This is probably the longest interview I've ever read.
Oscar-Preisträger Christoph Waltz im großen Interview – über Gold und Dreck in Hollywood, achtsame Dreharbeiten, seine Rolle als Unternehmen
"Why do you have to be happy all the time?"
Photo: Peter Rigaud/laif
Oscar winner Christoph Waltz in a long interview - about gold and dirt in Hollywood, careful filming, his role as a management consultant in "The Consultant", and the question of what Lufthansa did with his new Rimowa suitcase.
Interview by Alexander Gorkov
February 24, 2023
A long afternoon with coffee, cognac and cake. Christoph Waltz, visiting Berlin from Los Angeles, is always excited and attentive – he pauses between sentences and then always continues to formulate it ready for publication.
SZ : Management consultant Regus Patoff ostentatiously smells the young people who will report to him in the series “The Consultant” upon his arrival. He cuts his fingernails and nose hair in the office, he calls his people at three in the morning, monitors them...
Christoph Waltz: The fact that the young employees line up and I memorize their respective smells is a scene that immediately made sense to me when reading the pilot episode.
SZ: Which made reading fun?
CW: That's the thing about joy. Some things are fun, which then turn out to be rubbish. No, obvious, in the sense of light rising. Incidentally, at first I only knew the script for the pilot episode.
SZ: The books for the eight episodes weren't ready when it started?
CW: No, just the pilot. Then, after the whole production was okay, Tony Basgallop sat down and continued writing. Always in increments of two episodes. So when we were filming episode three, we didn't know what episode six was going to be like.
SZ: What about the Writers' Room, 20 authors, you imagine that would be more complex for a US production with an Oscar winner?
CW: That's already there. But that was not the case with the “Consultant”.
SZ: How much of it was created while shooting, i.e. spontaneously, also with regard to the character Regus Pattof?
CW: I can't say any more. Afterwards it might not matter anyway.
SZ: Jennifer Coolidge recently said she worked with the crew to develop this somnambulist of her character in "White Lotus" while we were shooting. Could these be signals that a certain desire for spontaneity and creativity is returning after rather bleak years in films and series?
CW: It would be nice anyway. Maybe word would slowly get around again that the fixation on algorithms and pie charts, i.e. on this alleged readability of the swarm behavior of viewers, does not tell any stories that could be worth experiencing for the viewer. So if there were no swarm at all. That filmed stories should be produced by film companies, not tech companies. With the unavoidable risks and side effects that always have an effect anyway.
SZ: The character of Regus Patoff, as diabolical as it is, is sometimes reminiscent of the characters of great comedians of yesteryear, whom one could, so to speak, watch while thinking...
CW: Thanks... Is the comparison possibly a bit bold?
SZ: There is a scene in "Sons of the Desert" in which Stan Laurel bites into an apple which he steals from what appears to be a fruit bowl - but it is not a real apple, but a decorative apple made of wax. And he thinks, and you can see it: Oops. So without making a grimace.
CW: Well...he doesn't think, "Oops!" He draws the viewer into his complication of recognition. He doesn't demonstrate clumsily how B follows A because that's what the script says. Rather, he involves himself and the viewer in an extremely complex process.
SZ: Namely?
CW: He bites into what he must think is a real apple because it looks like a real apple. Any normal prankster would now make a number out of the sudden recognition - spit out, suffocate, disgust, whatever the repertoire has to offer. But Stan Laurel sticks to the process: put to use as a real apple, the assumed reality now intensifies. He keeps chewing!
He calmly bites off more pieces, chews, swallows.
Under explainable difficulties. Which he still wonders about.Especially since he always secretly takes the apple from the fruit plate and puts it down again after biting into it. He doesn't want to get caught. And so he gets more and more involved and can't find out anymore. He has to eat the wax apple whether he wants to or not, even though the truth seems to be dawning on him.
SZ: You go nuts while watching...
CW: It's awesome. And to play that, this knowledge behind the lack of understanding - that requires very deep understanding, very deep knowledge. An insane intelligence too. But we're not just talking about a comedian here.
SZ: Rather?
CW: Genius...? Can one know?
SZ: Are we talking about the funniest two minutes in movie history?
CW: What would then be the second funniest and the least fun? I definitely want to avoid ranking, especially with a phenomenon like Stan Laurel. This perpetual ranking...blunt quantification. We thereby lose the ability to discuss the qualities.
SZ: Basically?
CW: Basically, of course. It takes constant attention, practice, and refinement, and it's tedious and tedious at times... I don't give a damn what rhetorical platitude any self-proclaimed expert can squeeze onto the internet about whatever.
SZ: But back to the faint hope of spontaneity and creativity...
CW: All I can say is that filming The Consultant was, of course, also an industrial process as a whole, which, however, miraculously relied largely on the non-industrial contribution of the individual. In this respect, this shooting differed significantly from what the series is about. Talented adults of different ages make their constructive contribution to the whole to the best of their knowledge and ability. It doesn't get much better than that... It's very different than, for example, checking in a suitcase at Lufthansa with childlike trust!
SZ: With the result?
CW: That I'll never see him again. And at Lufthansa, trying to get your suitcase back is a completely depersonalized and utterly industrial process.
SZ: Happens?
Happens.
SZ: Los Angeles – Frankfurt?
CW: Not at all! Munich – Berlin. I checked in the suitcase on December 16, 2022 – in the meantime, in the literal sense, in the box. I never saw the suitcase again. Not until today. A brand new Rimowa with nice things you've come to love inside.
SZ: How is the complaint made?
CW: Industrial. According to quantifiable measures. There has been a Property Irregularity Report, reference number BER-LH-33385, for more than two months. The Rimowa was originally supposed to be delivered to Berlin from Munich on December 30, 2022 with flight LH1934. I know all the numbers by heart. Some of the advisers at Lufthansa's complaints center also look familiar to me.
SZ: At least there's that.
CW: Yes, they are all very friendly, I have to say. They chat very understandingly, are diligent, give advice, and so one slips unnoticed into a labyrinth. You mutate into a process.
SZ: After all, one is a process. Isn't that a form of recognition?
CW: But on the contrary! You are fed into a digital metabolism and digested by the algorithm. The metabolic consequences do not deserve credit.
