Christoph Waltz quotes:

The villain is usually the most interesting part. But it has to be a smart thing. Just dumb cliche villains with a Russian accent and big muscles and a mean face, I don't know. My Russian accent isn't that great, and the muscles aren't that big and the mean face is not enough. You know what I mean? It gets very boring. Tedious stuff.

Ten flashing lights are a nuisance but 500 are fantastic.

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.

You know, I don't talk about the characters that I play. Years ago, I was a little timid about it and I kind of squirmed when I was asked, 'Could you tell us something about your character.' Now with a little self-confidence that comes with the grey beard, I just flatly refuse.

You see, my version of why anyone would want to become an actor is that it's some psychological fixation, something that happened in puberty that you didn't outgrow in time, which is normal. Nevertheless, if you make it a profession, it can be really neurotic.

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

I think Stephen Sondheim is a - and I hardly ever use this word - but this is as close as it gets to a genius.

Stephen Sondheim I am in awe of.

It's easy to not feel misplaced if this tidal wave of appreciation is coming your way.

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

You know, I don't support esoteric approaches to acting.

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.

Becoming an actor is like becoming a father. It's not hard to become one. Making a life of it is the challenge.

There's the beauty of the stage. I don't like filmed theater or opera because you're kind of playing soccer in a hockey game. Either or, they don't do justice to the media and you end up with a hybrid that is purely sensationalistic. Opera is a very theatrical medium that should be seen on a stage with the musicians in the pit in the audience.

It's a wonderful narrative device to bring someone from the outside and look through his eyes if you want to describe the absurdity and preposterous reality that is accepted amongst the ones who are inside.

I'm not really all that familiar with comic book culture.

You can't always do the extraordinary, in between you have to do the ordinary. Because if you didn't, what would constitute the extraordinary?

You get hit over the knuckles enough, you don't stick them out anymore.

By looking into more details of American history, we can make more sense of what's happening today.

One does not contradict the other.Straight-faced is the basis of all decent comedy.

If the shoe fits, you must wear it.

For me, personally, there is one really interesting thing. You're all a bit too young for that, but when you get to a certain level of experience, accumulation of experience you start slowly to once in a while get a whiff of the feeling, I'd love to be twenty years younger but with what I know and have experienced at this point.

My agent is the quickest, sharpest man on earth.

I'm very bad with improvisation. I hate it.

Praise is nothing that accumulates. Praise is a sequence, especially if you've toiled for a long time. Praise does not pile up. So in a way, you can't get too much. I don't consider it to be a quantity that you can measure by volume.

A silly comedy needs a straight guy, and that guy needs to be as straight as possible. The moment you start playing straight you're not straight anymore, you're bent straight, so it really requires the usual serious, straight-forward analysis and research, looking into it and finding the dramatic function, all of what you do until you feel you've collected enough points to safely and securely play the part.

I'm not into weapons. I'm not into cars. I'm not into explosions. I'm scared of all of that.

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

What it really is and what I now have experienced is that, people who take enormous pride in what they're doing - not in their person - that their work ethos is as high as nowhere else.That they love their jobs, they love to do their jobs properly as best they can. And coupled with the financial umph, you know, you get decent results.

I go with the most interesting thing that comes my way,I don't expect it to come from India to tell you the truth, but if it did, fine by me.

You're always being cast for what you've been in last.

Facts can be so misleading, where rumors, true or false, are often revealing.

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.

If I jumped into the cliché, everybody will have seen it before. If I stick to my ignorance a little bit, maybe, maybe it will turn out different. Or maybe a slightly new aspect to a comic book villain.

I don't say things straight into the other person's face. I kind of like to make a joke or a remark and make it digestible or just give a little comment that voices my concern, but is not meant to be a critique, but just a comment so that he understands that I am thinking.

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.

I had to learn how to drive a cement truck because there is a whole car chase with cement trucks, so I had to learn how to drive a cement truck. I don't like these things, but I'm not an idiot. I can do it.

To be fair, on a good project, no matter whether it's improvised or scripted or meticulously prepared, or all up for grabs, it's always, always beyond the safety zone. Every project becomes interesting and exciting once you move beyond that routine. You always aspire to that. It's not that this improvisational mode is the only mode that facilitates that.

I'd sort of acquired somewhat more mature perspective on what my career is and I don't...not anymore...consider fame and fortune my career. I'm not a star. I'm an actor. So in a way, what I want to do as an actor, I would consider good for my career. Does that make sense?

I have nothing to do with comics. I know nothing about comics. I am aware of the importance of comics, but they're not within my world. Not because I feel that I'm above it, but just that micro-surgery is not in my world either. Is that a deficit or is that an advantage?

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.

I have always been so interested in film as a medium.

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 don't like to read novelizations of movies.

I'm trying to be very aware of not repeating myself.

I'm not really all that familiar with comic book culture. Not because I'm such a high brow intellectual and bloody European. But it's just something that I was never into. Not because of any superiority. I don't know why.

I only do what I like to do.

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

Mine is studying script and being very academic and trying to be important.

I worked next to an elephant. And considering that she could step on your toes, it's a good idea to keep a certain distance. It's also a good idea to befriend the trainer.

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

I'm open to working anywhere, but not on anything.

What I liked so much while shooting [a movie], I might not like anymore when I see it or vice versa. The two are connected but not on a causal level.

Effortless [performance] and improvisation are two different things. Just because it's improvised doesn't mean it's effortless and just because it's effortless doesn't necessarily mean it's improvised.

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.'

It's the economics, that's why opera is not dying but gets more and more difficult to put on.