Auuugh! My VCR skipped LOST!!

[sistermagpie]

Waaah! I just turned on my tape to watch it and it was ALL BLACK!! Chaaarrrlliiie! Sayiiiiid!

I think I know somebody who also taped it though. If not, petitesoeur owes me big time.:-)

Luckily I was doing something enjoyable with some kind of interesting things I thought I'd pass along.



And I gave out the special tickets! Woo-hoo! Basically, it was a lot of good clips, particularly an early kinescope clip from Dean & Martin with "Ronnie" Walken doing a bit with Jerry Lewis. The speakers were Meryl Streep, John Turturro, Julian Schnable and Paul Schrader. Cool little things learned:

• You know how some groups of friends have the one friend they make fun of? Apparently with Christopher Walken's friends, that person is Liev Shrieber. This amuses me.



• Meryl Streep is very cute and really funny.



• They showed a clip from Romance & Cigarettes, which was fabulous.



• ETA: He also said he doesn't research for roles. He did in the beginning because he was told he should, but since it never had any affect on what he did with the role, he now sticks to, "How would I feel if this were me in that situation?"



• Great story from Paul Schrader: He and CS went to see Madam Butterfly together, and halfway through the first act PS heard sniffling. He looked over and realized Chris was tearing up. Oh no, he thought. When actors cry, that means trouble in protection. So at the intermission he said, "Look, I don't want to get personal but I noticed you seemed upset." Chris said he was fine. "Really? But you were tearing up in there. What's wrong?" So Chris finally explained, "I was looking at the little boy on stage. Cio-Cio San's son....That was the first part I ever played, the first time I was ever onstage. I saw that boy and it all suddenly came back to me." All together now: AWWWWWWW.



• Also, his hair is even higher in person. It's a wall, a WALL OF HAIR.



• There was a short Q&A. CW confirmed that yes, he does cross out all the punctuation in his scripts. And he still considers himself a musical theater person and loves musicals. (My parents knew his parents years ago, somehow...my mother always remembers him as the little kid who tapped danced, iirc.)



• When asked since everybody does impressions of him, whether he did impressions of others, CW said, "I'm a terrible impressionist. I do impressions all the time, but no one notices. Right now... ...I'm doing Barbra Streisand."



• Apparently he and John Turturro recently had a conversation about the freakish fanmail they receive, and discussed doing a movie based on a movie actor who actually answers it or moves in with somebody who writes it. Made me think of this. See? Fandom and Hollywood collide.



• And finally, he was asked if there were any roles that he hasn't played but wants to. He said--and you have to picture this being said by Christopher Walken, of course: "Fred MacMurray came up earlier. I'd like to do the TV show he had later in his career--My Three Sons. I'd like to do a show where I would be the Dad. And my wife would wear dresses around the house. And I'd have these...sons. And they'd say to me, "Dad...what do I do?" And I would say..."Well, son... ... ...just do what's right." I would definitely watch that show.

Comments

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Well, the joke of asking him was because he has that...weird way...of speaking....with the pauses.:-)

But really crossing out punctuation is a "Method" thing, because it just gives the actors the words they're saying and let's them decide what punctuation would be there. Stage directions the same thing. It sort of strips it down so you've just got the bare minimum of what you're going to do.

it would be My Three Sons Meets the Wall of Hair, which might make it a kind of scary version...


Wouldn't it be great??!

[samaranth.livejournal.com]

The whole tribute sounds very interesting - what a line-up! I've always found Christopher Walken a little...intimidating...or something...on-screen. The approach to 'method' that he has may explain that. (I do love hearing about actors and their techniques, philosophies etc.)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Don't worry. Meryl Streep said she was also scared of him when they met.:-)

He was nice, though, and thanked us on the way out and seemed to be nice to the concessions people and everything. It's just so great when you think of the whole musical-theater background too because...well, if it weren't true you'd probably think the idea of this guy ever doing musical theater was ridiculous. But his big number in Pennies from Heaven turned out to be something that he came up with!

[petitesoeur.livejournal.com]

magpie's telling of it is more interesting to me than what i actually lived through -- guess i was too strung out from all the work that went into making it happen to enjoy it while it was happening

[samaranth.livejournal.com]

Isn't it always the way?!:D