SZ: It is reminiscent of Kafka's trial. This is also possibly because the suitcase hasn't turned up again for two months.
CW: One is isolated, waiting, wandering around, lost in a digital labyrinth. For weeks, for months you think: where is my suitcase? I checked it in at a modern German airport with a leading airline on December 16th, 2022 to be returned to me at another modern German airport about an hour and a half later the same day.
SZ: With the result?
CW: Why result? It wasn't any of the two. Neither modern nor handed over.
SZ: Part of the fascination here is certainly that you ask yourself: What could be the reason for the apparently complete disappearance of the suitcase?
CW: For example, someone from Lufthansa recently told me that the weather was bad on December 16th. In the winter? In Munich? Snow and ice? For real?! That's why the train that my wife and I had originally booked was already cancelled... So did the suitcase fall out of the plane? It's a kind of conjecture industry, depending on which of the always friendly people at Lufthansa I'm talking to. Everyone suspects something different.
SZ: It may have been stolen.
CW: Even very likely - after all, a very personal and analogous twist of the story. Or it just got lost. Also analogue. If it were a medical emergency, I would have been dead weeks ago.
SZ: How about appearing as a sadist to Lufthansa and becoming unpleasant?
CW: I've thought about it. But nobody cares anyway. Because the friendly Lufthansa people are the biological extensions of the algorithm. It's definitely in the contract of employment.
SZ: Is Regus Patoff a sadist in The Consultant?
CW: I see it more as an attempt at correction. Or an excommunicated Archangel. A Knight of the Grail. He also does a job.
SZ: Which?
CW: He appears in the gaming company "CompWare" and confronts the young programmers with the ruthlessness of his methods with, how to put it...
SZ: ... oneself?
CW: Yourself and each other, yes. You then ask yourself a few essential questions: Am I still capable of making qualitative distinctions or only quantitative ones? So am I doing things for their quality or for their usability? By fixating on the short-term, quantitative usability of my work, am I anticipating obedience, an obedience that no political dictatorship forces me to? Do I still use my brain, which was made for the most complex tasks, or will I become a kind of task-specific artificial intelligence and will therefore soon be replaced by one? So in the end do I subordinate everything to this one and supposedly essential condition – usability, short-term economization?
SZ: A series about conformity?
CW: A hopefully entertaining series about conformity. Our business is entertainment. And yes: about conformity and what it takes to question it.
SZ: What does it take, courage?
CW: Courage is a jargon word. Everyone has courage - or thinks they have it, no? Even the heavily subsidized think they have guts. I can't really hear the talk of courage anymore.
SZ: So what does it require?
CW: Rather, does it require... effort, effort? It requires a brain, an on-going one. Our brain can distinguish between quality and quantity, it doesn't take any courage to do that. The brain can do it just like that - if it is reasonably well fed.
SZ: On the other hand, when since 1968 were some young people noticeably less conform than they are today? They demonstrate for climate protection, are language-sensitive, gender-sensitive, against racism, against ...
CW: So so ...
SZ: Yes, yes.
CW: Yes, yes, yes.
SZ: No?
CW: But. Naturally. And rightly so.However, I cannot understand that these sensibilities would be new apart from their preparation and the jargon. People haven't always thrown mush at paintings and blamed Vincent van Gogh to feed the networks spectacle, that's true. Since the Club of Rome report in the early 1970s, however, people have been demonstrating against environmental destruction, in Wackersdorf they did it in the mid 1980s, since the 1970s at the latest it has been about the rights of gays and lesbians, in the 1980s against discrimination against people infected with HIV , in the early 1980s half a million people ran through Bonn against the retrofitting – in the lead the Greens party, which is particularly active in this context today. Apropos - few figures in Germany fascinate me more than the Panzergrenadier from the Greens ...
SZ: Anton Hofreiter?
CW: Excellent material for a comedy. A transport expert does not become Minister of Agriculture after the election. So he stiffens, turns tomato red with anger – and is an expert on armament issues. boom.
SZ: At the same time, speaking of conformity, young people today are more likely to ask themselves the question of work-life balance, i.e. quality of life rather than pure income quantity .
CW: Can you balance yourself prophylactically? Even before it really starts to wobble? I don't know... In France, 17-year-olds are demonstrating against pension reform, right?
SZ: Well, a man from a leading management consultancy in Munich recently told me that highly qualified people have recently been telling him more often during job interviews: They are more interested in a four-day week than in more money, the competition is offering them that.
CW: This is initially understandable from the point of view of the consumer. The producer certainly has a different perspective because he might sooner or later lose the consumers, right? Which then makes the four-day week absolutely necessary. But then it is no longer a profit. So who is balancing what then? Or who? And could these job interviews be more of a European phenomenon?
SZ: Aren't the mindfulness consultants in the greater California area eager to proclaim this inner pendulum?
CW: Yes, maybe... And why? Voluntarily? The American person has to constantly make money, so does the mindfulness consultant with her web shop. The American man defines himself economically. In my area, with actors for example, especially those who have big plans, is it about work-life balance? They need follow-up contracts, they want to be part of a possible second season, the health insurance has to be paid for, school, kindergarten have to be paid for, life has to be paid for – not to forget the entertainment, i.e. the distraction from all of that also has to be paid for become. Not glamorous. Both parents work, not for reasons of social progress, but like crazy, and because there is no other way. Withoutwork no life , so work is better then – that would be the balance .
SZ: What's wrong with not getting gutted?
CW: Nothing! On the contrary. It is important not to be left out. Among other things, "The Consultant" is about. Of being literally gutted behind that mindful facade of colorful booths and walking around barefoot to feel yourself, and all that horrific, humiliating gibberish. About how the so-called creative people in particular completely subordinate themselves to economic success. And also from letting yourself be gutted. With what I am saying, I am only describing reality as I perceive it: economic success is the quality that constitutes the collective subconscious of the United States par excellence. Ranking makes this measurable. And tangible. I'm not saying that in a haughty manner, but up to a certain point as an equal among equals. In my first 35 years as an actor, I usually said, when someone came up with an offer: “Work? I'll do it! shit work? I do too!“
SZ: So shit movies.
CW: Why shit movies?
SZ: So the movies that...
