Best EVER movie Performances - Christoph Waltz in Inglorious Basterds

In 2009, the world was blown away by an acting performance for the ages as Christoph Waltz exploded onto the mainstream with his role as 'The Jew Hunter' Hans Landa in Inglorious Basterds.

Prior to Inglorious Basterds, Waltz was relatively unknown to audiences outside of his native Austria and also Germany.

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A prolific theatre actor, he also appeared in numerous television roles in the 1980s, 1990s and the early 2000s.

Director Quentin Tarantino has previously described Landa as the greatest character he has ever written.

In fact, the character is so complex that Tarantino found great difficulty in casting the part, to the point when he was five days away from abandoning the project completely - until Waltz auditioned.

“Landa is a linguistic genius, and the actor who played him needed the same facility with language or he would never be what he was on the page,” Tarantino told Variety.

“I told my producers I might have written a part that was un-playable. I said I don’t want to make this movie if I can’t find the perfect Landa, I’d rather just publish the script than make a movie where this character would be less than he was on the page.

"When Christoph came in and read the next day, he gave me my movie back.”

What makes Waltz's performance as Landa so good?

The first scene in Inglorious Basterds is one of the greatest in movie history, and the biggest reason for that is the introduction of Waltz as Landa.

At first glance, even though he is wearing a Nazi officer's uniform, Waltz is rather unassuming. He is older than middle-aged and certainly is not imposing in his physicality.

As his conversation with French farmer Perrier LaPadite begins, he is charming and even sympathetic towards the man, who has been accused of helping Jews in Nazi-occupied Germany. 

Then, just as he downs an enormous glass of milk, he shoots a glance towards LaPadite that sends shivers down the spine. 

All the while, Landa knows, just as the viewers do, that LaPadite is indeed harbouring Jews, in his cellar at that very moment no less. The tension is positively unbearable, and while the farmer and the audience are sweating, Landa is the coolest man around as he is in complete control of the situation.

As the conversation progresses, Landa becomes more and more fearsome, with the charming pleasantries gone in favour of terrifying, staring eyes.

When Landa first enters the farmhouse, he introduces himself to the farmer's daughters with magnetism. By the end of his time there, he is ordering the murder of the Jews in the cellar.

There are two other occasions when Landa is interrogating someone, once to Shosanna Dreyfus / Emmanuelle Mimieux, whom he suspects of being a Jew, and once to actress Bridget Von Hammersmark whom he suspects of being a spy.

On both of those occasions, Landa knows the two women are hiding something, and due to the fact the audience knows that, too, makes for extreme tension.

As mentioned previously, Landa is an extremely charming gentleman, and also, always the most intelligent person in the room.

Another moment in which Waltz shines is when he is introduced to the Basterds posing as Italian filmmakers. Within the space of five minutes, Waltz effortlessly eases from speaking English to German, to Italian. It is mesmerising.

There has never been a character like Landa before and we won't see one again, and all the credit goes to Waltz and Tarantino.

What have people said about Waltz in Inglorious Basterds?

Tarantino told The Moment podcast that he knew Waltz would be so good that he actually asked the actor to tone down his performance during rehearsals so that when the likes of Diane Kruger and Brad Pitt had a scene with him, they would be surprised by his brilliance.

“I got together with Christoph before we got to the big script reading with the cast,” Tarantino said. “I told him, ‘I’m not doing this to be perverse game playing…everybody is so curious about who is playing Hans Landa. I don’t want you to be bad at the script reading, but I want you to hold a lot back. I do not want them to think that they are getting a glimpse of who you are really going to be. On a scale of one to 10, be a six. Be good enough, just good enough. I do not want you to be in a competition with anybody, and if you are in competition then lose. I don’t want them to know what you have or for them to have a handle on Landa'.

“In that same vein, with the exception of the French farmer, I don’t want you rehearsing with the other actors before filming. I don’t want Diane Kruger or Brad Pitt to know your gun-slinging abilities until the cameras are rolling.”

What is Waltz's best scene?

There can only be one...

Did Waltz win any awards for his performance?

Waltz won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Inglorious Basterds. In addition to that, he won a BAFTA, Cannes Best Actor and numerous other accolades.