Yeah, Hollywood is great. If you are successful there. And actor Christoph Waltz has had that for years. But there are good reasons for him to come back to Germany. A come-back call for the 65th birthday.
What am I supposed to do in Hollywood? Even in a multi-million dollar production, I would only be allowed to walk through the back of the screen and scream ‘Heil Hitler’. I’ve been an actor for 20 years, when I go to America now, I don’t know a sock there. ”It is almost 25 years ago that Christoph Waltz said this in an interview with the“ Saarbrücker Zeitung ”. He was 40 at the time, had just played the leading role in the TV movie “You Are Not Alone – The Roy Black Story”, and the review was enthusiastic. How often she is enthusiastic about him. But the breakthrough doesn’t mean that role for him either, again not. Hollywood, that was actually as miles away back then as it would have been an appearance by Roy Black alias Gerhard Höllerich at La Scala in Milan.
Even then, it was difficult to understand. It has long been clear that Christoph Waltz, born on October 4, 1956 in Vienna, trained there at the Max Reinhardt Seminar, is a master of his art. Once you see it, you have no chance of forgetting it. The face, the chin, the mockingly tilted corner of the mouth are too prominent. His own tone with which he speaks the words, his soft D, his chatting singsong. His gestures. And above all his gift of allowing the abyss that gapes in a person to shine with the blink of an eye. Despite all the uniqueness, he takes a back seat to his role.
Not many have this ability to be able to disappear and to be present at the same time. Christoph Waltz always plays it off, with almost outrageous ease, no matter how small his part in a film is. And for years and decades he is filming in Germany will not be rewarded. (At this point in time, he should be known to many as the one who shot and fatally wounded detective Erwin Köster, aka Siegfried Lowitz, in the 100th episode of the ZDF crime thriller “Der Alte”. The murder of a favorite German investigator , a sacrilege!)
Five years later, Waltz is again the culprit, this time in the TV drama “The Dance with the Devil – The Abduction of Richard Oetker”. Again, and rightly so, he gets furious reviews. And again nothing changes for him. He remains chronically under-challenged and largely defined as the “psychopath of German film” (“Badische Zeitung”). It is as if bewitched: he can play as brilliantly as he wants, he is not mentioned in the same breath as the “big ones”. The German – and Austrian – names that are also known in Hollywood are Klaus Maria Brandauer, Armin Mueller-Stahl and Jürgen Prochnow.
Waltz makes it increasingly clear that he despises the German cultural scene. “It hurts immensely how opportunities are being wasted here,” he says. “The selection of good roles is not great.” He is content, of necessity, with television roles that often remain far below his level: “Beautiful widows kiss better”, “The Zurich engagement”, “Looking for Santa Claus” and repeatedly appearances in Crime series. It is better not to imagine how he reads the scripts, how he wrestles with himself whether to accept or not. But he too has to earn money, so simple.
And then comes Hollywood.
US director Quentin Tarantino cast German actors in 2008 for his film “Inglorious Basterds”. Including Ulrich Tukur. He should, says Tukur of the “Berliner Morgenpost”, “play an evil Nazi who is rebellious”. Sure, bad Nazis, who doesn’t think of him? But it doesn’t work, someone else gets the role. “That”, says Tukur, “is now done by Christoph Waltz”. It’s about much more than just walking behind the screen and screaming “Heil Hitler”. Waltz plays the SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa, the “Judenjäger”, with terrifying grandeur, he parlates effortlessly in four languages and smiles as diabolically harmless as only he can smile, with the disturbing aura of a highly intelligent killer. “That” will, at last, be the long-awaited triumph. Golden Palm, Golden Globe, British Academy Award, Oscar. “For this role,” says Christoph Waltz, “it was worth becoming an actor.”
He has arrived where he always wanted to be. This is followed by the next Tarantino, “Django Unchained”, the next success, the next Golden Globe, the next Oscar. Hollywood looks at this German, who is an Austrian, with waning astonishment, “every sock” has known him for a long time. He’s incorporated, one of them, of those who are at the top. He is filming with Terry Gilliam, Tim Burton, David Yates. He plays alongside Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Judi Dench, Matt Damon. He’s even – the accolade – the Bond villain. He becomes “Saturday Night Live” guest presenter and Cannes juror and receives a star on the Walk of Fame in Los Angeles. More is not possible?
Maybe not “anymore”. But something else too. What if Christoph Waltz, in his somewhat older days, would think back to the German cultural scene, which he once had so disregarded? There’s at least one good reason for that, and he already lives in Berlin when he’s not in Los Angeles. Then, maybe, we would finally see a film by the great Maren Ade (“Toni Erdmann”) with him in the lead role, very much at the side of Birgit Minichmayr, also an Austrian. That would be a gift. And that, dear Christoph Waltz, is what we want now for your birthday.
“So in your opinion you are anything but awesome?” Asked the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” almost exactly 20 years ago. He replies: “Right. But I can still be saved. ”How right he is. All the best!
