1 IMDb lists a hefty
139 film and television
credits for Walken.2 To Georgianne
Walken, a casting
director for ‘‘The
Sopranos,’’ among
many other film and
television projects.3 This seems to me
to be the master
key to understanding
Walken’s highly
idiosyncratic line
readings.4 By William
Johnston, published
in 1970 and subtitled
‘‘Reflections on
Zen and Christian
Mysticism.’’5 The Tony Award-
winning stage
director, dancer,
choreographer
and actor. He died
in 2014 at 84.6 If you can stomach
the language,
the escalating brio
of Walken’s delivery in
this scene, which you
can find on YouTube,
is well worth watching.7 ‘‘Him,’’ in which
Walken also
starred as a mythic
version of Presley,
was performed
at the Public Theater
in Manhattan in
1994 and 1995.8 Born Ronald
Walken, the actor
changed his stage
name to Christopher
in the early 1960s.9 Presley’s official
cause of death was
cardiac arrhythmia.
But a subsequent
toxicology report
found that his blood
contained high levels
of Dilaudid, Percodan,
Demerol, codeine
and quaaludes.10 Walken’s co-star
in the 1986 thriller
‘‘At Close Range.’’
Penn also said about
Walken, ‘‘What’s
funny to him is
something the rest
of the world doesn’t
understand.’’15This is pure conjecture, but were you
ever a big pot smoker? Sure.
Do you still smoke it? Sure.
What do you like to do when you’re
high? When I told that story about how
my friend used to say Sunday morning,
The New York Times and a good cup of
coff ee sitting in front of the fi re, I failed
to mention that he also said a couple of
puff s on a joint.
I’ve been rewatching a bunch of your
work, and there’s one scene in partic-
ular that I want to ask you about. It’s
from a straight-to-video movie called
‘‘All-American Murder.’’ Your charac-
ter is a cop who shows up to defuse
a hostage situation and delivers this
over-the-top profane monologue.^6
Is this ringing any bells? I never saw
that movie. It’s remarkable that you’re
talking about it, because I never knew
what happened to it. I don’t remember
much about that movie.
The reason I’m bringing it up is that, in
that scene anyway, it looks as if you’re
taking such delight in the performance,
and it made me wonder about what you
feel you can bring as an actor to a tur-
key like that. I imagine that it’s easier
to know what to do with good materi-
al than bad material. I know what you
mean. I remember making a movie once
where they had me dye my hair this
completely unnatural color. I argued,
but they had their way, and there I was.
So in every scene I was in, whomever
I was talking to, my subtext was What
do you think of my hair? No matter what
I was talking about to anybody, I was
thinking, What do you think of my hair?
Are you looking at my hair? Isn’t my hair
horrible? It colored everything that I did,
and I ended up being rather amusing but
nobody knew why except me. Some-
times I do things just to amuse myself.
I’ve played scenes pretending that I was
Elvis or Bugs Bunny or a U-boat com-
mander. I just don’t tell anybody.
Is that really true? Somebody said to me
once, ‘‘The truth is good, but interesting
is better.’’
Do you still have a clause in your contract
that any changes to your part can’t be
made without your approval? It’s not a
clause, but I do discuss that because it has
to do with how long it takes me to learn
lines. Often you take a job, and somewhere
in the middle of it, they say, ‘‘OK, we’re
going to shoot this scene,’’ and you say: ‘‘Ivery upset about his death. That whole
pill business.^9 To this day, I go to the
doctor and I say I have this or that, and
he says, ‘‘I’ll give you a pill.’’ If you’re old
and you want pills, you can get them pre-
scribed for just about anything. I always
say no thanks. It was too easy for Elvis
to get those pills. He didn’t take care of
himself — all those cheeseburgers. He
should have eaten better. I think Elvis
needed a good wife. Somebody to say,
‘‘Elvis, enough.’’ He was special. He was
diff erent. Poor old Elvis.
How do you have fun? Working. Most of
the time. The car ride home from the set
at the end of the day: You get in the car to
go back to the hotel, and the best thing is
to think, I was good today. A terrible feel-
ing is to sit in the car and think, I could
have done that much better. For me, it
boils down to things like that: How do
you feel when you go home in the car?
Sean Penn^10 once said that trying to
defi ne you was like ‘‘trying to defi ne a
cloud,’’ and you really do have this ethe-
real quality. I’m curious to know what’s
a solid, concrete thing that matters to
you in your day-to-day life? Gee, that’s a
hard thing for me to address. Every once
in a while — certainly not often — I’ll be
looking out the window, and I’ll think, I
feel pretty good. My bills are paid, my
wife is healthy, the weather’s nice. That’s
really all I care about: when, apropos of
nothing, I happen to look out the window
and think, This is good.Th is interview has been edited and condensed
from two conversations. A longer version is
online at nytimes.com/magazine.never saw that scene before. When am I
supposed to learn that?’’ So I ask people
not to surprise me. Also, in my case, some-
times I take a job and then they decide
to what I’ve come to call ‘‘Walkenize’’ it.
Suddenly I’ll become a little more zany or
wild. I prefer to play the part that I pre-
pared for. I don’t like surprises.
Just to return to writing: The one thing
you did write that got produced was a
play about Elvis.^7 I also know that his
hairstyle was an inspiration for your
own. Why was Elvis so formative for
you? I remember the fi rst time I heard
about him. There was this girl named
Janice. I guess I was 15 years old. I was
crazy about this girl. I fi nally worked up
the nerve to ask her to a dance. She said
to me — my name was Ronnie^8 — she
said: ‘‘Ronnie, I would love to go with
you, but I have this boyfriend. He’s an
older guy, and he would not like it if I
did.’’ Then she took out a wallet. Girls
used to have these wallets with all these
photographs inside. She showed me a
picture of this guy. He was unbelievably
handsome. I said: ‘‘Wait a second. That’s
not a photograph. You cut that out of a
magazine. I’m asking you to the dance.
What is this? You’re giving me this jazz?’’
She said: ‘‘It’s true. He’s this singer. His
name is Elvis, and I’m crazy about him.’’
I said: ‘‘Forget that. You don’t even know
him. Let’s go to the dance.’’ Anyway, I
got a glimpse of Elvis and the hair. That’s
where it all started. Elvis was fabulous. I
wish I’d known Elvis. I bet he was nice.
What would you want to ask him? I
wouldn’t want to ask him anything. I
Opening page: Source photograph by Stephane de Sakutin/Agence France-Presse, via Getty Images. Left, from top: Universal, via Everett Collection; Miramax Films, via Everett Collection. Right: Apple TV+.would just sit around with him. I was