Christoph Waltz Once Had a Director Throw a Chair at Him Because of a Mistaken Affair
Actor Christoph Waltz has become a popular name ever since his breakthrough role in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. But during his ascent in Hollywood, Waltz came across a few filmmakers he didn’t exactly have the best time with.
One such filmmaker even attempted to physically attack Waltz after an alleged affair.
Christoph Waltz thought about becoming a singer before getting into acting
Waltz was already a veteran and established actor before his mainstream role as Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds. He’d been working in film and television since the mid to late 70s, and has since been growing both his portfolio and reputation. Before pursuing acting, however, Waltz briefly had another profession in mind.
“For a while, I couldn’t decide whether or not I should pursue singing in the opera or acting. And I’m glad that I chose the latter because I wasn’t a very good singer,” he said.
It would take a while before Waltz would achieve the monumental success he’d eventually end up experiencing. But he kept pursuing his dream for acting out of stubbornness rather than passion.
“I didn’t know how else I would make a living,” Waltz said in a 2019 interview with The Talks. “I couldn’t come up with anything else. It’s the same in anything, for that matter, whether it’s a job, a relationship, even a hobby that you follow for your own amusement: eventually, you get to the point where perseverance is what’s needed, not passion, if you want to get ahead.”
Waltz asserted that his perseverance was greater than his passion, and more instrumental in his career. Unlike other actors, he didn’t consider himself a passionate actor by nature. He even felt too much passion could be a bad thing depending on the field someone finds themselves in.
“It’s my profession, no different than it is for any other profession. In medicine, the best caregivers are those without passion. The doctors that are too passionate are very often the ones who make serious mistakes,” he said.
Christoph Waltz once had a director throw a chair at him because of a mistaken affair
Waltz perhaps needed that same perseverance when dealing with filmmakers who rubbed him the wrong way. In an interview he conducted with Newsweek not too long ago, the actor confided that dealing with unpleasant directors was all too common.
“Thousands,” Waltz said of all the bad directors he’s had. “Every other director is a nightmare boss.”
It especially bothered Waltz when he had to deal with these kinds of filmmakers while doing theater work.
“The excitement for the premiere [and] the adrenaline will help you, but what do you do on the second night? You think, ‘I’m stuck. And this, you know, [person] is escaping scot-free,” Waltz said. “Or discussions with directors, with producers, sometimes even with writers, where you say, ‘Sorry, that doesn’t really make sense.’”
While doing promotion for Jason Bateman’s Horrible Bosses 2, Waltz confided there were even times when altercations with directors turned physical.
“I had a director throw a full glass of beer at me,” Waltz once told Entertainment Tonight. “I [also] had a director throw a chair at me because he thought I had an affair with his wife.”
How Christoph Waltz handles confrontation now
Waltz’s way of handling altercations has changed over the years. The Django Unchained star credits this change to his own maturity.
“As a young testosterone bomb I take on the fight,” Waltz said. “Now I say, ‘Mhmm mhmm mhmm.’ I know they can’t see the difference anyway. You know I run along and take a step back,” he said.
But dealing with aggressive directors wasn’t always an issue if the filmmaker knew what they were doing.
“Unless you have someone, and I’m lucky, it has happened often to me, that someone makes sense. And you trust what they say. [You think] this is what I want to follow, because I learned from it,” Waltz said.
