- Born
- Height5′ 7″ (1.70 m)
- Christoph Waltz is an Austrian-German actor. He is known for his work with American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, receiving acclaim for portraying SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds (2009) and bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz in Django Unchained (2012). For each performance, he won an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Additionally, he received the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival and a Screen Actors Guild Award for his portrayal of Landa.
Christoph Waltz was born in Vienna, Austria, into a theatrical family, his mother Elisabeth Urbancic, an Austrian-born costume designer, and Johannes Waltz, a German-born stage builder. He has three siblings. His maternal grandmother was Viennese Burgtheater actress Maria Mayen, and his step-grandfather was fellow Burgtheater actor Emmerich Reimers. His maternal grandfather, Rudolf von Urban, was a psychologist and psychiatrist who wrote the 1949 book "Sex Perfection and Marital Happiness".
Waltz attended the Theresianium and Billrothstrasse in Vienna. Upon graduation, he attended the Max-Reinhardt-Seminar before going to New York to the Lee Strasberg Institute. While in New York, Christoph met his first wife, and moved back to Vienna, then to London.
During the 80s, Christoph worked primarily in theatre, commuting from his home in London to Germany. Slowly Waltz began to work in TV, taking one-off roles in series, and TV movies. Film roles soon followed. Attempts to break into English-speaking film and TV were, however, unsuccessful. Waltz has expressed his gratitude to have been able to make a living and support his family through acting. For thirty years he worked steadily, tirelessly, in this manner.
It was not until he met Quentin Tarantino that his career in Hollywood took off. The role of Colonel Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds (2009) catapulted Waltz from a lifetime working in German TV/film to the new life of an international superstar and Academy Award-winning actor. He won 27 awards for his performance as Hans Landa, including the Cannes prix d'interpretation Masculin for 2009, the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor, the BAFTA Best Supporting Actor award, and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (which he won again for 2012's Django Unchained (2012)).
He also has portrayed computer genius Qohen Leth in the film The Zero Theorem (2013), American plagiarist Walter Keane in the biographical film _Big Eyes (2014), and 007's nemesis and head of SPECTRE Ernst Stavro Blofeld in _Spectre (2015)_. In Quentin Tarantino's 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, Waltz portrayed SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa, aka "The Jew Hunter". Clever, courteous, and multilingual - but also self-serving, cunning, implacable, and murderous. Waltz played gangster Benjamin Chudnofsky in The Green Hornet (2011). That same year, he starred in Water for Elephants (2011), Roman Polanski's Carnage (2011), and a remake of The Three Musketeers (2011). He played German bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained (2012), a role Tarantino wrote specifically for Waltz.
Waltz resides in Berlin and Los Angeles. His wife is costume builder Judith Holste.- IMDb Mini Biography By: www.ChristophWaltzFans.com and Cinematograph
- SpousesJudith Holste(? - present) (1 child)Jackie (divorced, 3 children)
- ChildrenMiriam WaltzLeon WaltzRachel WaltzWaltz-Holste
- Parents
- RelativesJohannes Waltz(Sibling)Martin Waltz(Sibling)
- Frequently works with Quentin Tarantino.
- Often plays charming but sinister characters
- Polyglotism (The ability to speak or use multiple languages, or the act of using multiple languages)
- Characters often explain their motivations or opinions through long (usually humor-filled) speeches
- Smooth voice
- Native language is German. Is fluent in English and French and is skilled at mimicking Italian speech.
- The first actor to win an Oscar for acting in a Quentin Tarantino film. He received Best Supporting Actor for both Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Django Unchained (2012). He remained the only actor to win an Academy Award in a Tarantino film until Brad Pitt won for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in 2020.
- Is only one of seven actors who have a 2-0 winning record when nominated for an acting Oscar, his two wins for Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Django Unchained (2012). The others are Luise Rainer for The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Good Earth (1937); Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind (1939) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951); Helen Hayes for The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931) and Airport (1970); Kevin Spacey for The Usual Suspects (1995) and American Beauty (1999); Hilary Swank for Boys Don't Cry (1999) and Million Dollar Baby (2004); and Mahershala Ali for Moonlight (2016) and Green Book (2018).
- Despite being born in Austria, he was born with German citizenship (and kept it all his life) since his father was German.
- Both his Oscar-winning performances were directed by Quentin Tarantino. This makes him one of four actors to win two Oscars under the same person's direction. The other three are: Walter Brennan for Come and Get It (1936) and The Westerner (1940) (both directed by William Wyler), Jack Nicholson for Terms of Endearment (1983) and As Good as It Gets (1997) (both directed by James L. Brooks) and Dianne Wiest for Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Bullets Over Broadway (1994) (both directed by Woody Allen).
- [on working in Hollywood] In Europe, everybody would say, "Well, they just want to squeeze you like a lemon." Well, yeah! But, you know, if I have the juice, why shouldn't they?
- [on being typecast] Nobody's talking about that. I get interest coming my way from many different directions. I'd hate to pigeon-hole myself. The variety is what's interesting.
- I know what I can contribute. And that's a very limited, very specific unit, whether it's a big movie, a small movie, a German movie, an American movie. That's the advantage I have over a 25-year-old. I've had the chance to understand what it is I do.
- The one advantage of having grown up in the business is that you don't romanticize it. "Oh, isn't it wonderful?" Blah, blah, blah. No, it isn't! I've never romanticized it. But on the other hand, the conviction, the dedication that you see here, is tremendous. It would be awful if the whole business consisted of grouchy farts like me.
- [on advice a dog trainer once gave him that can apply to him as well] The better the dog, the busier you have to keep him. I'm arrogant and blase enough to consider myself a very good dog. You take pride in what you're doing, in your craft, and all of that, but -- I wouldn't say I resigned myself to mediocrity, not at all, but I started to accept that there might be an ideal you strive for (and) never realize.
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