Christopher Walken says iconic “More Cowbell” ‘SNL’ sketch “ruined” his life

nme.com:

Will Ferrell that their famous “More Cowbell” Saturday Night Live sketch from 2000 ruined his life, the latter has revealed.The sketch paid tribute to Blue Öyster Cult’s 1976 classic ‘(Don’t Fear) The Reaper’, with Walken playing a producer, Bruce Dickerson, ordering Ferrell’s Gene Frenkle to play the cowbell with more enthusiasm, to the chagrin of the rest of the band.Over two decades on, Ferrell, who wrote the sketch, admitted in Peacock’s SNL 50: Beyond Saturday Night documentary series that Walken came to resent it over the years – as he found out when he visited the actor – who was appearing in Martin McDonagh’s A Behanding In Spokane on Broadway – in 2010.“I went to see [Walken] backstage, and he’s like, ‘You know, you’ve ruined my life… every show, people bring cowbells for the curtain call and bang them,” Ferrell said. “It’s quite disconcerting.’”Walken didn’t take part in the instalment of the docuseries looking at the sketch, but has previously said, via the New York Post, “I don’t understand why it follows me around like it does….

It’s kind of run its course.”“I gotta have more Cowbell.” SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE (2000) #ChristopherWalken pic.twitter.com/hIgDAlMmdT— Michael Warburton (@TheMonologist) January 11, 2025Jimmy Fallon, who played another of the band members, said that the intensity of the live sketch was beyond anything they’d tried in rehearsals, explaining, “[Walken] upped his game.

He was almost doing an impersonation of Christopher Walken. He was talking like how no human being would talk, ever.”Ferrell said that the sketch came from thoughts he’d had since ‘(Don’t Fear) The Reaper’ first came out.