The 1980 role Christopher Walken almost lost himself in: “I don’t know who the fuck I am!”

In 1980, Christopher Walken took his first leading film role in John Irvin’s mercenary thriller *The Dogs of War*. The demanding part marked a new step after his Oscar-winning performance in *The Deer Hunter*, and the film helped secure further prominent roles for him.

Walken’s character, Jamie Shannon, is interrogated and beaten, requiring prosthetics that left the actor’s face swollen and bruised for days. Director Irvin recalled that Walken shouted, “I don’t know who the fuck I am!”, which he attributed to the disorienting mask rather than the character’s state of mind. The make-up was created by Dick Smith, who had also worked on *The Deer Hunter*.