Christoph Waltz

The Vienna-born Oscar Award-winner Christoph Waltz studied at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna and the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York. His career is characterized by outstanding performances in major roles, and he is currently one of the most sought-after actors in Hollywood.

His first engagements were in theatre, at venues including the Schauspielhaus Zurich and the Vienna Burgtheater, and at the Salzburg Festival.

Since the end of the 1970s he has participated in television productions, and has made guest appearances in crime series such as Derrick and Tatort. He has performed in television films such as Der Einstand (1977), König der letzten Tage (1992), Du bist nicht allein — Die Roy Black Story (1996, Bavarian Television Award), Der Tanz mit dem Teufel (2001, Grimme Award) and Todsünde (2008). He made his cinema debut in the black and white film Kopfstand (1981) and the adventure film Fire and Sword (1982).

He made his international breakthrough in 2009 as the Nazi officer Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, which won him the award of ‘Best Actor’ at the Cannes Film Festival and an Oscar as ‘Best Supporting Actor‘. He received his second Oscar for Tarantino’s Western Django Unchained (2012). His other cinema roles have included Cardinal Richelieu in The Three Musketeers (2011), Alan Cowan in Polanski’s adaptation of the play Le Dieu du Carnage (Carnage, 2011) and Walter Keane in Tim Burton’s Big Eyes (2014, nominated for a Golden Globe). He played James Bond’s antagonist in Spectre (2015) and No Time to Die (2021).

His recent films have included Dead for a Dollar (2022) and The Portable Door (2023) along with the action comedy Old Guy (2024). He also appears in Luc Besson’s Dracula: A Love Tale, which is released this summer in French cinemas, and in Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, released in November 2025 on Netflix. In recent years he has also performed roles in series such as Most Dangerous Game, The Consultant and Only Murders in the Building.

He made his debut as an opera director in 2013 at the Opera Ballet Vlaanderen with Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, going on to direct Verdi’s Falstaff (2017). In 2020 he directed Beethoven’s Fidelio at the Theater an der Wien.

Christoph Waltz’s numerous awards include two Oscars, Golden Globes, BAFTA awards, a European Film Award and the Gold Medal in the Arts of the Kennedy Center. In 2014 he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.