Wassup with Walken?

Is it just that he’s easy to make fun of? Maybe it’s because even when he doesn’t mean to be, he’s funny, albeit in a very sinister way.

A traveling extravaganza of Walken impersonations comes to Sacramento this Saturday for a one-night-only engagement at the Guild Theater in Oak Park. Among the Walken impersonators is a former Sacramentan, Amy Kelly. Kelly, a 1993 grad of St. Francis High School before heading off to San Francisco State to study theater, told SN&R that it was in college that the yen for Walken impersonation was born.

I’ve got to know. Why Walken?

Me, too. I want to know. I went to San Francisco State, and we’d do Christopher Walken impressions in the hallways to everybody. And we went kinda nuts with it and it got irritating. Then, years later, Patrick O’Sullivan came up to me and said, “I’m doing a show about it.” So I went to the audition and I did my “Christopher Walken does ‘Like a Virgin’” bit. And the next thing I know, I’m in the show.

And do all these various impersonations of Walken interact with each other?

We do pieces from the movies he’s been in. We do scenes from his life, which is truly weird and fascinating. He has a really interesting life—you see him and you think, “Oh, Christopher Walken. He’s the guy with the weird voice.” But he’s got this background as a dancer. He was in the circus. And then we have the various Walkens trying things he’s never done before. Of course, everyone knows that Christopher Walken has never done a feminine-hygiene commercial, but he does one in the show.

We do other impersonations as well, of the actors that have worked with him and of characters from his life. In one sequence, I do Robert De Niro driving Walken around in a cab, which is a hoot.

Has Walken heard about this?

Oh, God, has he! He’s such a private guy. He’s an introvert—I’ve obviously never met him, but his people, his agent and his nephew have come to see it. They liked it. It was insane.

One time, one of our alternate Walkens was in his agent’s office and it was the same office as Walken’s agent. So they went to see Walken’s agent and she got Christopher Walken on the phone. No kidding. He said he was flattered by the show.

And then the two of them had a Walken-to-Walken talk. (Kelly does a double-Walken impersonation of the conversation that is impossible to transcribe because of my laughter).

He’s never seen the show, though I dream about doing the show and seeing this figure in the back and it’s him. And I dream of maybe fainting.