CW: No! That was my life, with all due respect. Should everything that was good just be dropped now? There was some very good stuff there, thank you very much.
SZ: Forgive me.
CW: Clearly this was also training. Everything is always training. This is where the brain comes into play again. If it's allowed: mine. I always kind of knew why something was "shit". This is an immeasurable treasure, a treasure called experience.
SZ: Tempi passati.
CW: I am deeply grateful that my circumstances have largely changed over the past 15 years. But it doesn't change the fact.
SZ: Especially since one is usually wiser afterwards...
CW: Of course: You don't look forward to it while you're still in it. But you don't spend your life with gold alone. Nobody does that. I've actually worked on stupid films with the greatest colleagues from time to time. Here as there. But it is also about participating in life by doing. And with what? With good reason! For example, because you have a family and earn money, a very, very honorable process.
SZ: But this work does not really make you happy at the time of its creation.
CW: Why do you have to be happy all the time? Who invented the compulsion to be lucky? Everyone must always be happy... No wonder no one is happy. Except for the happiness industry.
SZ: The right to happiness - "the pursuit of happiness" - is one of the "inalienable human rights" in the USA! Since 1776!
CW: But not the right to be happy . The Right to Pursue Happiness ! pursuit ! Logically, this means, especially when it comes to forming a society, that I also allow others to strive for happiness to the same extent, not that I only try to enforce mine by force of arms.
SZ: Like I said, an American...
CW: The right to be happy only exists according to the mindfulness coaches just quoted, and those from 2023, not 1776. Those who make money by looking happy on Instagram. happiness industry. It's gotten tough in America. Hard and unforgiving. Europe is still a bit shy in this regard, but it will catch up.
SZ: Also in Hollywood, does that also affect the film industry there?
CW: yes sure, maybe not? But like I said, one can hope. I at least hope that something is changing for the better right now. If I'm not an optimist, at least I'm naive! But in terms of the years I've been living there now: the fixation on quantity, the fixation on the measurable, on pie charts, tools for reading users - it's not obvious that the parts of the brain where creative people used to be their Quality awareness suspected, meanwhile dry up?
SZ: That means you make everything ready for the user, so to speak?
CW: Do you have users or readers at the Süddeutsche ? If you still have readers: never consider them users... my non-authoritative advice. The technical means of spreading nonsense have never been available on this scale, and a repulsive figure like Donald Trump could only become President of the United States of America because there was fire from all channels, both digital and analog: He won't, will he? Will he?
SZ: Well, he ran for the post. Should you ignore that?
CW: Why should one ignore him - but hysterize for months? Because it sells? Trump as a repulsive figure was very old hat long before his presidency became more likely. He has been an obnoxious, vile phenomenon for decades. That was impossible to miss. But Trump, Brexit, all these dystopias from 2016 and after, they exist because they were spread , no longer communicated, and it's being disseminated for commercial reasons, while not conveying that each and every individual could care to expose Trump as a lie or to expose Brexit as a lie. We can all take a good look at our own noses here, with what we write, send, spread or help spread ... No feuilleton, for example, has to deal with Prince Harry.
SZ: Oh...
CW: Because it clicks? But does it make sense beyond that ? The sensitivities of a prince, apparently not the brightest candle on the candlestick, who publishes a tearful, post-pubertal commissioned work? Because daddy is always so mean? And why is he publishing it? Because you can make a lot of money with it and with a supposed "documentary". And the feuilleton sacrifices its integrity?
SZ: It also depends on how you reflect it.
CW: Reflecting does something quickly. Especially the so-called reflection is always extremely useful commercially and socially. Never looks bad either. The supply creates the demand.
SZ: Often there is also a demand that first ...
CW: Forgiveness! In the meantime, it often has features of self-incapacitation! And from the side of those who should know better! The lesson, by no means only in Hollywood, from the last few years: the so-called people are possibly much smarter than those in the know would like to give them credit for, and people have a flair for jargon and stupidity. They want to be entertained, of course, but not fooled. They often even want to be challenged, but not fooled. You smell the intention and you may not be upset right away, but you're always upset. The intention is always perceptible. For anyone who wants to take a look.
SZ: From this point of view, a fascinating, coherent but long scene like the beginning of “Inglourious Basterds”, in which an Austrian named Christoph Waltz, who was relatively unknown in the USA at the time, drinks milk as SS man Hans Landa and fills a meerschaum pipe, would hardly be seen today more possible, right?
CW: It might not even be attempted by most. Although, of course, there are still a select few who make great attempts. I now embrace every sincere eccentric I meet.
SZ: The scene lasts 20 minutes, an eternity by today's standards.
CW: 18 minutes ... It's all a matter of consciousness, the '68ers were right about that. And if my consciousness as a so-called creative person is solely geared towards the mercantile advantage, then this is communicated unmistakably. Basically, "The Consultant" tells from the guts here. anticipatory obedience,Timothy Snyder taught the right lesson: If you value our values, in a democracy, under no circumstances be hasty obedience. It's by no means all dirt that can be streamed or, rarely enough, seen in the cinema - but the sheer mass of what is produced may have reached a tipping point. The unconditional subordination to economic expectations is perceptible as such. Since the mouse bites from no thread. But is that really reason enough to watch the whole thing?
SZ: The thousand tiles of the streaming services, predictable plots and trigger points everywhere?
CW: And jargon instead of content! Everyone has been busy throwing themselves on the audience's laps over the years. Whatever you want: we do it, it will be delivered - in the desired jargon. Like the drug dealers and pornographers. But it's an unfounded claim. The intention is clear and therefore also clearly recognizable.
SZ: Ten years ago, after “Breaking Bad” and other fantastic, complexly told series, we were still talking about the golden age of television.
CW: And then streaming completely turned the entire film industry inside out. Everyone wants to do the business or at least not leave the business to the competitor alone.
SZ: Why didn't you continue to make series with complex narratives?
