Christopher Walken names the greatest comedy actors of all time: “They’re not always recognised”
Anyone who’s worked with Christopher Walken has at least one Christopher Walken story to tell, with the actor’s natural eccentricities making him hilarious by default, even though he doesn’t need to do anything other than be himself.
Whether he’s parading around the set of the lamentable Kangaroo Jack farting into a tape recorder to distract his colleagues, refusing to hang out with Adam Sandler during their downtime on Click by telling him to his face that he didn’t want to, or telling people it’s his birthday when it isn’t so someone will bring him a cake on set, the Academy Award winner is a naturally funny guy.
While he’s never happy when he reads a script and discovers it’s been ‘Walkenised’ without his consent, he throws himself into his comedic roles with the exact same gusto that made him one of his generation’s marquee character actors. It helps that his effortless weirdness makes him the perfect foil for absurdity, but there’s a reason why so many performers maintain that comedy is much harder than drama.
Stars who began on the stand-up circuit, sketch shows, or Saturday Night Live have repeatedly proven themselves to be potent dramatists when they decide to get serious, but on the other side of the coin, countless straight-laced thespians have tried and failed miserably to reinvent themselves with pratfalling, slapstick, or R-rated obscenity.
That’s why Walken believes the best actors are the ones who can do both, and they made it look easy. “Comedy’s hard to play,” he explained to the Los Angeles Times. “Some of the best actors around are comic actors, people like [Marcello] Mastroianni. They’re not always recognised for it.”
Mastroianni, the three-time Oscar-nominated, two-time Golden Globe and Bafta-winning, and Golden Lion-winning legend of Italian cinema, is undoubtedly one of the all-time greats and arguably the best ever who never even considered trying their luck in Hollywood, with Walken right in saying that he was equally adept at light comedy as he was at serious drama.
“Cary Grant appeared to be doing nothing, but just try it,” he continued. “I’ve been impressed by people you don’t always think of. For me, Alan King is terrific. Billy Crystal’s a wonderful actor. Comedy’s quick, and it takes a real intelligence to do it.” Grant was the master of sophisticated ‘Golden Age’ capers, and King began his career spouting one-liners before continually reinventing himself, leaving Crystal as the only one of Walken’s chosen quartet who never made a concerted push into drama.
They’re good enough to get his personal seal of approval, though, and it’s impossible to say he doesn’t state a strong case. They may not be the first names that come to anyone’s mind when conjuring up the finest comedic performers in cinema history, but that’s the point Walken was making; they didn’t need to split audiences at the sides or mug for the cameras when everything they did was as natural, authentic, and convincing as it gets, regardless of whether they were starring in straightforward comedies or not.
