Top 211 Quotes & Sayings by Christopher Walken - Page 3

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.

I have always refused to do something that has offended me. I have been offered potential roles that are totally vulgar.

Obvious things like The Deer Hunter. After that happened, the scripts got better. Opportunities happened.

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

Bear suits are funny - and bears as well.

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 think all men when they get older, they look at the mirror and they probably see their father a little bit.

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.

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.

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

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

There's not a lot of talking between actors - either between actors or between actors and directors. People think that they sit in rooms and talk about psychology and motivations. I don't think that happens much.

It's impossible for me to play a part without thinking about the audience.

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.

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.

I know that whenever I think about death, I come up against a stone wall.

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.

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

A job leads to a job, just like anything else, and it became apparent that this was probably what I was going to keep doing.

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.

There are places I don't want to go. Making movies on tops of mountains, in the desert, playing scenes while icy torrents of rivers rush by. The jungle. It's very uncomfortable.

It's very bizarre though when you get hired and then the director will say, "I know how this goes." And you're thinking, "Wait a minute, I thought that I was doing this" but basically what they really want, especially if they wrote it, is they want you to do it as they imagined it. It's virtually impossible.

I remember from when I use to be a dancer, there is an expression among dancers, I had a T-shirt that said: SHUT UP AND DANCE.

If I show somebody something that I've written and they say, "Eh...alright," I just put it away and I never show it to anyone again. But I know people who won't take no for an answer, and eventually someone pays attention.

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.

I make up different names for my cat all the time - Flapjack, Bowtie, Popcorn. But he's really, "Hey you, cat."

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

Guns make me very nervous. They're dangerous. I'm more of a pacifist than anyone could imagine.

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.

It's true that I don't think I'd be a good director. If I were a director, I'd try to hire the best people I could and then leave them alone. I don't know much about cameras or lighting, so I'd make sure that I had a really good cameraman who understood lenses and lighting, and I say to him, "This is the scene we have to shoot and this is what I think it should be, you go do it." Same with actors. But really, very good directors who know everything do basically the same thing. They hire you and then they leave you alone.

I want to make movies on a soundstage. They close the door and it's nighttime, daytime. If it has to rain, they make the rain. That's what I like.

It's not necessarily how many minutes you're on screen, it's the material you have. It's more important what it is you have to do than the amount of time you're there.

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.

Well, you know what they say. A bullet always tells the truth.

Acting is a bit like being an athlete. You spend all your time getting ready to do something for two minutes. All the things that made my career in the movies happen took two or three minutes, which is the time that it takes for a 'take'. In that time, something happens. That's what people know you for, just like someone running the hundred metres.

Growing up in New York is like living in a horror museum because there are so many strange people walking the streets and riding the subways. You learn to develop a tough front if you live here, just in case you get into any kind of trouble and you need to talk your way out of it.

An audience is the most dangerous thing in the world, because they paid, and they're looking at you. And they paid! And there's a lot of them! And they cast a cold eye, because they paid. To be on the stage, you have to be very secure.

There are movies that I've made where I thought I was going to be good, but when it was cut it together it wasn't. And there are a lot of movies that, for one reason or another, just don't become popular. So to me it's always been a little bit of a roll of the dice. That's the way it goes.

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.

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.

I feel like you are this or that because other people say so. I wouldn't know how to play a psychopath. I don't think about it that way. You think about playing the scene but if the other people say that guy is crazy, then you are.

Death is wonderful because you can't think about it. How are you gonna think about it?

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.

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.

I play so many villains and strange, troubled people. I don't have that kind of life. I live in the country. I've been married nearly 50 years. I have a cat.

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 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.

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.

I remember a few years ago I was sitting at home with my wife watching the Oscars. I was sitting on the couch and suddenly heard my voice. It's thrilling. It's interesting that a lot of guys do me. I have a friend who does me on his answering machine so when I call him I talk to myself. I don't really know what that comes from. It doesn't seem to me that I speak in a strange way. My wife says Kevin's (Spacey) the best.

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.

If you play a king, it's better if everybody treats you like a king.

I've been very fortunate, because I've been involved in things that very often lead to obscurity. I was in some pictures that were not successful whatsoever. I think people admire persistence. People notice that I'm still there.

I wasn't a trained actor, I was trained in musical comedy theater, and when you do that, the audience is completely part of the thing. It's like Elizabethan theater. You play the scene, and then you turn - the audience is part of it.

In my personal life I'm very conservative. I've been married to the same person for nearly 50 years, I'm scrupulous about paying bills, avoiding debt. I'm very careful. But as an actor I'm pretty reckless. I've done a lot of things that, when I see myself on screen, I have to shut my eyes. And I've made a whole bunch of movies that nobody sees, including me.

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

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

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.

One of the difficult things about being an actor is to stick around.

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.

I've never done that [fighting for arole]. You hear about actors going in and saying, "You've got to let me read for this!" I've never done that. Lots of parts I've wanted and didn't get, but I think any actor would say that.