CW: Because industry has always embraced the avant-garde and then turned the tide. You then no longer trust the idea, certainly not the eccentric idea or even an intention that goes beyond the economic. But the stitch that you knit from it. This is how the mainstream has evolved for centuries. Today the algorithm works. The core business of the streaming service is the share price. Ergo: The decisive factor is the number of subscribers. But the subscription is not a single film. They are all films that can be squeezed into the offer. Ergo: the algorithm. The algorithm feeds only on the density of the mass. This mass of information only arises if the audience simply gets everythingcan be thrown to the table, the gold like the shit. The carpet bomb principle. Most bombs don't hit, the duds don't matter anyway, and some hit is bound to be there. It has to do enough damage to justify the whole rug though.
SZ: To the chagrin of those involved. So not just the viewer.
CW: Writers, directors, actors, many great people, not just young people with great ideas. And with fantastically functioning brains. Used to make the background look populated - quality swallowed up by quantity.
SZ: A black hole. How do you escape this?
CW: I'm not at the higher decision-making level, I'm just an actor, so I'm offered what's out there and what I'm eligible for...
SZ: ... at least in Hollywood.
CW: After all, why in Hollywood? It's the same everywhere. And certainly not only in film and television. All right, Hollywood, if that sounds better. I always want to go beyond this binary yes or no decision with an inquiry; So is the idea and possible design of a film or a series the rub or the dog buried? Is the idea worthwhile in qualitative, narrative terms, for example to spend a year or two of my life on? Who are the people to spend these two years with?
SZ: What is the reaction then?
CW: I often hear: "We are very interested in your input!" ... a shameless lie.
SZ: Fun.
CW: It's going ok. Little is discussed, little discussed or, God forbid, criticized. For speculating and calculating.
SZ: Movies have always cost money, have they not?
CW: Of course, it's nothing new that film costs money. The director John Boorman wrote a wonderful book about it a number of years ago, which is perhaps more relevant than ever: "Money into Light". No money, no film.
SZ: Which isn't bad per se.
CW: Yes,why? You don't even have to wish for anything else. But should the discussion in advance, when it doesn't cost anything and can be endless fun, only revolve around quantities and not at all about whether it's worth it from a qualitative point of view, i.e. literary, cinematic, artistic? Is there only one single intention? Money without Light ? One does not exclude the other! I don't want to understand how you can miss the really exciting, rewarding part of it all. Well, unfortunately I already understand. Everything is delegated somewhere intangible, where no one needs to answer questions.
SZ: As in the complaint case "Rimowa" and Lufthansa.
CW: In the film industry, when you have an idea, you say: “We could get that done .” Or: “I can’t get that done. That's actually mostly true, especially in the negative case. The result is films or series full of inauthentic stories, inauthentic speech, inauthentic images, underlaid with soapy, inauthentic music. They are films that are made because they are made.
SZ: Plus test screenings?
CW: Depends. I've seen a very, very ugly producer come close to flawless beauty after a successful test screening, simply because he was so happy. Why? Because 98 percent of test-watchers had ticked that they had just seen the best movie of their lives... this test-screening hit turned out to be a flop of historic proportions.
SZ: Now that's funny.
CW: Yes, yes.
SZ: Of course, our curious readers are curious to know which film it is. Will they find out?
CW: No.
SZ: And should we see an apple tree towards the end...
CW: Not necessary at all! Like I said, maybe something is changing. Perhaps the business model is reaching its limits in these excesses. Something has to change in order for it to continue. Streaming was a revolution, for sure, but the revolution can't eat its grandchildren.
SZ: Is Los Angeles still the right place then?
CW: I really, really like living in Los Angeles. Just in case it didn't sound Californian enough by now.
SZ: It wasn't always like this, was it?
CW: Not to that extent, no. But I love living there now more than ever. It's a unique collection of people, ideas, opportunities. Plus this beauty of nature. I don't want to miss that anymore. Incidentally, neither do the manners. I'm from Vienna, I like it when people follow the rules to some extent, even if it's just for reasons of a clearly distanced politeness that makes our everyday life a little easier. I'd rather be politely lied to.
SZ: Certainly interesting to come to Berlin in between.
CW: It's not interesting. It's horrible. Especially in winter.
SZ: Oddly enough, this fixation on making money goes hand in hand with great sensibilities, doesn't it? Fear of assault, wrong choice of words, all of that. Is it true that you have to take part in mandatory seminars before you start shooting?
CW: Yes. I don't do that.
SZ: Can you evade that?
CW: I don't know.I withdraw.
SZ: How?
CW: I don't need coaching to behave properly. I lead by example as I follow good example. I was brought up in such a way that I behave much better towards minorities and, by the way, also majorities, than the consciousness of the seminar leader is even able to assess. I could teach the seminar leader good manners .
SZ: Well, a privileged attitude, because of course, keyword economy, you won't do without Christoph Waltz in the end, does he attend the damn training course or not...
Here is a translation of Christoph's interview with Patrick Heidmann featured in the new Esquire Magazine :
Christoph Waltz is looking a little skeptical for our greeting on the terrasse of the time-honored Ausonia Hungaria hotel on the Lido di Venezia. Typical. During our conversation he expresses precise thoughts, formulated moodily. Just as typical.
Mister Waltz, a few years ago I asked if acting was a passion to you. You denied and said it was simply a profession. Is your view still the same?
Well, what do you mean, ‘denied’? I questioned it, or rather, I questioned whether it is something worth worrying about. In general, I think that the so-called passion that now likes to buzz through the vocabulary in conversation is grossly overrated. As if it was only about the extend of my emotions for or against a matter. That doesn’t strike me a particularly valuable or productive approach. Passion is an emotional matter which in my opinion fails to contribute to ascertaining the truth in most cases.
You sound like you have a very pragmatic view of your job.
Yes, I have.
Does that also mean you could live without acting? Or would you be missing something?
I don’t know, I haven’t tried, and I don’t intend to, I’m way too stubborn for that. Whether it is acting or something else, the significance may decrease over time, but what becomes increasingly important is that you deal with something in such detail that you spend a lifetime with it. I have to invest many, many years to reach a certain level. This investment is permanent, it isn’t suddenly completed from which point on I’ll be able to live on the interest. Of course, I suppose I could do that, but I don’t find that very interesting. For that reason alone, it's only logical that I continue to practice what I've been doing for the past 45 years.
Your new film Dead for a Dollar is a classical western in many ways. Do you have a special connection to this iconic genre?
