Comments on Walken's performance

Walken won multiple awards and nominations for best supporting actor in this film including a BAFTA, a Screen Actors Guild Award and an award from the American National Society of Film critics. He was also nominated for an Oscar for the role. Although this role is really not a stretch for Walken - it's all in a day's work for an actor of his calibre - it allowed a wider and more mainstream audience to appreciate his sheer acting skill. One is always left wanting more when one sees Walken in these kinds of small parts. And as is usual whenever Walken plays a role where he is not the villain, critics and journalists wax lyrical about how strange it is to see him in such a role and how good he is at it. These kinds of observations appear with such monotonous regularity that one begins to wish that some commentators would do a bit of research before once again going over the same old ground.

Let's list a few films where Walken does not play the villain. Admittedly, these performances of non-villainy are not always as well known or as numerous and he strikes an unusual figure even in these. There is the Sarah Plain and Tall trilogy of films (these made for TV films were in fact viewed by a very wide audience), Puss in Boots, Who am I this time?, the various Saturday Night Live shows, Dogs of War and two less than riveting efforts McBain and Witness in the War Zone (aka Deadline). One can also add to this list Brainstorm and Communion and A Business Affair. Elsewhere he plays tragic losers, misfits and victims of circumstance and Catch Me if You Can probably best fits into this category. In this context, one might mention The Deer Hunter, The Dead Zone, The Funeral, The Mind Snatchers (aka The Happiness Cage), and Annie Hall and even perhaps the video clip Weapon of Choice. Finally, there is yet another category which bears some relation to his role in Catch Me if You Can, where Walken plays the role of entertaining eccentric. Examples would include Blast from the Past, Mouse Hunt, America's Sweethearts and Joe Dirt. Aside from these groups of films one might also mention The Prophecy trilogy where in a very fine performance, Walken's character gradually evolves from outré (but amusing and nuanced) villain to something quite different.

One can only hope that exposure to a wider audience and the awards and nominations Walken received for this film will lead to bigger roles and a chance to see this interesting actor on screen for more extended periods of time than we have been able to see him of late. As writer-director Mars Callahan (Poolhall Junkies) remarks: "His choices are always dangerous, which makes for interesting work. You can watch him eat a bowl of cereal and you'd be riveted because he's just unpredictable." It is an unpredictability which can certainly sustain the interest of viewers beyond a limited five minute cameo.

Comments from Leonardo Di Caprio

Was Christopher Walken the first choice you wanted for to play your father, Frank Abagnale, Sr. for this film?

Leo: I believe so, yeah. I've always wanted him to play my father. Cause that man picks up on cosmic messages, and it's shown through his acting. He's unlike anyone else, and I thought he was so well suited for this character. I think it was a unique character for him to play. He was very much like you know, Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman or something like that. He's a broken man and his spirit was broken. I'm so glad that he [Christopher Walken] did this movie. I actually had a scene with him where, you know, it was one of my most memorable experiences making films. I remember... I don't know if you remember the scene, but the scene where I come back to see my dad and he's talking about my mom and all of the sudden he...he like kind of hyperventilates. And I was sitting there across the table from him while he was doing this, and it was completely unexpected and it wasn't in the script. It was his own... completely his own doing. I thought the man was having a heart attack in front of me. I honestly was about two seconds away from saying, "Cut, Cut! There's something wrong with Chris!" But it's a testament how he is as an actor. I was blown away. It's very rare where you have a cinematic experience like that, where you are so forced into the world where you think that it's actual reality you know.'

More comments from Leonardo Di Caprio

'Walken really bowled him [di Caprio] over in a scene that calls for the veteran actor to break up over the dissolution of his marriage.

"I thought that the man was having a heart attack before my eyes. I actually was going to ask for Steven to stop and I wanted to cut the scene because he was having such an emotional breakdown. I didn't know he was doing it for the movie. He just started gasping. It was one of the most shocking and exhilarating experiences I had working with another actor."'

From a review by Charles Taylor

'If only Spielberg had been able to groove on that same vibe. Something in him balks at making a simple celebration of deceptiveness. He and screenwriter Nathanson turn Frank into another of Spielberg's lonely, misunderstood kids, running away from the pain of a broken home, living out the dreams his beloved, hapless father couldn't realize. As Christopher Walken plays Frank Sr. -- which is superbly -- you can almost buy it. You know immediately where his son's dreamer streak comes from when, for probably the umpteenth time, Frank Sr. recounts the story of how he plucked his wife, Paula, from the tiny French village where he laid eyes on her dancing in a small club. And when he twirls Paula around the living room, you know why she fell for him.

Except for his show-stopping number in "Pennies From Heaven," Walken's talents as a hoofer have been criminally underused in movies. Watching him glide his wife around their living room provides "Catch Me If You Can" with one true, fleeting moment of bliss. You just want the movie to stop so you can watch Walken go on dancing. Perhaps it's that strange, innate reserve of Walken that allows him to play this man without lapsing into sentimentality, and why you allow your heart to break a little for him. This is Walken's most touching performance.'

Soundtrack

Walken essentials