Eamonn Walker’s transformation from childhood to Chicago flame

Anyone who has seen an episode of “Chicago Fire” knows who Eamonn Walker is. Walker has played Deputy Wallace Boden since 2012. He has appeared in hundreds of episodes of “Chicago Fire” and is one of the main factors that keeps people coming back to the series year after year. .

Eagle-eyed viewers may have recognized Walker in his first episode of “Chicago Fire.” By that point in his career, he had established himself as an incredibly talented actor capable of handling a wide range of material. From Shakespeare’s stage classics to television shows like HBO’s “Oz,” Walker has tried his hand at almost everything.

While building his acting career, Walker also took time to focus on his family. He grew up in a large family that helped him create a unique sense of identity, and he raised his children with his wife Sandra. Through it all, Walker traveled between England, the United States and Trinidad to maintain his most important relationships.

Walker has completely transformed from his childhood in London to his life as one of the stars of “Chicago Fire.” Let’s see how he has changed over the years.

He has lived in many countries throughout his life

Eamonn Walker has lived in England all his life but never stayed there. Walker grew up with three siblings – a brother and two sisters – and he traveled between countries from an early age. When he was 9 years old, Walker spent six months in Trinidad living with his aunt and extended family. The trip had such a profound impact on him that he continued to travel to Trinidad as an adult, taking time away from his acting career to make the trip whenever possible.

International travel became an even bigger part of Walker’s life after he made his screen debut in 1985. “As an actor, I would go wherever the work was,” he said. told The Trinidad Express in 2001. As a result, he spent decades traveling back and forth between England and America. The veteran actor is now in his 60s but he shows no signs of slowing down. “Chicago Fire” was filmed on location, which kept him in the United States for a good part of the year.

He struggled with his identity as a young man

Eamonn Walker’s legacy has always been an important part of his life. His mother is from Trinidad, and Walker once told The Trinidad Express, “I identify very strongly with my Trinidadian culture.” Walker’s cultural identity was something he celebrated, but his relationship with it was not always so simple.

Walker once told Essence that he had an “identity crisis” in his teens, which forced him to reconcile the different cultural influences of his background. Growing up, Walker spoke with a Caribbean accent that he inherited from his mother, but that began to change when he started school. “[I] quickly received my first instance of discrimination when kids made fun of me and made my life quite miserable,” he revealed. “So I learned to speak like everyone else with a North London accent.”

He found the solution to his identity crisis in others. “In every fiber of my being, understanding people has always been important to me,” he said. His connection to his maternal family in Trinidad helped him maintain pride in his heritage even in the face of bullies, and years later, as an adult, he had one last chance. also connected to his father’s side of the family in Grenada. “It’s beautiful,” he said.

He started acting when he was 9 years old

Like superheroes, each actor has an origin story. Eamonn Walker’s passion for acting began with the movie “In the Heat of the Night”. Walker told FabTV that he saw Sidney Poitier’s performance in the film when he was 9 years old and it changed his life forever. “It woke me up as a boy and so I wanted to be an actor,” he said. “[It] made me realize the power of the medium.” Walker discovered how to create art while also taking a stand on important issues.

Decades later, Walker’s acting journey came full circle when he had the opportunity to meet his childhood hero in person. At the time, Walker was performing in the Broadway production of “Julius Caesar,” and he was leaving the theater after the performance when he ran into Poitier, who had just seen the show. “I walked out after the show and when I opened the door he was standing there,” he told Essence. “I froze and [I] kept looking at him in disbelief. I’m a gibbering idiot.” It goes to show that even a star can be enchanted, especially when they meet a star

He is a trained dancer

Because of his passion for acting, Eamonn Walker almost pursued another career. When he enrolled at the University of North London, he began studying social work. It didn’t take long for Walker to change his focus, but he didn’t turn to acting right away. Instead, Walker studied dance and became a member of the Explosive Dance Theater Company in London. If everything had gone according to plan, Walker could have spent her years as a professional dancer, but it didn’t turn out that way. “An abscess in my calf muscle derailed my dancing career and I started doing small roles,” Walker told The Trinidad Express.

All that dancing experience has served him well in the years since – he still uses music and dance to portray his character. “In terms of movement, I tried to change everything about the character,” Walker told Artisan News Service. “And the way you get to that place is with music because that’s how you can explore movement without feeling stupid. So I always use music when I’m building a character.” Dancing may no longer be Walker’s main hobby, but it will always be a part of his practice.

He performed Shakespeare with Denzel Washington

Many people know Eamonn Walker from his television appearances on shows like “Oz” and “Chicago Fire,” but television is only a small part of his impressive career. He spent a lot of time in the theater, performing in popular stage plays. Walker’s first role was in the play “Labelled With Love” produced in 1983, and although he made a name for himself on the small screen, the stage never left Walker’s life.

