Is Christopher Walken’s signature speech pattern for real or is a very successful gimmick that has made his a household name?
-rainy
I’m pretty sure it’s for real. I’ve heard others that speak simlarly, usually from the north, and they would be nuts to walk around doing a Christopher Walken impression all day.
Then again, there’s no real fact in my anecdote. But I don’t see someone like him having to fake his style of speech every time he talks. What if he forgot?
Ooooh. May I ask about Bobcat Goldthwait in your thread? Please?
Thanks.
So what about Bobcat? Did/does he have some sort of speech impediment or was that part of his shtick?
Walken says that all his time in the theater lead to his phrasing. He says it’s a holdover of iambic pentameter. No cite; saw it on a TV interview.
No, very much schtick on Goldthwait’s part. He’s played it straight in many cartoon voicing roles, and in a few movies like Blow.
Never heard that. It sounds (to my ear at least) like someone with a stutter, or a tactic to avoid stuttering.
-rainy
Re Bobcat Goldthwaite: There’s an episode of the Larry Sanders show where he talks like a normal person in the backstage segments, while in the talk-show segments he talks like Bobcat Goldthwaite.
Now, what about Gilbert Gottfried?
Or Steven Wright?
If anyone is planning a movie that includes a speed-talking auctioneer, cast Mr. Wright. It would be hilarious.
Since we’re mainly talking about actors, let’s move this from GQ to Cafe Society.
samclem GQ moderator
Vaguely recall seeing an interview with Christopher Walken a few years ago. He mentioned that when he memorizes a script, he removes all punctuation and places pauses where they seem appropriate. Sorry I have no cite. I can’t even recall what I had for breakfast.
Bobcat and Gilbert were both on an episode of CSI where a stand-up comedian was killed. In fact, most of the minor characters were played by stand-ups, but waaaay out of character. Both had perfectly normal voices. I know the Seinfeld Soup Nazi was on, as well as Jeffrey Ross and Maggie “Janis from Friends” Wheeler. Probably some others that I didn’t spot, too.
The most annoying man alive today.
And considering Carrot Top and Pauly Shore are both still alive, that says a lot. How people find that “funny” voice funny is truly mind-boggling.
I met Christopher Walken doing a show and worked with him for a week. He is an oddball of sorts, but to be honest, I don’t recall his speech patterns back then so I am inclined to think he spoke “normally” or else I would have remembered.
(BTW: We were told by the producer not to mention the Natalie Wood drowning within his earshot, although my guess is that was simply the producer’s suggestion and not Walken’s.)
I’ve heard (but cannot confirm) that he used to have a speech impediment that he was able to overcome through therapy, but which he would resurrect for his stand up routines. None of the online biographies I could find confirmed this, though.
Well, rumor has it that Robert Wagner and Walken were arguing about Natalie the night she died. Dennis Hopper burst into laughter when talking about Natalie Wood’s death on Letterman one night.
Can you imagine having Walken read a bedtime story to you as a little kid? Or how about him and James Earl Jones narrating children’s stories together! :eek:
He was on Rove, the Australian Leno-Letterman, a couple of months ago, and said it wasn’t an act. That’s just the way he talks.
And since this is a good chance to brag… my girlfriend got two tickets for my birthday, so I got to see him live in Perth. And for the record; his monotone lasted the full 90 minutes, even through the singing.
ISTR Christopher Walken on NPR saying that he never noticed anything odd about his speech until people (SNL, etc.) started ripping on him about it. He seems to like the impressions though and is flattered by them.
Re: Gilbert Gottfried: It’s part schtick and part natural, I think. He’s one of the few guests on the Howard Stern show that is funny (and that they respect) enough to stay and do the news with them after his appearence, so he’s usually on the radio speaking candidly for a couple of hours whenever he does the show. His natural voice does have that certain quality to it (whatever you’d call it), but it’s not quite as exaggerated as when he’s on stage. The man, btw, is a comedic genius, and if you’re ignoring him because of his voice you’re cheating yourself out of a lot of laughs.
I saw Gottfried on Hollywood Squares once. He was the only open square left, so they had to keep choosing him “for the win”. Question would be asked, he’d answer, they’d agree or disagree, they’d be wrong. I don’t remember who finally won the game, if anyone did, but I do remember that that ONE GAME took up the entire show. By the end of it, he was yelling out “You fool!” to the contestants because they’d gotten it wrong yet again, and everyone was laughing because, really, after 10 wrong questions in a row, it got to be pretty silly.
Normally, I can’t stand him because his voice is so grating. But that one show was comedy gold, and I remember it fondly.
I saw him in a Broadway musical once. Honest to God! It was “James Joyce’s The Dead”, 1999 at the Belasco, and he was in over his head as Gabriel Byrne; sure, he had the acting down pat, and the part is of a man observant, detached, and melancholy; but his singing (especially considering he was surrounded by such theater pros as Faith Prince, Emily Skinner, Alice Ripley, Stephen Spinella, and the immortal Marni Nixon) left much to be desired. </being very very very charitable>
As for his voice, it sounded perfectly normal in meter, as normal as a rather nervous American doing a wobbly Irish accent and obviously worrying about his next song can be.
Jay Mohr has a mean Walken impersonation; he did it once on THE SIMPSONS.
Supposedly the reason he did the Fat Boy Slim video is because he’s a song and dance man, and he figured that’d be the only way for most people to see him doing it.
“Children, what did I tell you about the scootching?”
I could see Jones doing it, easy-peasy. He did the voice for Mufasa in The Lion King, and he just has such a wonderful, expressive (if extremely deep) voice. That and he once did an episode of “Reading Rainbow.”