Trivia

Native language is German. Is fluent in English and French and is skilled at mimicking Italian speech.

The first actor to win an Oscar for acting in a Quentin Tarantino film. He received Best Supporting Actor for both Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Django Unchained (2012). He remained the only actor to win an Academy Award in a Tarantino film until Brad Pitt won for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in 2020.

Is only one of seven actors who have a 2-0 winning record when nominated for an acting Oscar, his two wins for Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Django Unchained (2012). The others are Luise Rainer for The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Good Earth (1937); Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind (1939) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951); Helen Hayes for The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931) and Airport (1970); Kevin Spacey for The Usual Suspects (1995) and American Beauty (1999); Hilary Swank for Boys Don't Cry (1999) and Million Dollar Baby (2004); and Mahershala Ali for Moonlight (2016) and Green Book (2018).

Despite being born in Austria, he was born with German citizenship (and kept it all his life) since his father was German.

Both his Oscar-winning performances were directed by Quentin Tarantino. This makes him one of four actors to win two Oscars under the same person's direction. The other three are: Walter Brennan for Come and Get It (1936) and The Westerner (1940) (both directed by William Wyler), Jack Nicholson for Terms of Endearment (1983) and As Good as It Gets (1997) (both directed by James L. Brooks) and Dianne Wiest for Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and Bullets Over Broadway (1994) (both directed by Woody Allen).

Was originally cast as Sigmund Freud in A Dangerous Method (2011), but dropped out of the project in order to film Water for Elephants (2011). Viggo Mortensen was later cast instead.

Lives in London, but his longtime companion, costume designer Judith Holste, and their daughter live in Berlin.

Is one of 14 actors to have won the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Critics' Choice Award, Golden Globe Award and SAG Award for the same performance. The others in chronological order are Geoffrey Rush for Shine (1996), Jamie Foxx for Ray (2004), Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote (2005), Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland (2006), Javier Bardem for No Country for Old Men (2007), Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood (2007) and Lincoln (2012), Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight (2008), Colin Firth for The King's Speech (2010), Christopher Plummer for Beginners (2010), J.K. Simmons for Whiplash (2014), Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant (2015), Sam Rockwell for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), and Gary Oldman for Darkest Hour (2017).

Counts Federico Fellini's 8½ (1963) as one of his all-time favorite films, having seen it numerous times since his teens.

He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6667 Hollywood Boulevard on December 1, 2014.

Is the only Austrian actor (born in Vienna) to win two Oscars.

He, Marcia Gay Harden and Regina King are the only three actors to win an Oscar without receiving a SAG nomination for the same performance.

Is one of six performers to win an Oscar playing a character that mostly spoke in a foreign language (for his performance in Inglourious Basterds (2009)). The others are Sophia Loren, Robert De Niro, Roberto Benigni, Benicio Del Toro and Marion Cotillard.

He loves opera. His favorite opera composer is Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti.

Pictured on an 80c Austrian postage stamp issued 12 July 2017.

In 2013, he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Quentin Tarantino's anti-slavery western Django Unchained (2012), where he plays a bounty hunter who opposes the enslavement of the blacks. The next year, he presented the Best Supporting Actress Oscar to Lupita Nyong'o, who won for her performance as a slave in Steve McQueen's anti-slavery drama 12 Years a Slave (2013). In addition to this, his Oscar for Django was presented to him by Supporting Actress winner Octavia Spencer, who had been awarded the previous year for her performance in The Help (2011), focused on the racism against blacks.

Similar to Robin Williams, most of the villainous characters Waltz has played have been clean-shaven, while most of the protagonists he has played have sported beards or some form of facial hair.

Is divorced from his first wife, Jackie, an Ashkenazi Jewish psychotherapist born in Manhattan, New York, New York County, New York. They have three adult children: Miriam Waltz, Leon Waltz, a Rabbi, and Rachel Waltz, one of his daughters being an Architect.

He played the small part of a 'German spy' in the British TV-Movie link=tt0097446]Goldeneye (1989) (TV)[/link] about the life of James Bond creator Ian Fleming. Waltz was an unknown actor then. Fleming was played by Charles Dance. 26 years later Waltz would appear in Spectre (2015) in the iconic role of James Bond's greatest villain: 'Ernst Stavro Blofeld'.

He is the first actor to appear in the James Bond franchise to have won two Academy Awards.

Along with Christopher Walken in A View To A Kill (1985) and Javier Bardem (in Skyfall (2012)), he is one of three Oscar-winning actors to play a main Bond villain. Benicio Del Toro, who appeared in Licence to Kill (1989) as a henchman of the main villain, won his Oscar after appearing in the Bond film.

Made his stage debut at the Schauspielhaus in Zurich (1982).

Studied acting at the Max Reinhardt-Seminar in Vienna and the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute in New York.

Resides in Berlin, Germany.

Son of set designers Johannes Waltz and wife Elisabeth Urbancic.

His stepfather Alexander Steinbrecher had previously been the stepfather of director Michael Haneke by his marriage to actress Beatrix Degenschild.

Is one of four consecutive Oscar winners in the Best Supporting Actor category whose name begins with Chris, the other actors being Christian Bale and Christopher Plummer. Waltz won twice.

He is related, by marriage, to famous actress, beauty queen, and inventor Hedy Lamarr. Hedy's mother was a first cousin of Friederike Persicaner, who was married to Christoph's grandfather Rudolf von Urban. Friederike, who was Jewish, was hidden by Rudolf from the Nazis during WWII.

Alumnus of Stella Adler Studio of Acting.

He is the only actor who portrayed Bond villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld who is still alive.