No not at all. I have neither a great knowledge nor a special fascination for it. In general, genre is not a category that particularly interests me. I watch each film individually. Of course, certain regularities are unavoidable in westerns, which makes them a genre. But I don't really think about their requirements. I don't analyze it and I don't read anything about it either, although there is - guaranteed for good reasons - a lot of literature about it. However, I just care about the story at hand.
Do you have certain criteria that you use to decide whether a project or screenplay interests you? Is the story the most important thing? your specific role? Or the person behind the camera?
It's more of an amoeba thing. A combination of many aspects that always fluctuates dynamically. And it still fluctuates dynamically even while a film is being made. That is why I have no strict set of rules I follow point by point to reach a decision.
But are these more head decisions? Or is it mostly a matter of gut feeling? It's difficult to prevent gut feelings from playing a role.
Something that makes sense in every way, but I don't like wouldn't make much sense after all. And if you're thinking about something for too long and you're struggling with it, it's better to let it be.
The director of Dead for a Dollar is Hollywood icon Walter Hill. Does it make a difference for you to work with someone so experienced?
Of course. Not the fact that he is an icon, but the difference lies in what made him an icon. To work with someone who has been working as a director for over 50 years can’t be measured in gold. Few people have so much experience. I find that incredibly attractive. Because the start-up phase, the intermediate phase, the many ups and downs - all of that has long since been overcome. When someone is as experienced as Walter, they approach things in a much more direct way.
Conversely, directorial debuts are not really your thing?
This is actually a completely different situation. And no, they’re truly not my thing. Partially, because I'm not completely inexperienced myself. Certainly, there can be exceptions, with particularly interesting projects, where I think for special reasons that I can really make a good contribution and I'm willing to get involved with it for other reasons too. But as you can see, there are quite a few ifs and buts. Overall, I find it very rewarding to work with very experienced people. Simply because, as I said, the way to the core is a shorter one.
You’ve already directed yourself. Are you still interested in directing something in the future?
Yes, I have plans to do it again. But for now, they remain my plans. To turn them into more, they would have to become the plans of others too.
At the world premiere for Dead for a Dollar you spoke of discipline. Is that the A and O for an actor?
No, in this context it was only about the fact that Walter Hill as a director is a very disciplined worker. But I think taking a certain discipline as a requirement without making a fuss about it is a wonderful thing. It starts with that! All know what they have to do and are willing to do it, under conditions that should not be detrimental to the cause. That’s all. I never meant a Prussian military discipline. Just keep going, sensibly, that’s enough.
During your career, you have certainly come across colleagues who handle things differently. How do you deal with that?
That is certainly happening more and more often. The question is less how you deal with them and more how you get away from them! If, as is now occasionally the case, as the eldest on location, you simply do your job in a disciplined manner, completely independent of the magnificence of the art, then many more pull themselves together. And that's very good.
Why is it becoming more common for others to have a perhaps not-so-solid work ethic?
Because it's becoming more and more important for many people how they feel. Which brings us back to the question of supposed passion.
In Dead for a Dollar your character is asked if he is actually Swedish or Dutch. The dry answer is: I'm an American. Do you now also feel like an American?
No, but I also have no idea how one feels like an American. The culture is certainly becoming more familiar, but that is specifically the Californian culture. The differences within the country are at least as big as they are in Germany. I will never feel like an American. I arrived there much too late for that.
Is your connection to Europe still strong? Do you follow what is happening in the old homeland?
I follow the Bundesliga a bit. And otherwise, when crucial things are pending, such as the elections in Italy or the federal presidential election in Austria.
And the German-language cinema?
If things come my way that interest me, then of course I look at them. But I wouldn't call that active pursuit.
Do you sometimes still get offers for roles in German films?
Occasionally there will be more offers. But, only for films that I would not have accepted even 30 years ago. That's very strange.
Quickly following up because Mikhail Gorbachev died this year. Shouldn't you be in a miniseries starring Michael Douglas as Ronald Reagan?
That is no longer current.
But you will be seen as the great filmmaker Billy Wilder in a film by Stephen Frears, correct?
Yes, that is still happening. But it must be noted that it won’t be a biopic. I wouldn’t have agreed to one.
Why is that?
Because I'm stuck trying to imitate people. The audience then expects mimicry, and that's what an impersonator does. Some are incredibly good at imitating people, but I’m not. I don't like biopics that become a make-up opera that's all about the resemblance. I know there are many who find this fascinating, but it bores me terribly. Billy Wilder & Me is different, a very personal story in which I'm not even supposed to play the main character. The film is not based on a biography but on a novel, the protagonist is a fictional character, and the story is limited to a very specific period of time. That was important to me and deflated my fear of biopics
This was published as part of a ZEIT+ subscription, which is why I had to copy the translated text and post it like this.
Interview: Moritz von Uslar
Pictures: Julia Sellmann
A suite on the 30th floor of the Hotel Waldorf Astoria am Zoological Garden, West Berlin. Wide views of the so big and always shockingly unsightly city. He wears modest clothing (jeans, light blue shirt, gray sweater). He comments on the fist salute, which was common in Corona times, with the world-famous mocking Christoph Waltz smile: “The original reason for shaking hands is to show each other that you don’t have a weapon with you new kind of almost violent gesture." Waltz, born in Vienna in 1956, is today the best-known German-speaking actor in Hollywood and one of the most striking character actors. After three decades in film and television productions in Germany and Austria, he received awards for his portrayals of SS-Standartenfuhrer Hans Landa in "Inglourious Basterds" (2009) and bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Django Unchained (2012), both directed by Quentin Tarantino. Most recently, he starred as the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the new James Bond film. The conversation lasted almost two hours and took place in the early afternoon of February 11, on the Friday of the first week of this year's Berlinale, ten days before Russia recognized the occupied republics of Donetsk and Luhansk and almost two weeks before Putin's attack on Ukraine. King Schultz won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Django Unchained (2012), both directed by Quentin Tarantino. Most recently, he starred as the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the new James Bond film. The conversation lasted almost two hours and took place in the early afternoon of February 11, on the Friday of the first week of this year's Berlinale, ten days before Russia recognized the occupied republics of Donetsk and Luhansk and almost two weeks before Putin's attack on Ukraine.
