Movies - TV
Christopher Walken’s Best Role Made Him Take Many, Many Slaps To The Face
By JEREMY SMITH
The cast of 1978's "The Deer Hunter" were all incredible in their roles, but Christopher Walken's Corporal Nikanor Chevotarevich (Nick) stood out because of a particular scene.
The scene in question has Walken's character forced to play Russian roulette while receiving slaps from his Viet Cong captors.
In a 2016 interview with Rolling Stones, Walken said some of the slaps he received during the brutal scene were real even though they came from a non-professional actor.
Walken added, "The guy who was slapping me was an attorney from Bangkok. I don't think he'd been in a movie before — or after — but he was a Thai lawyer."
Robert De Niro encouraged the attorney-turned-actor to give Walken real slaps because he thought the unexpected slaps would “make the scene pop.”
The outcome was a scene that etched itself into movie-making history. Walken's punishment is a testament to the power of real actions when performing.