Christoph Waltz Quotes

You need the villain. If you don’t have a villain, the good guy can stay home.

I only do what I like to do.

I guess there are no real strict rules [in comedy], but I just learn to apply my philosophy about comedy which is, it’s a serious business and the result needs to be funny, not the process.

Comedy is the result of what’s happening, not what people are doing. Because if people are doing comedy. It’s embarrassing. The individual elements have to be straight-faced, serious, realistic with a firm basis. What makes it comedy is a somewhat shifted way to put it together.

I used to hate exposure situations. What is generally referred to as ‘red carpet.’

That’s exactly what I’m driving at. ‘Basterds’ was interesting because it was, in a way, unfamiliar. I thought well, OK. Let’s leave the comfort zone and just risk it. Why not? Because, exactly as you said, in a way, by taking that risk, I make up a little bit for my ignorance in the subject, or rather, the genre.

There are plenty of people over there who understand the difference. And there are plenty of people over here who understand the difference. It’s still one world and it has been for a long time.

I think in Europe, movies are made like a commodity and then sold as art.

I have my brain switched on and I might be thinking something else but we’ve come to an arrangement. That sort of play is maybe easier with someone who also thinks that way. But that is not necessarily a national thing, but maybe a little bit of a cultural thing.

Stephen Sondheim I am in awe of.

There is quite an important director in Germany who I think in the early fifties over here, and then went back, and he said something that’s absolutely true. And it’s more important to repeat that today than it ever was. Not for you, but for us over there it is important. He said, ‘In America they make movies like art, and sell it like commodities. We make make movies like commodities and sell them like art.’

I take praise as not just a reward and a result but also as the beginning of a new process.