Tarantino further claims that after an extensive yet fruitless casting search, he was so disheartened he almost shelved the movie altogether rather than hire the wrong actor for the part. "I was getting to be kinda worried. And unless I found the perfect Landa, I didn't want to make the movie. I mean World War II isn't going anywhere. I could put it on the shelf, take it down four years from now," further noting he was "literally emotionally preparing myself to pull the plug."
Luckily, Tarantino gave himself one more week to find his man. As fate would have it, in that time an unknown actor from German television, ahem, waltzed into the casting room. In the director's own words, Christoph Waltz nailed the audition and then some. "And it was just obvious he was the guy. He could do everything we wanted. He was just amazing. We were ecstatic when he finished. We were just vomiting all over him, 'Oh my god, you were amazing, you were fantastic. Oh my god. Thank you, thank you, thank you.' I've never given a man a b*** job, but at that moment, at that time, if anyone deserved it, it was him."
That's as high praise as any actor has ever earned from Tarantino, though Waltz was no doubt equally happy with the Supporting Actor Academy Award he netted for his show-stopping "Inglourious Basterds" performance. Ditto for his overnight status change from virtual unknown to in-demand A-lister. Anyone who's seen Waltz at work as the nefarious Nazi colonel in Tarantino's crackling, hyper-violent epic knows the director was right in being so picky, as it's virtually impossible to envision "Inglourious Basterds" without Waltz's scene-devouring shenanigans. And it's equally impossible to imagine another actor in the role.
