Personal info
Known for
Actor
Gender
Male
Birthday
31 March
Location
New York, United States
Edit pageChristopher Walken
Biography
Christopher Walken (born Ronald Walken; March 31, 1943) is an American actor. He has earned an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, as well as nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards and two Tony Awards. His films have grossed more than $1.6 billion in the United States alone. In 2003, he was voted Number 34 in Channel 4's countdown of the 100 greatest movie stars of all time.
Walken has appeared in supporting roles in films such as The Anderson Tapes (1971), Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976), Roseland (1977), and Annie Hall (1977), before coming to wider attention as the troubled Vietnam War veteran Nick Chevotarevich in The Deer Hunter (1978). His performance earned him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He was nominated for the same award for portraying con artist Frank Abagnale's father in Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can (2002).
Since his breakthrough, Walken has appeared in films in various genres, both in lead and supporting roles These include The Dogs of War (1980), Brainstorm (1983), The Dead Zone (1983), A View to a Kill (1985), At Close Range (1986), Biloxi Blues (1988), King of New York (1990), The Comfort of Strangers (1990), Batman Returns (1992), True Romance (1993), Pulp Fiction (1994), The Prophecy (1995, and its two sequels), Suicide Kings (1997), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Man on Fire (2004), Wedding Crashers (2005), Hairspray (2007), Seven Psychopaths (2012), A Late Quartet (2012), Percy (2020), and Dune: Part Two (2024). He has also provided voice work for the animated films Antz (1998) and The Jungle Book (2016).
On television, Walken has appeared in films such as Who Am I This Time? (1982), and Sarah, Plain and Tall (1991), for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. More recently, he has starred in television series The Outlaws (2021–), and Severance (2022–), the latter of which earned him a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series nomination.
He has guest-hosted Saturday Night Live seven times. His roles on the show include record producer Bruce Dickinson in the "More Cowbell" sketch, the disgraced Confederate officer Colonel Angus, and multiple appearances as an aging, unsuccessful lothario in the Continental sketch.