DIE ZEIT: We don't have a film to promote in this interview, nor is there any other reason. That's actually quite nice.
Christoph Waltz: Yes, that's relaxing.
ZEIT: How does Christoph Waltz - who was probably invited to fifty receptions and parties - experience this year's Berlinale?
Waltz: I didn't have an invitation. A festival where you don't have a film doesn't really require you to attend. I'm only in Berlin for two days and will be gone again early next week.
ZEIT: Now in the third year of Corona and at the end of the pandemic, hopefully soon, has something gotten better in your life? Did you learn something?
Waltz: Individually, the pandemic did not harm me. On the contrary, I gained a lot for myself by decelerating and forcing myself to withdraw from the gears. I often just stood in the middle of the room and looked up into the air. And it was okay - better yet, it was good. I didn't constantly feel like I had to justify my existence. I didn't have to constantly tug at myself and the others.
ZEIT: One was surprised to read that as a Hollywood star you still find the time to direct operas , including at the Antwerp Opera House. Do you feel underutilized?
Waltz: It's entirely up to me what I do to keep myself busy. I don't want to be at the mercy of my agencies.
ZEIT: What are you looking for in opera direction?
Waltz: Music. I try to understand music, always have. With directing at the opera , I have found much more direct access to music than I could have acquired anywhere else with my means.
ZEIT: Can you read scores?
Waltz: There are also different levels. What I can't do is read a score like I can read a book. I'm looking for the conductor's guidance. Among the conductors, I particularly enjoyed working with Manfred Honeck. Because he can empathize with my situation. He showed me and opened up a lot.
ZEIT: A classic educated citizen question in two parts: Is Falstaff of course the greatest Verdi opera? And is Fidelio, as opera connoisseurs often say, something strange and difficult to perform?
Waltz: The expectation that a musical work is based on our horizon and our sensitivities is a shot in the dark. What interests me about the matter - that's where I may differ from one or the other trained opera director: I try to understand the work and not to subordinate it to myself. The fact that Falstaff has a masterful grandeur that is second to none - this fact has to do with the fact that Fidelio , by a very different composer in a very different context at a very different time, had, and still has, trouble finding his way , to do absolutely nothing. The truth is, I found Falstaff wonderfully approachable. And yes, access toFidelio is bulky.
ZEIT: On a private level, which orchestral work or which opera are you working on at the moment?
Waltz: I would like to mention the American composer Mason Bates and his opera The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs .
ZEIT: Maybe a bit pathetic question: Do you do everything in life as a substitute for not becoming a musician?
Waltz: I don't know what to do. Do I do a lot of things in life because I feel like I can't get close enough to music? I didn't think this through carefully. But I like the thought.
ZEIT: As a musician, would you rather sit at the piano or have a cello in front of you?
Waltz: I can imagine many things. I couldn't be a flutist.
"I believe in right and wrong"
ZEIT: For your 65th birthday, Arte hosted a themed evening about the life and career of Christoph Waltz. Strangely enough, I imagine, did you laugh a bit about that?
Waltz: I didn't laugh or cry: I didn't watch it because I wasn't involved. Or: I made it clear from the start that I didn't want to. They then cobbled it together without my intervention.
ZEIT: Big question: Are you Austrian or German, or does that not matter?
Waltz: Of course it doesn't matter. And totally. What I can't give a damn about is what shaped me. Home is what a person can choose just as little as his parents. And if you take that as the starting point of your question, I am of course Austrian.
ZEIT: People who think they know you a little better like to attach the term "cultivated" to you. Do you think that is an appropriate, even a pleasant attribution?
Waltz: I don't know. It's a result of something. I am interested in what could lead to the result, but not so much in the result itself.
ZEIT: Your fine, distinguished speech - almost a synonym for the effectiveness of Christoph Waltz: Is that more of a natural gift or a trained ability?
Waltz: That's the old question of how much is a natural gift in humans and how much is conditioning or conscious striving. I think it's simple: if you're going to express yourself, then you should express yourself clearly.
ZEIT: Your often quoted sentence "I don't have a mission, I just want to be precise": What does that mean?
Waltz: Being precise means considering the subtleties. And not throwing out something that you have neither thought about nor want to see come to fruition.
ZEIT: Do you have early childhood memories of the stage, really of the wooden theater stage boards that mean the world?
Waltz: There isn't much else than this memory, that's the problem. Problem because any kind of restriction can lead to unfree decisions.
ZEIT: You come from Vienna, your maternal grandparents were Burg actors and psychoanalysts, your stepfather was a well-known composer. For those in Hollywood , you must have been almost clichéd what they call "old Europe."
Waltz: I grew up in the world of the stage, if you will. Although I don't want to serve the really bad cliché that the stage is my home in any way.
ZEIT: Were the parents happy when it became apparent that you would become an actor?
Waltz: Absolutely not. There is also no reason to be happy if the children choose this profession. After all, in this respect I was successful with my children: They took up other professions.
ZEIT: In 2009 you, then 52 years old, were cast by Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds - the rest is film history: You received the Oscar for best supporting actor, three years later the second Oscar, again for a Tarantino Movie. Looking back, one might be inclined to underestimate your three-decade-long career before your international breakthrough – you were mainly involved in television films in Germany. Booked well, but not famous – was that a good time too?
Waltz: There is no reason to assume that it was different for me than for other colleagues. I had very good things at my disposal with very good people. And I've done really horrible shit with really horrible people.
ZEIT: Was there a level of suffering?
Waltz: In a way, yes. I've always had a family to support - which is an honorable thing. This rather mundane pressure has kept many from focusing solely on themselves. Elmar Wepper - I hope he forgives me - was always like that Schlosshotel am Wörthersee . And then he played in a film by Doris Dörrie. And everyone said: Look, Elmar Wepper - you can see what a great actor he is. Exactly not! In the Castle Hotel on Lake Wörtherseeyou see what a good actor Elmar Wepper is! Because: To devote oneself to one's task honorably and uprightly in Mist, that is the quality. By the way: I don't believe in the myth of good and bad actors. I believe in right and wrong.
"There were horrible times"
ZEIT: Standing your ground in what you call crap and preserving your dignity: is that an experience you had to make yourself?
