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Christoph Waltz is an Austrian-German actor, famous for his roles as Hans Landa in the 2009 movie “Inglorious Basterds,” and as Dr. King Schultz in the 2012 movie “Django Unchained.” Here are 48 facts about the Academy Award actor
- Waltz is one of the 11 actors in the film history to have been awarded with an Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Critics' Choice Award, Golden Globe Award and SAG Award for the same performance.
- He is one of the four consecutive Oscar winners in the Best Supporting Actor category.
- He is the first actor to ever win an Academy Award for acting in a Quentin Tarantino film.
- He is one among the four actors, thus far, to win two Oscars for a supporting role, under the direction of same person.
- He is the first actor to appear in the James Bond franchise with more than one Oscar to his name.
- He is the only Austrian actor to have won two Academy Awards.
- Waltz was born on October 4, 1956 to Johannes Waltz and Elisabeth Urbancic. His parents were set and costume designers.
- His maternal grandfather, Rudolf von Urban, was a psychiatrist and psychologist, and also the author of the book Sex Perfection and Marital Happiness.
- His maternal grandmother was a Burgtheater actress Maria Mayen, and his step-grandfather was actor Emmerich Reimers.
- He was born with a German citizenship, since his father was a German. However, he was born in Austria, his mother’s native. He received Austrian citizenship in the year 2010, becoming the holder of two citizenships – Austrian and German.
- He went to Theresianium and Billrothstrasse in Vienna. Following his graduation, he studied acting at the Max Reinhardt-Seminar in Vienna and the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute in New York.
- Along with drama he also studied voice (opera) singing. His favorite opera composer is Donizetti.
- He began his career as a stage actor and made his debut at the Zurich's Schauspielhaus Zürich in the year 1982.
- He has performed at a number of venues including the Salzburg Festival and Vienna's Burgtheater.
- He met his first wife, Jackie, a psychotherapist, while in New York. The couple moved to Vienna, then to London and has three children - Miriam, Leon and Rachel.
- He played a number of roles in different TV series including the British TV series “The Gravy Train” in 1990, in which he played the role of Dr. Hans-Joachim Dorfmann.
- He considers Federico Fellini's 1963 movie “8½” as is all-time favorite and has watched it numerous times since his teenage years.
- He made his directorial debut, with the German television production “Wenn man sich traut.”
- It was only after he met the director Tarantino, that his career in Hollywood took off.
- His dream was to make it in Hollywood, which he was giving up on, before he met the director. He once said in an interview that the movie “Inglorious Basterds,” kind of brought him back to the industry.
- Tarantino offered Waltz the role of Colonel Hans Landa, aka "The Jew Hunter" in the 2009 movie “Inglourious Basterds.”
- Tarantino was thinking of abandoning the film during the casting search for Colonel Hans Landa character. The director even thought that he had written a role that was unplayable. However, after Waltz auditioned, the director as well as producer Lawrence Bender agreed that Waltz was perfect for the role.
- Waltz’s first week on set was his first scene in the film. His character speaks four different languages in the movie - English, French, German, and Italian.
- He is fluent in English, French and German, while is skilled at mimicking Italian speech.
- He received the Best Actor Award for his performance in the movie at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.
- His performance was well received and garnered a number of awards including the Best Supporting Actor Award from the New York Film Critics Circle, the Boston Society of Film Critics, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the Best Supporting Actor Award at the Golden Globe Awards, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Academy Awards and BAFTA Awards.
- Tarantino acknowledging the importance of Waltz in the movie, said "I think that Landa is one of the best characters I've ever written and ever will write, and Christoph played it to a tee. It's true that if I couldn't have found someone as good as Christoph I might not have made ‘Inglourious Basterds’."
- Film critic Devin Faraci of Chud.com praised Waltz’s performance and said “Christoph Waltz needs not an Oscar nomination but rather an actual Oscar in his hands.... he must have gold.”
- He won a total of 27 awards for his role in the movie “Inglourious Basterds.”
- Following his success with the “Inglourious Basterds,” he starred as gangster Benjamin Chudnofsky in “The Green Hornet,” as August Rosenbluth in “Water for Elephants,” as Richelieu in “The Three Musketeers,” and as Alan Cowan in “Carnage,” in the year 2011.
- “The Green Hornet” received a score of only 43 percent with an average score of 5.2/10 with Rotten Tomatoes, while the Metacritic gave the movie a rating of just 39 out of 100. However, British critic Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian, said, "Almost everything about the film is disappointing. Christoph Waltz is under-par as the villain with nothing like the steely charisma of his Nazi in ‘Inglourious Basterds.’”
- His performance in the movie “Carnage,” was praised by John Anderson of Newsday, who wrote "The astonishing Waltz steals the picture, possibly because he's the one with a rational perspective (despite his telephonic obsessiveness). He sees the whole exercise as pointless. Ultimately, so do we."
- He was initially cast as Sigmund Freud in 2011 movie “A Dangerous Method,” but had to drop out in order to film “Water for Elephants.”
- The next year, he was cast as German bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz in another Tarantino movie “Django Unchained.”
- Initially Waltz turned down Tarantino’s role when he was given the script first time, as he felt it was too tailored for his persona. However, the director insisted him and wouldn’t take no for an answer.
- He agreed to take the role under one condition that his character had to be pure, and never once act in negative or evil manner, for which Tarantino just sent him a hand written letter with the words "Of Course, Mein Herr!- Q." Waltz replied “Mein Herr, Of Course!- CW.”
- During the filming, he met with an accident while training, in which he was thrown of his horse and broke his pelvis. In an effort to make him feel better about riding a horse, his co-star Jamie Foxx, gave him a gift of a saddle with a seat belt.
- His performance earned him the Best Supporting Actor Award at the Academy Awards, BAFTA Awards and the Golden Globe Awards.
- His performance in the movie – at 1 hour 6 minutes and 17 seconds, is the longest ever to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
- He provided his voice to the character Mandrake in the movie “Epic.”
- He went on to star in “The Zero Theorem,” as Qohen Leth, in “Muppets Most Wanted,” as Christopher Waltz, in “Horrible Bosses 2,” as Bert Hanson and in “Big Eyes,” as Walter Keane.
- He was selected as a member of the main competition jury at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival as well as a member of the jury for the 64th Berlin International Film Festival.
- He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6667 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on December 1, 2014.
- He was cast as Franz Oberhauser/Blofeld in the 2015 James Bond movie “Spectre.” Before casting Waltz, Gary Oldman and Chiwetel Ejiofor were considered for the role.
- With this, he became the second Austrian actor to play a main villain in a James Bond movie, after Klaus Maria Brandauer as Maximilian Largo in the 1983 movie “Never Say Never Again.”
- He had stated in an interview that he was a James Bond fan when he was younger and owned a Corgi Aston Martin DB5 as did director Sam Mendes.
- He is living with his second wife costume designer Judith Holste. The couple along with their daughter divides their time among Berlin, London, and Los Angeles.
- Waltz will direct and star in the 2015 movie “The Worst Marriage in Georgetown,” based on the true crime story of the murder of Viola Drath.
