Christopher Walken’s ordeal: “People come up to me on the street and imitate me to my face”
With his distinctive voice, the 81-year-old actor is one of the most imitated personalities in showbiz.
His nasal, New York drawl punctuated by pregnant pauses and drawn-out or emphasized vocalizations is one of the distinctive voices in Hollywood. And one of the most imitated. It seems that everyone from Robin Williams to Gary Oldman has a Chris Walken impersonation.
The people who influenced Christopher Walken
In an interview with CBS News in 2012, Walken did his best to explain how his voice developed, his theory being that his mother Rosalie, a Glaswegian and his German father Paul shaped his intonation. “Both my parents had heavy accents. 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”.
And growing up in Queens, he would have been exposed to many different languages, accents and dialects, so while there is the unmistakable New York delivery, it’s also a bit of a mish-mash.
He was Captain Koons in Pulp Fiction, Nick" Chevotarevich in The Deer Hunter and drug lord Frank White in King of New York - always slightly offbeat characters, who have become implanted in the public consciousness.
Christopher Walken says “I don't have technology”
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) January 28, 2025
“I only have a satellite dish on my house... I don’t have a cell phone. I’ve never emailed or, what do you call it, Twittered”
(Source: https://t.co/HaGx5HN1QZ) pic.twitter.com/qeY2FOSGPX
A self-confessed technophobe, Walken even gets complete strangers taking him off. “People come up to me in the street and they impersonate me to my face. You know, they speak the way I speak. And I’m never sure what they’re doing at first. I think, ‘Why is he talking that way?’ But then I realise. Oh, it happens all the time,” he told The Independent.
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