Waltz: Please, there were terrible times. I've been stuck on things that just went against everything I want to use as criteria. But I had to do it precisely because I had to earn the money. Specifically: I arrive the day before the shoot and at the hotel they literally push a script change under my door, which made everything different and even worse than what was in the script up to now, and where, looking back, I was even in my script at the time situation would have refrained from agreeing. I call the editor and she tells me in no uncertain terms that I am bound by instructions and therefore obliged to follow the instructions given.
ZEIT: Such an experience - the artistic emergency - sticks in your bones for the rest of your career, no matter how successful you are later on?
Waltz: I don't know if others feel the same way. I feel like this. So I can appreciate what has happened to me and is still happening to me. Which, by the way, doesn't mean that something similar or even worse didn't happen to me in the new situation.
ZEIT: With the "new situation" do you mean your current existence and your professional experience as a Hollywood star?
Waltz: Exactly.
ZEIT: In view of your explosive breakthrough and your almost unbelievably successful career, you could have – one has to put it that way – at least have taken off, but you could also have simply gone insane. I imagine that you have made up a narrative for yourself to explain the course of your career. What is this explanation?
Waltz: I've also been told: You are a role model - an example, an inspiration for young people who are working on their breakthrough. And I said: I am an example for nothing. Inspiration? For what? It is a complete mistake to think that what happened to me can be repeated. "It'll be my turn at some point!" No. It's not your turn. And it won't be your turn either. If it should happen to you at some point, which I certainly hope - even then it wasn't your turn. But it happened to you anyway .
ZEIT: In your words: What happened to you?
Waltz: What happened? A plane never crashes for a single reason. Unless a terrorist set off a bomb. In the event of an incision or disaster of this magnitude, a chain of unfavorable or dangerous events must follow one another.
ZEIT: Are you talking about your breakthrough on the big screen as if it were a misfortune, not the greatest happiness of your life?
Waltz: I describe the dynamics of drastic events. Why should happiness be any different than unhappiness?
ZEIT: One would still like to hear how you look back on this turning point in your life: The audition for Inglourious Basterds with the then legendary director Quentin Tarantino took place here in Berlin in a casting office.
Waltz: That's not difficult to understand. Someone was looking for a specific cast for a specific role that they wrote in a specific way. And then at some point I got to read it. He didn't know I existed, but I knew he and this role existed. It would have been just as possible or even easier that our paths had never crossed. How I then played the role only came about later - I'm happy to be praised for that, because I really think that it was successful, for a change. Another good thing about my decision to never write my memoirs is that I don't have to analyze it in retrospect.
ZEIT: Is that a depressing conclusion for you or a very enjoyable one, all this apparently pointless randomness?
Waltz: It's not oppressive or anything else. First, coincidence is not meaningless. Second, I haven't had unrealistic expectations about my job for years - that's the benefit of growing up in this industry and the world of acting. I could take a shortcut to reality.
ZEIT: How do you say thank you to Tarantino?
Waltz: Exactly with this word - in English then. Gratitude is ideally always expressed in new work. It's not that I feel like I didn't contribute - with all gratitude, of course. Professionalism includes the question: What is good for the matter? And the decision was his.
ZEIT: In an interview you once said: "Hollywood was always the goal." I think that's an amazing statement - because young German actors always have to act as if they were too enlightened for dreams and the jackpot of a great career in the USA.
Waltz: I never saw Hollywood as Olympus, more as an industry – which, like any other industry, produces 95 percent junk. And produces a very few gems.
ZEIT: The end of the Hollywood system is being diligently written about in the arts pages: what Netflix and Amazon didn't break, Corona is apparently doing now .
Waltz: Where do you think the streamers take place? This is Hollywood, the institutionalized American film industry. Nobody has talked about the old studio system, which many still think of as Hollywood, since the 1980s.
ZEIT: As a young man, were you closer to the European auteur cinema of the 1950s than to the New Hollywood of directors like Sam Peckinpah and Peter Bogdanovich?
Waltz: I was fascinated by the names of the golden era of Hollywood, i.e. Europeans who emigrated to the USA in the 1930s and 1940s: Stroheim, Sternberg, Wyler, Lubitsch, Siodmak, Preminger, Lang, Wilder, Zinnemann. There has been a great institution in Vienna since the 1960s, the Austrian Film Museum – of course the museum still exists today – and I was a member there at the age of 15. At least two performances were shown there every day, curated retrospectives, a very carefully selected program, accompanied by lectures and exhibitions, just like a real museum.
"We are all witnessing a cultural crisis"
ZEIT: But now we still have to go through a few questions about the film villain - after all, the role genre for which you stand like no other in Hollywood. Let's see if we can do that - talk about movie villains without sounding corny.
Waltz: The danger is there!
ZEIT: What is the core of a good villain: his sense of humor? His intellect? In your case, his eyes are not blue at all, but brown?
Waltz: The concept of evil is so general that no actor could relate to it.
ZEIT: From your point of view, did Tarantino invent a new type of bad guy or film psychopath?
Waltz: The psychopath is also a term against which I defend myself. Of course, a lot of good characters are psychopathic, that is, unhealthy in the head. But behind this collective term disappear all the very special qualities that I should have in mind to work with them as an actor.
ZEIT: One would like to ask you this comparatively simple question: As an actor, how do you know whether you are acting well? What are you up to?
Waltz: I sometimes find the syllable "Schau" unfortunate in the German term actor: Is someone looking or is someone being looked at? This perspective is unclear, but crucial. I like the second syllable "game" better. The tuer used in most other languages - the actor, l'actrice, el actor - suits me. He or she does. Doing, just incidentally, is something else than making - an actor doesn't do anything, he doesn't produce, he moves, he accomplishes. And back to evil: In order to give the cause the support I am there for, I have to be very selective about what I'm doing. What I do, not howI do. Evil can't be grasped and developed further during the conversation. Unfortunately, many actors try to play their role from the viewer's perspective. That can't work.
ZEIT: Do you see yourself in a German-Austrian tradition in Hollywood? I'm talking about your few great colleagues who were able to gain a foothold in Hollywood: Erich von Stroheim, Gert Fröbe, Curd Jürgens, Helmut Berger, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Udo Kier.
