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Christopher Walken Freaked Out By The Internet
By
Ben Yakas
Published Apr 12, 2010
Modified Apr 12, 2010
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Apr 12, 2010
Modified Apr 12, 2010
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According to actor Sam Rockwell, currently starring on Broadway with Christopher Walken, "we all do impersonations of Chris these days, every actor has a Chris Walken impersonation." And in this week's New Yorker, it sounds as if Walken doesn't really get all of that.
Writer Peter Stevenson drives around Queens with Walken, who was born and raised in Astoria, checking out his old neighborhood. He greets the new tenants at his childhood home in an expressly Walken-esque manner (“Hello, my name is Chris Walken,” he said. “This is very nice of you. When I was little, I used to have my diaper changed on the kitchen table here.”), shares his first memory ("...I was a couple of months old. And I turned my head and right next to me was a white plate with scrambled eggs on it. I can still see it.”), and admits to having never seen an episode of Seinfeld.
And he's freaked out by the Internet—he doesn't use a computer, but he has begun investigating it. “The Internet is strange,” he said. “There’s stuff on the Internet about me. I’ve tried to find out who puts it there. Something about how I go around to hot-dog festivals, that I’m a champion hot-dog eater.” He's probably referring to an Onion article, which makes it even funnier, especially because it's been re-printed on the Internet by people who really think Walken wrote it, and includes lines such as, "I carry a bag of hot dogs with me wherever I go. I eat them from the bag whenever I get the urge, regardless of the circumstances. When I make a movie, my hot dogs are my co-stars."
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chris walken
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new yorker
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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