All Of Christopher Walken's Best Villain Roles Have One Thing In Common

While most people probably think primarily of his strange cadence and his big hair, it's important to remember that Christopher Walken is a damn great actor (see his brief but memorable turn in "Dune: Part Two" as a recent reminder). Sure, Walken has achieved a sort of "living meme" status at this point in his career, but when he's on, he's on, and he's bound to turn in a killer performance. While his "Saturday Night Live" appearances have proven Walken is skilled at comedy, there's something inherently sinister about the actor, which means he's played a lot of villains throughout his career. He's one of our best movie bad guys. Think his cameo as a ruthless mobster in "True Romance," his turn as Donald Trump stand-in Max Shreck in "Batman Returns," and of course, one of his very best performances: drug lord Frank White in Abel Ferrara's nihilistic "King of New York." 

When it comes to playing villains, Walken has a unique approach that also colors his "SNL" appearances. Indeed, it seems to be an approach he uses for all his roles. In an interview posted by The Hollywood Interview, Walken summed things up succinctly: "I think of everything I do as comedy. Even when I'm holding a machine gun."

Walken has a background in musicals (he's a skilled dancer, as evident by his appearance in the "Weapon of Choice" music video), and that seems to inform how he approaches both acting and specifically playing villains. "I've never gotten away from the idea of the performance thing," Walken said. "I come from musicals where there is no fourth wall. ... There's always in the cast list of a play an unmentioned character. It's the audience, and I carry that with me into the movies. When I play these villains, I think people can see that's Chris, pretending to be Max (from Batman Returns) and Max knows he's really Chris, and Chris knows that you know that Chris knows that."

It sounds like Walken's real approach to playing bad guys is to just have fun out there. He uses his own natural, off-kilter charisma to imbue his characters with an unbeatable charm. In short, we like Christopher Walken, and we like to see him sink his teeth into villain roles. He brings a sense of humor to his parts that's almost irresistible, even when he's playing downright despicable characters.