Anyone who saw Christoph Waltz’s portrayal of Nazi Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds knows he can play a memorable on-screen villain. Hell, he won a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for the performance.
Waltz also showed that he could play a flawed hero as Dr. King Schultz in Tarantino’s Django Unchained, a performance for which he won another Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
So wouldn’t the Austrian actor make a fantastic adversary for Agent 007 in the 24th James Bond movie? We’re apparently about to find out. According to the UK Daily Mail, Waltz will have a “significant” role in the next Bond film. But as Baz Bamigboye reports, Waltz’s character may be more complex than simply “villain.” A source said he could be “friend, or foe, or a bit of both.”
Nothing wrong with a little mystery, I suppose. Though Waltz would make a magnificent villain. With Javier Bardem as the bad guy in the last Bond film, Skyfall, and Waltz possibly playing the adversary here, the Bond series has really stepped up the casting of villains with Sam Mendes as director. (Actually, that applies to the entire cast.) Both Bardem and Waltz are stars who arguably overshadow Daniel Craig’s Bond on screen.
The next Bond film doesn’t yet have a title, but begins filming in December, working toward a Nov. 6, 2015 release.
