Bad Advice From Mr. Walken

Interview magazine teams up Christopher Walken with Mickey Rourke; entertainment and oddity predictably follow. I got a kick out of this:

CW: There was this story that I heard, something about me teaching you to put on makeup. It rings a bell, but . . .

MR: When I was really young and I got into the Actors Studio, I used to see [Robert] De Niro and [Al] Pacino and [Harvey] Keitel and you, and you were the one who was most available, believe it or not. You spent a lot of time with the other actors. I think you really liked it there. So I remember you and I had a conversation one time, and you said to me at the theater that you always did your own eyes. So after you told me that I went out and bought some f***ing makeup kit, and I did my eyes. Then, five years later, I finally got a job-I think I went out on 78 auditions before I ever got a f***ing job. I think the job was Diner [1982], actually. And I insisted on doing my own eyes. The DP actually pulled me aside one day and said, "Listen, we're not doing Dracula."

CW: That's because I grew up in Broadway musicals, in the chorus, and in that world we did a lot of our own eyes. I carried that into movies, and it was a huge mistake. It took me decades to get over it.

MR: Yes, I often looked at your eyes in movies. You have very heavy-lidded eyes anyway.

CW: The eye advice was not good.

MR: Yeah. If you look closely at some scenes in Diner, my eyes look like Dracula's. But the DP got me to stop that, and I was a little pissed off because I'm thinking, My God, if Christopher Walken tells you to do your own eyes, then you'd better f***ing do your own eyes.

CW: This was my mistake. I'm sorry.