Quentin Tarantino has revealed that he almost pulled the plug on his 2009 release Inglourious Basterds [sic] because he had such a hard time casting the role of Colonel Hans Landa, which eventually went to Christoph Waltz.
Waltz went on to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the film.
Speaking about the difficulty in casting the role, Tarantino said he was getting ready to scrap the project because he didn't want to make it without the perfect actor.
"I didn't want a Dutch guy playing the German Nazis. I didn't want the Swedish guy playing the German Nazis. So bye bye, Max von Sydow. No thank you, Rutger Hauer. I wanted Germans playing Germans, speaking German... I wanted every country to represent their own team, more or less," Tarantino is quoted by Variety as saying during a career retrospective in Israel.
Tarantino went on to say that as soon as Waltz walked through the door "it was obvious" that he was the right man for the job.
"I was getting to be kinda worried and unless I found the perfect Landa, I didn't want to make the movie. I was literally emotionally preparing myself to pull the plug. Then Christoph Waltz walked in... And it was just obvious he was the guy," he said.
"He could do everything we wanted. He was just amazing. We were ecstatic when he finished. We were just vomiting all over him, 'Oh my God, you were amazing, you were fantastic. Oh my God. Thank you, thank you, thank you'."
Tarantino and Waltz reunited for 2012's Django Unchained, which saw the German-Austrian actor earn his second Oscar for his portrayal of bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz.
We really spoke to Christoph Waltz about his role in The Legend of Tarzan, which is in cinemas now. Watch it by clicking the video link.
