The actor Christoph Waltz was prevented by Quentin Tarantino, the director of the war satire Inglourious Basterds, from revealing his true talent during rehearsals.
Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds is one of the best characters that Quentin Tarantino believes he has ever created (via Moviepilot). Accordingly, it was important for the filmmaker to find the perfect actor for the role.
The director was even willing to pause his project if he did not find the right casting for the character.
But then, with German actor Christoph Waltz, the perfect candidate for Landa came. However, the other actors were not supposed to know about his great talent before the actual shoot.
Here you can see a trailer for Inglourious Basterds:
“I don’t want them to know what you’re capable of“
In the podcast “The Moment“ from July 28, 2021, Tarantino explained why he initially hid the talent of actor Christoph Waltz from the other actors.
He explained: The fellow actors did not know the German actor yet. The director wanted to take advantage of this to surprise the rest of the international cast with the embodiment of the character Hans Landa – but only in front of the camera.
Before the joint script reading, the director instructed Christoph Waltz to hold back quite a bit. On a scale from one to ten, a six was desired.
Be good enough, just good enough. And that will be hard, I don’t want you to compete with anyone. And if you compete with someone, I want you to lose. I don’t want them to know what you’re capable of, and I don’t want them to be able to grasp Landa.
voa The Moment
Waltz was not allowed to participate in joint rehearsals with the other actors. Nevertheless, the actor wanted to practice his scenes, so he instead rehearsed his scenes with Tarantino.
There was, however, one single exception. Denis Ménochet, who played the French farmer Perrier LaPadite in Inglourious Basterds, got a first glimpse of Waltz’s talent when they rehearsed the opening sequence together.
“I really thought I had written a character that couldn’t be played,” Tarantino said in the podcast.
“And then to see someone ride that horse and do it perfectly, I mean absolutely perfectly, blew me away.”
Christoph Waltz was able to convince not only Tarantino but also received numerous awards for his role, including the Academy Award for “Best Supporting Actor“ in 2009.
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