When I committed my considerably negative thoughts on Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” last week, I made it a point of indicating a true diamond in the rough, Christoph Waltz’s unsettling performance of Col. Hans Landa, the quietly sadistic “killer of the Jews” who owns the screen every time he graces it. “Waltz definitely deserves the high marks he received out of this year’s Cannes Film Festival,” I wrote at the time. “It’s a vivid new spin on a classic villain persona, the still-waters-run-deep kind of stomach-twisting presence that takes real skill to pull off. Waltz makes it look pretty easy.”
It is therefore refreshing to read this brief profile of the actor in The New York Times, revealing a humble, grounded, blue-collar actor who is happy to get the recogniztion but has clearly been around the block enough times to know you keep looking forward.
In the piece, Waltz discusses, rather honestly, his opinions on the acting profession, an awareness of future pitfalls that could await his late-blooming Stateside career and, of course, the process of working with Tarantino.