Christoph Waltz

Cast · Director · Writer

Born

October 4, 1956 · Vienna, Austria

Christoph Waltz is an Austrian-German actor trained at Vienna’s Max Reinhardt Seminar and the University of Music and Performing Arts, later studying with Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler in New York. After two decades in European theatre and television, he gained international recognition with Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (2009), earning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, a distinction he repeated with Django Unchained (2012). Active in both European and American cinema, he has combined acting with directing, including the film Georgetown (2019) and opera productions in Antwerp and Ghent. Waltz has served on juries at Cannes and Berlin and received an Icon Award from the Newport Beach Film Festival in 2024.