In 2005, Walker had the opportunity to fulfill every theater actor’s dream by performing on Broadway. He played the role of Marc Antony in Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar” directed by Daniel Sullivan. It wasn’t just the location and dramatic material that made the experience so impactful for Walker – the cast included Denzel Washington as Brutus, making Walker’s Broadway debut even more memorable. This would not be the last time Walker starred in a memorable Shakespeare production.

He was the first black actor to play Othello at the Globe Theater

Eamonn Walker followed up the role of Marc Antony with an even bigger role just two years later. He played Othello in the 2007 production of Shakespeare’s famous play, staged at the same Globe Theater where The Bard once debuted his material. The production received a warm reception, with one critic praising Walker’s depiction of Othello’s epileptic episodes as “astonishingly realistic” and writing that Walker was “in fine form”. especially when the character is angry, can’t stand that green-eyed monster, jealousy.”

Taking on the lead role was not only a huge deal for Walker’s career but also a truly historic event. During a 2008 appearance on “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson,” Walker explained that in the Globe’s 400-year history, Othello has always been played by a white actor in blackface. Walker’s performance finally puts an end to that unfortunate tradition and opens the door to a more inclusive take on Shakespeare’s classics.

Famous people who influenced Eamonn Walker

Eamonn Walker told FabTV that when he looks back at his biggest influences, he doesn’t always see actors. “The big things that influenced me were people like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, who weren’t entertainers, but they helped me as a young man find myself and think without I wish”. “People like Muhammad Ali and what Muhammad Ali did by giving up his championship belt and not coming to fight in Vietnam. These big things influenced me.” Walker wants to find a way to make the world a better place, no matter what career he ultimately chooses.

Walker said that when he saw “In the Heat of the Night” as a young man, he was as captivated by the film’s approach to addressing social issues as he was by Sidney Poitier’s performance. He always sought to apply a similar approach in his work. “Very early on in my career, I had to start thinking to myself: ‘I need to have a say in what’s written and what’s the point of view, and I can’t do that just because it’s funny,’” he said. speak. Part of the reason why Walker stuck with “Chicago Fire” for so many years was because he was able to ask questions and have difficult conversations with the show’s writers and cast.

He is a proud father of three children

For most of Eamonn Walker’s acting career, he had to balance his professional life and fatherhood. Walker and his wife have three children, and it’s not always easy to find time to spend together, especially when Walker’s work takes him abroad. “I try to get them out as much as possible,” he told The Trinidad Express while filming “Oz” in 2001, “but it’s not easy.”

As the children grew older, Walker easily found the perfect combination of work and family life. Of course, it also helped that his priorities as a father naturally began to change as well. Walker told Craig Ferguson in 2008, “Now I listen to them. I learn from them. They’re bigger than me.” Now that the kids are grown, Walker is starting to spend more time thinking about the legacy he will one day leave behind. He told Essence that now all he wants is “to leave my mark so my son can proudly say, ‘That’s my dad!’”

He has been with his wife for decades

The exact date is unknown, but Eamonn and Sandra Walker are believed to have been together for more than 30 years. By show business standards, their relationship is as old as time, and what makes it even more unusual is that Eamonn is the only one of the two in acting – Sandra is a novelist by trade . According to Hello Magazine, Eamonn and Sandra were together for more than 20 years before deciding to get married.

The Walkers also go against typical celebrity trends by keeping their personal lives private. Their wedding wasn’t a big event and they hadn’t even announced their anniversary to the public yet. “I’m quite satisfied with my anonymity,” Walker once told Essence, and it seems his wife shares that view. They have lived in many countries and raised their children together, and they have tried to do it on their own terms instead of flaunting their lives in the spotlight.

The Chicago Fire Department is like a second family

It would be difficult to work on any show for many years without making a few friends. Eamonn Walker made a lot of money during his time on “Chicago Fire.” He was especially close to co-star David Eigenberg and their real-life friendship helped foster their on-screen chemistry. While Walker and Eigenberg may have been an especially memorable duo, Walker became close to every member of the “Chicago Fire” team.

Walker has been a part of “Chicago Fire” since the show began in 2012. He’s appeared in more than 200 episodes since then, and there’s no sign of him stopping anytime soon. The show’s characterization perfectly captures the relationships formed on set. Walker summed it up simply when he told FabTV: “What matters is the color of your heart in this house, not the color of your skin. Because we are a family. We will walked into a building together and we were prepared to die together.” The cast and crew became Walker’s true second family, one he will always cherish.