The one thing Christoph Waltz hates doing on set: “I have academic objections”
Christoph Waltz has given some of the finest movie performances of the 21st century so far.
Through his two collaborations with Quentin Tarantino, he gave the world a complicated hero in Dr King Schultz for Django Unchained, and a truly terrifying villain in Hans Landa, the sadistic heart and soul of Inglourious Basterds. Add in the rest of his insane body of work, and there’s a reason why people love him so much.
One of Waltz’s less-than-stellar roles came in the film Horrible Bosses 2, a sequel to the successful yet mediocre comedy from three years earlier that reunited the heroes of the previous plot as they attempt to pull off yet another ‘get rich quick’ scheme. Waltz plays Bert Hanson, a billionaire who screws the primary gang out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, whose son, played by Chris Pine, is then kidnapped by the group in revenge.
It might not have won him any Oscars, but for Waltz, there was one component of working on the project that made his skin crawl. At a press conference to promote Horrible Bosses 2, the Austria-born star was the only cast member who didn’t have a wacky story about a moment they’d improvised on set. As he later explained to Now Toronto, this is because he has a serious issue with not following the script.
“I have sort of academic objections,” he revealed, “I’m not the writer. Why would I, in the best case, interfere with the writer, and in the worst case, help the writer out? It’s not what I do. If you want me to write a script, ask me to write a script. I don’t know whether I can do it, but that’s a clear deal. But don’t put a script in front of me and then ask me to do it differently. Put a different script in front of me.”
At first glance, this might seem like Waltz being a bit of a buzzkill, for some of the greatest scenes in movie history have been generated on the spot. While a script is an important part of the filmmaking process, actors shouldn’t feel like they’re bound to it completely.
A good actor should know when to insert their own creativity into a part, to put their own spin on a character, and while this is less of an issue in the hyper-controlled world of film, stage actors sometimes have no choice but to improvise when something goes wrong.
That being said, he does have a point. In the very basic sense of things, it’s a writer’s job to lay the groundwork for a scene, and then it’s an actor’s job to bring their words to life. There’s room for a little bit of leeway, sure, but actors shouldn’t be expected to come up with ideas entirely on their own. Even Robin Williams, perhaps the most prolific and beloved improviser of all time, didn’t go off-script in all of his movies.
Regardless of whether you agree with Waltz, it’s clear he’s not going to be changing his mind any time soon, so if you’re thinking of booking him for your improv comedy show, you’d best look elsewhere.
