Christopher Walken Quotes

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

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.

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

In the end, there's still the Word, everywhere.

.. In Heaven and it's Angels, the Earth and Stars, even in the darkest part of the Human Soul It was there where it burned brightest. And for a moment, I was blinded.

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

At its best, life is completely unpredictable.

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.

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.

My father was a lesson. He had his own bakery, and it was closed one day a week, but he would go anyway. He did it because he really loved his bakery. It wasn't a job.

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

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.

I never know when I am being funny, and the other way too.

I don't think you can think about that. I don't think you can try to be funny. Some people are just funny.

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.

I've done a lot of things I cringe when I watch and some things I'm proud of.

.. Movies are strange. You have to be a little bit lucky with them.

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.

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.

A man can be an artist... in anything, food, whatever. It depends on how good he is at it. Creasey's art is death. He's about to paint his masterpiece.

I like to be cast well and then I like to be left alone.

And good directors, that's generally what they do when they hire you because you have something that's useful to the part, and then they leave you alone. The times that I've run into trouble is when, very rare actually, but you get hired and then there's some sort of makeover involved.

I tend to play mostly villains and twisted people.

Unsavory guys. I think it's my face, the way I look.

I don't carry lucky charms, but I believe in those things.

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.

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.

I've been married for 46 years, and I live in a nice house, my grass is always cut, I pay my bills, and my cat loves me!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I'll tell you, Quentin Tarantino really writes the most amazing dialogue.

I love spaghetti. And I like to cook spaghetti. And I used to eat it every day. I weighed thirty pounds more than I do now. You can't - you can't do that.

Also, I think there are huge reactions sometimes, which are also mysterious.

I think I'm getting a little bit of Alzheimer's. Just a little.

Both my parents had heavy accents, and so did everybody they knew.

It's a rhythm thing - people who speak English where they have to hesitate and think of the right word. And I think it rubbed off.

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.

They have a kind of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby thing going on.

I'm a character actor. I have to find work in good movies where I can make something of my role. I'm a very lucky guy to be in that kind of position. It's like a kid who dreams of becoming a baseball player and then he gets to play for the Yankees.

Even in the limo, I buckle my seatbelt. I got that seatbelt on before the car moves.

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.

I used to love Danish. My father used to make a Boston cream pie. You never see that anymore.

I don't know why people eat so badly.

I could eat pasta all the time, but it really is fattening. And I love ice cream, but I can't do that. There was a time, until I was in my mid-forties, when I could eat a whole pizza - and really, no effect.

If you're an actor, a hard thing is to stick around, to stay viable.

I try to do that by taking the opportunity to do something different every once in awhile.

I make up different names for my cat all the time - Flapjack, Bowtie, Popcorn.

But he's really, "Hey you, cat."

I have a lot of trouble with scripts.

I have a lot of trouble imagining things while I'm reading them.

A good actor is like a racehorse or a Ferrari.

If a cylinder is missing on a Chevy, it's doesn't matter that much. But if something's not working right on a Ferrari, it makes a big difference. It's the three percent that makes the difference between good and great. It's a fine line. If you're not there, it's very painful.

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.

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.

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.

I come from a show-business family, so wanting to become an actor never crossed my mind. It was just a part of my life.

If you do movies that are modestly budgeted, the way they finance them is they figure out how they can sell them.