He's getting back to his roots.
Concrete cast busts of the Astoria-born actor Christopher Walken are poking out of the ground at Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, where they were installed last month by Ridgewood-based artist Bryan Zanisnik as part of the outdoor museum's Emerging Artist Fellowship Exhibition.
Accompanying the troop of nearly life-sized busts — crowned by the actor's distinctive coiffure — is a comic by collaborator Eric Winkler that "chronicles the artist's adventures in the park and discovery of Walken's history in the neighborhood," says a description of Zanisnik's work.
The Academy Award-winning actor who's made a career out of playing psychopaths was born in Astoria, where his father Paul ran a bakery serving the local German community and where he claims he picked up the halting cadence of his speech among non-native English speakers.
You can now get close and personal with his likeness — if you dare sidle up to a face Walken himself said "do[esn't] need to be made to look evil."
You can pet the Walken heads, if you choose.
You may be tempted to walk on the Walkens.
Or nibble on them, like the mushrooms they resemble.
At the very least, you can walk in a Walken wonderland until exhibition ends on March 13.
