A pub conversation about Quentin Tarantino’s best ever character is one that could quite easily leave you five pints deep and without a unanimous verdict.
A quick glance at the filmmaker’s filmography throws up many contenders. Are you rooting for Samuel L. Jackson’s Bible-quoting Jules Winnfield in the seminal Pulp Fiction, Uma Thurman’s ruthless assassin, The Bride, from Kill Bill, or maybe the Reservoir Dogs’ sadistic Mr Blonde from 1992’s Reservoir Dogs?
We really don’t feel confident enough to put one character above the rest, but luckily the man himself has gone and done it for us.
Speaking at the Jerusalem Film Festival, where he was picking up a lifetime achievement award, Tarantino said murderous Nazi maniac Colonel Hans Landa from Inglourious Basterds tops the list.
“Landa is the best character I’ve ever written and maybe the best I ever will write,” he said. “I didn’t realise [when I was first writing him] that he was a linguistic genius. He’s probably one of the only Nazis in history who could speak perfect Yiddish.”
The director said that the movie may never have seen the light of day had Christoph Waltz not auditioned at the last minute, but as soon as he did, Tarantino knew he had found his man.
“I was getting worried. Unless I found the perfect Landa, I was going to pull the movie. I gave myself one more week and then I was going to pull the plug. Then Christoph Waltz came in and it was obvious that he was the guy; he could do everything. He was amazing, he gave us our movie back.”
The opening scene of Inglourious Basterds – a chilling 15-minute interrogation that sees Landa arrive at a remote dairy farm in France where he suspects to find a hiding Jewish family – is one the most memorable in all of Tarantino’s movies, and Waltz’s overall performance won him a ‘Best Supporting Role’ Oscar.
