Christopher Walken’s most underrated role: “Not many people saw it, but what fun”
Throughout Christopher Walken’s career, the legendary screen icon has played all manner of weird kooks and crazies. Sometimes those characters are crazy in a terrifying way, and sometimes they’re quirky in a hilarious way. Naturally, playing so many oddball and often villainous characters shaped an impression of Walken in the eyes of audiences. He has always claimed this impression is nothing like his real-life personality, though, and he’s always longed to play more good-natured characters. In fact, he believes his most underrated role came in a movie where he played a dad who just wanted the best for his son – a dad who happened to be a mad scientist, of course.
When Walken sat down with The Observer in 2016 to discuss his impressively varied and enduring career, talk eventually turned to some of his lesser-known roles. He cited Abel Ferrara’s King of New York – a gritty, pitch black crime drama – as one of his favourite movies because much of the dialogue was improvised and he could wear his own clothes to make the film’s minuscule budget stretch further. He also loved At Close Range, an ’80s thriller he made with Sean Penn in which he played a rural crime boss.
While Walken loved playing a “terrible villain” who was also a father in that neo-noir, he explained that he often longs to play simple, uncomplicated, upstanding fathers. In fact, he constantly tells his agent to be on the lookout for such roles. “Something where I have kids who ask, ‘Dad, what should I do?’ and I’ll say, ‘Well, son, just try to do the right thing,'” Walken mused to The Express. This is why he also loved Catch Me If You Can, because, “I played a good dad in that, and also, it was a very good movie.”
Fittingly, though, Walken’s most overlooked role united his desire to play amiable patriarchs with his undeniable ability to excel as off-the-wall weirdos. When The Observer mentioned that he also played a nice dad in 1999’s Blast from the Past, he beamed, “Right! That was a great movie, that was crazy. Not many people saw it, but what fun. Crazy people living underground!”
You see, in this bizarrely amusing romantic comedy, Walken played a kooky scientist who raised his son in an underground fallout shelter for 35 years because he was convinced nuclear war with the Soviet Union was imminent. When the time lock on the shelter’s door finally unlocks in 1997, his full-grown son – played by Brendan Fraser – emerges into a world he doesn’t understand. Naturally, sweet-natured comedy hijinks ensue.
While Blast from the Past didn’t hit big at the box office, it has developed a cult following over the years, and much of that is thanks to Walken’s performance as Calvin Webber. The picture never paints him in a bad light, despite his general wackiness and questionable decision to doom his family to 35 years underground. Sure, he might be a nut who invents crazy gizmos, drinks Dr Pepper hot, and inadvertently leaves his son unprepared for adult life, but he only did it out of love, and that’s why Walken connected to the part.
Ultimately, perhaps Walken likes playing fathers so much because he gets to work through emotions he’s never experienced in real life. After all, despite being married for over five decades, Walken and his wife never had children – and he’s amusingly OK with that.
“I’m glad that I don’t have children,” Walken told the Golden Globes in 2020. “I have two brothers, and they have plenty of children. They come to my house, and I am always very glad when they leave.” He grinned, “I have some cats, but I can open the door and they go out, so it’s quite nice.”
