“They are all extremely interesting characters”: Christopher Walken’s Glasgow roots explain a lot
There are lots of interesting facts about Scotland’s largest city, Glasgow, not least that the patron saint of love, St Valentine himself, is buried there, plus the first ever international football match in history took place there way back in the day. But did you know Pulp Fiction’s very own Vietnam veteran watch-smuggler Christopher Walken calls it a second home?
Well, it’s true, in fact, Walken’s mother, Rosalie Russell, was born in the Parkhead section of the city back in 1907, before she sailed over to New York alone in search of a new life and married his German father, who ran a bakery in Astoria. Walken has referenced his love of Glasgow several times during his long, multi-award winning career and has spoken of growing up listening to the broad accents of his grandparents when they would visit the US from Scotland.
Walken, who was actually born ‘Ronald’ before changing it as he started his acting career, said back in 2001: “Glasgow, I find, is a beautiful city – and fascinating culturally. It was amazing, a lot of fun. I love Glasgow. It has a bad reputation – but all the best places and people have bad reputations.”
These days, that’s not really the case; however, Glasgow definitely has more of an edge than its ‘flat cap and labradors’ sister city, Edinburgh and still has areas that are severely deprived, but it’s certainly one of the friendliest places in the UK and is buzzing with live music events, trendy bars, museums and galleries.
That’s a far cry from how tough the majority of the place used to be, however, and the people from the city have always reflected that, with Walken’s extended family mainly shipyard workers. The man himself has nothing but good things to say about Glasgow, once claiming, “I would love to play theatre there. I could happily live in Scotland, and I don’t mind being around our family. They are all extremely interesting characters.”
As of yet, though, Walken hasn’t managed to do it; he did appear in a comedy back in 2001 called Scotland, PA, although as the name suggests, that was actually about a place in Pennsylvania. A year later, he did come to the UK to make a little-remembered movie called Plots With a View alongside Lee Evans and Naomi Watts, but filming for that took place in Wales.
Most recently, Walken has spent considerable time on these Isles in order to make three series of The Outlaws; however, the BBC series, penned by Stephen Merchant, is set in Bristol about a group of community servants who find a bag full of money belonging to drug dealers. Walken played former conman Frank Sheldon in the show, and one scene notably saw him painting over a stencilled rat on a wall, which was later confirmed by the BBC to be a Banksy original which he’d done specifically for the programme.
Meanwhile, Walken has been working on a comedy thriller called Back in Black about a small town where nobody dies anymore, leading morticians to go out of business, and fingers crossed, he will be back for a third season of the brilliant Apple TV series Severance, in which he played the mysterious love interest of another legendary actor in the form of John Turturro.
