Christoph Waltz

A true late bloomer in Hollywood, Christoph Waltz was one of many actors whose genius was overlooked for decades until someone was willing to take a chance on his talent. Quentin Tarantino - himself a fan of the somewhat obscure actor - was just the man to resurrect Waltz's career. A highly regarded stage, television and film actor in Europe since the mid-'70s, Waltz's career finally took off when the irreverent American director tapped him to portray the charming sadist Colonel Hans Landa in his highly-anticipated World War II thriller "Inglourious Basterds" (2009). His layered performance as the multi-lingual, deceptively suave, cold-blooded "Jew Hunter" earned Waltz a coveted Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Suddenly, the Austrian actor was an international star, working with directors like Michel Gondry in the superhero romp "The Green Hornet" (2011) and Roman Polanski in the dark comedy-drama "Carnage" (2011) before rejoining Tarantino and winning a second Academy Award for his role of a bounty hunter in "Django Unchained." Roles as varied as notorious art-world fraud Walter Keane in Tim Burton's "Big Eyes" (2014) and iconic Bond villain Blofeld in "Spectre" (2015) followed. After more than 30 years of steady film and television work in Europe, Waltz's considerable talent was finally recognized by a late-to-the-party Hollywood, and American audiences wanted more.