkenising.
-- Christopher Walken

#Quirky #Scripts #Annoying

The best thing for me is, when I'm not working, is to be at home and to have a script or two scripts is better, and to be just walking around the house and just thinking about the lines.
-- Christopher Walken

#Home #Thinking #Two

When I was a kid, my parents gave me piano lessons and guitar lessons for a while, but I was never very good at it. I have big, sort of awkward hands. It's hard to keep going when you don't get any better.
-- Christopher Walken

#Kids #Guitar #Hands

When videotape came so a lot of movies that I do have a kind of afterlife in video. Things where movies that I do would come and go; they still come and go but you can go rent them and see them on TV.
-- Christopher Walken

#Movie #Afterlife #Video

You hear about things happening to people - they slip in the bathtub, fall down the stairs, step off the curb in London because they think that the cars come the other way - and they die. You feel you want to die making an effort at something; you don't want to die in some unnecessary way.
-- Christopher Walken

#Fall #Thinking #People

I'm better off not socializing. I make a better impression if I'm not around.
-- Christopher Walken

#Inspirational #Impression

I tend to play mostly villains and twisted people. Unsavory guys. I think it's my face, the way I look.
-- Christopher Walken

#Thinking #Play #People

I'm not much of an analyzer or a psychologist.
-- Christopher Walken

#Psychologist

My father passed away a couple of years ago, but he was very old. He was almost a 100 years old. And, you know, he had a very good life. He came to America and he had a good life.
-- Christopher Walken

#Couple #Good Life #Father

I became an actor by accident.
-- Christopher Walken

#Actors #Accidents

I have been in movies that I thought I wasn't very good in.
-- Christopher Walken

#Very Good

Is typecasting really a problem?
-- Christopher Walken

#Problem

Somebody said to me that I speak English almost like somebody for whom English is not their first language.
-- Christopher Walken

#Firsts #Language #Speak

Well, I don't play heroes obviously. I never played the guy who gets the girl. It might be interesting to do a part where I was a father in a functional family.
-- Christopher Walken

#Girl #Father #Hero

I look for good possibilities in movies. I don't look for perfection.
-- Christopher Walken

#Perfection #Looks #Possibility

My favorite characters are the ones that are the most successful movies.
-- Christopher Walken

#Movie #Character #Successful

I make movies that nobody will see. I've made movies that even I have never seen.
-- Christopher Walken

#Made

Can I confess something? I tell you this as an artist, I think you'll understand. Sometimes when I'm driving on the road at night I see two headlights coming toward me. Fast. I have this sudden impulse to turn the wheel quickly, head-on into the oncoming car. I can anticipate the explosion. The sound of shattering glass. The flames rising out of the flowing gasoline.
-- Christopher Walken

#Thinking #Artist #Night

Bear suits are funny - and bears as well.
-- Christopher Walken

#Suits #Bears #Wells

My background is in musical comedy.
-- Christopher Walken

#Musical #Comedy #Backgrounds

I'm an angel. I kill firstborns while their mamas watch. I turn cities into salt. I even, when I feel like it, rip the souls from little girls, and from now till kingdom come, the only thing you can count on in your existence is never understanding why.
-- Christopher Walken

#Girl #Rip #Angel

I don't even like holding them. Whenever I hold a gun, I want to get it out of my hand as quick as possible.
-- Christopher Walken

#Gun #Hands #Want

I've never crashed a wedding. When I was a kid I, of course, used to crash parties. Crashing a wedding is difficult though because you have to have the suit, and you have to have information in case someone catches you. You have to know at least some names and something.
-- Christopher Walken

#Party #Kids #Names

I've made movies that we're very successful that we're a complete surprise, and I've made movies that I thought we're going to be very successful that, you know.
-- Christopher Walken

#Successful #Surprise #Made

You know, there's nothing you can do about your public image. It is what it is. I just try to do things honestly. I guess honesty is what you would call subjective: if you feel good about what you're doing, yourself, if you figure you're doing the right thing.
-- Christopher Walken

#Honesty #Feel Good #Trying

I used to be prettier than I am, but I think I look better now. I was a pretty boy. Particularly in my early movies. I don’t like looking at them so much. There’s a sort of pretty thing about me.
-- Christopher Walken

#Boys #Thinking #Looks

We have no way of knowing what lays ahead for us in the future. All we can do is use the information at hand to make the best decision possible.
-- Christopher Walken

#Hands #Knowing #Decision

I'm a better actor now than I ever was, I wish I could have hurried that up, but there's no way. Anyway, I always wanted to be around for a long time. Like a European actor, I hope I live a long time and that I'm acting until I finish.
-- Christopher Walken

#Long #Wish #Acting

I think that a good movie creates its own world, and that world needn't refer to anything that's real. If it's consistent, if it's entertaining, if it's interesting, it justifies its being there.
-- Christopher Walken

#Real #Thinking #Interesting