Christoph Waltz

In 2017, Waltz appeared in the films Tulip Fever and Downsizing. In 2019, Waltz appeared in the action fantasy Alita: Battle Angel. He directed a production of the opera Falstaff, again at the Vlaamse Opera, in Antwerp in late 2017, and in Ghent in early 2018.

In 2015, it was announced that Waltz would direct and star in the film Georgetown (formerly titled The Worst Marriage in Georgetown), which is based on the true crime story of the murder of Viola Drath. In July 2016, he portrayed lead villain Captain Leon Rom, a corrupt Belgian captain, in the reboot The Legend of Tarzan.

Waltz has been cast as the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in the film Reykjavik, based on the 1986 peace talks between the United States and USSR. In April 2013, he was selected as a member of the main competition jury at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. He directed a production of the opera Der Rosenkavalier at the Vlaamse Opera, in Antwerp in late 2013, and in Ghent early 2014. In 2014, he was selected as a member of the jury for the 64th Berlin International Film Festival. He starred as Walter Keane in Tim Burton's Big Eyes, which opened on 25 December 2014, and appeared as Ernst Stavro Blofeld in Spectre, the 24th film in the James Bond franchise. In July 2019, it was reported that Waltz would reprise the role in No Time to Die (2020).

Waltz portrayed computer genius Qohen Leth in the science fiction film The Zero Theorem (2013), American plagiarist Walter Keane in the biographical film Big Eyes (2014), and James Bond's nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld in Spectre (2015) and No Time to Die (2020). For his role as Walter Keane, he was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actor. He also provided the voice of Mandrake in Epic (2013).

Waltz played gangster Benjamin Chudnofsky in The Green Hornet (2011); that same year, he starred in Water for Elephants and Roman Polanski's Carnage. He played German bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained (2012), a role Tarantino wrote specifically for Waltz. During a training accident prior to filming, Waltz injured his pelvis. His role garnered him acclaim once again, with Waltz winning the Golden Globe, the BAFTA, and ultimately the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Waltz was born in Vienna to a German father who applied for him to become a citizen of Germany after his birth. He received Austrian citizenship in 2010, thus holding citizenships of both Austria and Germany, but considers his German passport a "legal, citizenship law banality" despite the fact that he had not previously been able to vote in Austria's national elections. Asked whether he felt Viennese, he responded: "I was born in Vienna, grew up in Vienna, went to school in Vienna, graduated in Vienna, studied in Vienna, started acting in Vienna – and there would be a few further Viennese links. How much more Austrian do you want it?"

His breakout American role came in Quentin Tarantino's 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, where he played SS officer Hans Landa. He would later collaborate with Tarantino once again in 2012, where he played bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz in Django Unchained. For each performance, he earned an Academy Award, BAFTA Award, and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Waltz also received the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival and a Screen Actors Guild Award for his portrayal of Landa.

In Quentin Tarantino's 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, Waltz portrayed SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa, also known as "The Jew Hunter". Clever, courteous, multilingual — but also self-serving, cunning, implacable and murderous — the character of Landa was such that Tarantino feared he "might have written a part that was un-playable". Waltz received the Best Actor Award for the performance at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and received acclaim from critics and the public. In 2009, he began sweeping critics' awards circuits, receiving awards for Best Supporting Actor from the New York Film Critics Circle, the Boston Society of Film Critics, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and for Best Supporting Actor at the 67th Golden Globe Awards and the 16th Screen Actors Guild Awards in January 2010.

On his return to Europe, Waltz found work as a stage actor, making his debut at the Schauspielhaus in Zurich. He also performed in Vienna, Salzburg, Cologne and Hamburg. He became a prolific television actor in the years 1980 to 2000. In 2000, he made his directorial debut, with the German television production Wenn man sich traut. Before coming to the attention of a larger audience in Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, he had played Dr. Hans-Joachim Dorfmann in the British TV series The Gravy Train in 1990. The show is a story of intrigue and misdeeds set in the offices of the European Union in Brussels.

After graduating from Vienna's Theresianum, Waltz went to study acting at the renowned Max Reinhardt Seminar. At the same time, he also studied singing and opera at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, but eventually decided that his voice was not good enough for an opera career. In the late 1970s, Waltz spent some time in New York City where he trained with Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler. He studied script interpretation under Adler, and credits his analytical approach to her teaching.

Christoph Waltz (German: [ˈkrɪstɔf ˈvalts] ; born 4 October 1956) is a German-Austrian actor and director, since 2009 mainly active in the United States.

Waltz was born on 4 October 1956 in Vienna, Austria, the son of Johannes Waltz, a German set designer, and Elisabeth Urbancic, an Austrian costume designer. Waltz comes from a family of theatrical heritage: his maternal grandmother was Burgtheater and silent film actress Maria Mayen, and his step-grandfather, Emmerich Reimers, and his great-grandfather, Georg Reimers, were both stage actors who also appeared in silent films. Waltz's maternal grandfather, Rudolf von Urban, was a psychiatrist and a student of Sigmund Freud.