Waltz: Do you mean German-Austrian in contrast to Slovenian-Austrian, Bohemian-Austrian, Hungarian-Austrian? It's very interesting how so-called Hollywood has absorbed European talent. Unfortunately, that is less the case today. Interest in Europe faded at some point – as early as the 1970s and 1980s, when Hollywood made the transition from a principal-run film company to an industry under corporate management .
ZEIT: As a viewer, you have to get the impression that you, at least in your blockbuster roles, are booked for the cynical intellectuals: Wouldn't you even like to play a thoroughly good character - genre subject romantic comedy, a likeable daddy who makes a fool of himself while flirting with a young woman?
Waltz: May I answer that very simply: What should I do with categorizing this generality?
ZEIT: How does a Christoph Waltz get his roles? Do less interesting offers get through to you in these Corona crisis years?
Waltz: We are all observing a substantive, a creative, a cultural crisis - it didn't just exist since Corona. Filling the reservoirs for the streamers is about quantity, not quality. The algorithm evaluates the data of the subscribers - this results in the decision for the next production.
ZEIT: Among the top people in Hollywood: how are roles selected? What strategies are you pursuing, short-term and long-term, in cooperation with your agents?
Waltz: The strategies are frankly the same no matter where you are in this system. Hollywood is still the epicenter for a lot of things – the chatter still happens there, but the real work has long since gone elsewhere. Agencies, too, have long since developed into corporations that work for their own advancement. After all, I have an exceptionally good exchange with my agent.
ZEIT: In the end, Christoph Waltz sits in front of a stack of scripts that his agency has pre-selected, he reads, discards, makes decisions based on gut feeling, no different than Lars Eidinger does?
Waltz: Exactly.
ZEIT: What do you recommend a German director to do to get through to you with a screenplay?
Waltz: Of course, that can only be done through the agency. I'm actually really amazed at what's offered to me in this country. In many cases, these are things that I would never have done before. Why should I do it now?
ZEIT: Are you up for unconventional roles? So, could it be that you suddenly appear in a German art film?
Waltz: Absolutely. A young director from England recently contacted me. She was incredibly persistent, but in such an adorable, charming and original way. She had made a film about a bull who was suddenly separated from his cows by the wall that divided Germany. I was the narrator. And I'm really happy about that.
ZEIT: So we can tell the young talents from the German film schools that they should send you their screenplays?
Waltz: No. When I'm at a film school, I'm supposed to finish school first. And then work. And see if I'm really the genius I think I am.
ZEIT: The question that one can only ask Christoph Waltz among German-speaking artists: is it stupid to be a world star, or is it quite good?
Waltz: No, that's quite good. That's really quite good.
ZEIT: To what extent?
Waltz: Insofar as I appreciate the opportunities that open up to me. If I call somewhere or have someone call me - that's the first step - I can actually count on the meeting taking place. And yet I would not recommend my personal experience to anyone else. That includes the 30 years before that.
"I'm fine when the sun shines"
ZEIT: And your many options never lead to a feeling of powerlessness or depression?
Waltz: It's true that I often think: I can't do everything I have in mind! Not only could time be running out, there is also a lack of know-how. On the other hand, it is also comforting that one individual cannot do everything on his own. It's similar to an orchestra musician: he can't play Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony alone either.
ZEIT: As a face that is recognized all over the world: What about the famous loss of freedom?
Waltz: It's okay.
ZEIT: It's okay, nice answer.
Waltz: The positive experiences actually predominate. It pleases me how the vast majority of people treat me politely, with appreciation and respect. That's a beautiful thing.
ZEIT: How does your life take place between LA and Berlin?
Waltz: I would have to say: on the plane. I'm not in Berlin that much. I keep connections. I don't really have anything to do in Berlin.
ZEIT: Totally floored, is Los Angeles still a great place?
Waltz:Well, yes. Los Angeles is interesting for many reasons, Hollywood may not be at the top of the list. And of course, it is a problem that is often described: the distances and the effort required to cover these distances make it practically impossible to head for more than one destination or a maximum of two destinations per day outside of your neighborhood. I live on the west side of the city - for classical music and opera, for example, I travel to downtown, a district that has developed rapidly over the past 20 years. When I'm in Europe for a longer period of time, I ask myself: What am I actually doing in Los Angeles? And yet, every time I get there, I'm happy. I really like being there. Why? Because it's so incredibly beautiful where I live! As a resident of old Europe, I also simply perceive the wonderful light on the American west coast. I'm fine when the sun shines.
ZEIT: Is it practical in terms of lifestyle, i.e. more relaxed and ultimately more interesting, to deal privately with other stars as a star, at least with publicly exposed people?
Waltz: I'm interested in people who move in other realms of human existence, i.e. outside of my job. Otherwise it will be very hermetic. I still feel that I am not friends enough with non-artistic people. A carpenter belongs to my circle of friends, he's a really outstanding guy. Also a radiologist.
ZEIT: Is the cliché correct that cultural life in Los Angeles takes place much more privately than in Berlin, i.e. behind the famous high garden hedges?
Waltz: In percentage terms, there are certainly no more interesting people in this city than in any city in Germany - but there are simply so many more people overall. And I noticed something else: Those who are really interesting in Los Angeles are absolutely exceptional – that is, they have really diverse talents. And of course, a lot of culture happens in private surroundings. A gallery owner recently invited me to his chamber concert evenings in his rooms. It has the best names in the smallest of circles, but the concerts aren't advertised anywhere. You have to make the connections. As for my interest in opera, I would probably be better off in Berlin or Vienna.
ZEIT: If you're lucky, you can sometimes be seen standing around in front of a bar. Is Berlin a good city to hide away for a bit?
Waltz: I don't think so. Berlin is a good city for going to concerts, a good city for going to museums and a good city for taking the subway. Otherwise I would have to think longer.
ZEIT: Now we've really discussed a lot.
Waltz: Do you think so? I still feel like we missed the point. But you're right , of course: what's the point?
ZEIT: How is your melancholy today?
Waltz: Thanks, good.
ZEIT: Your fellow actor Edgar Selge recently published his much-praised first novel . When will the first book manuscript by Christoph Waltz be auctioned off at the Frankfurt Book Fair?
Waltz: In that respect, I don't have any plans at all.
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