Quentin Tarantino Said Hans Landa Is His Favorite Character That He's Ever Written

 

EW - Speaking at the Jerusalem Film Festival, where he received a lifetime achievement award, Tarantino reflected on his career and the eclectic cast of characters he’s assembled, adding, “I like my actors, but I love my characters.” And one of his particular favorites is the villainous Hans Landa of Inglourious Basterds, the malicious Nazi baddie played by the multilingual Christoph Waltz.

“Landa is the best character I’ve written and maybe the best I ever will write,” Tarantino told the crowd, via Screen Daily. “I didn’t realize [when I was first writing him] that he was a linguistic genius. He’s probably one of the only Nazis in history who could speak perfect Yiddish.”

In fact, Tarantino thought that Landa and his linguistic prowess was such a key part of Inglourious Basterds that he almost scrapped the entire film when he couldn’t find the right actor to play the part.

“I was getting worried,” Tarantino said. “Unless I found the perfect Landa, I was going to pull the movie. I gave myself one more week and then I was going to pull the plug. Then Christoph Waltz came in and it was obvious that he was the guy; he could do everything. He was amazing, he gave us our movie back.”

100% agree. Not only is Hans Landa my favorite Tarantino character of all time, he might be the best acted movie character of all time. Christoph Waltz was 100000% perfect for this role. When I saw Inglourious Bastereds for the first time I remember thinking how I never saw an acting performance like that in my life. Just so blown away by it, like my whole life I was seeing in black and white and now I was seeing in color. He’s just so good, it doesn’t shock me that Tarantino was going to shelve the movie until he found the right actor for the part. Jules Winfield is great, The Bride is great, Django is awesome, but no character will blow your mind quite like Christoph Waltz did as Hans Landa.