HANS LANDA

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009)

ON-SCREEN NAZIS TEND to be cut from a particular Wehrmacht cloth: psychotic (Schindler’s List), deformed (Raiders Of The Lost Ark), cartoonish (The Great Dictator), or all of the above (Captain America: The First Avenger). But SS Colonel Hans Landa was entirely different: verbose; culturally high-minded; multilingual; unrepentant in his love of strudel. He’s a psychopath, certainly, but also disarmingly charming, which makes it all far more disturbing. He finds the ideal (and Oscar-winning) vessel in Christoph Waltz, whose fizzy ebullience and intellect make him ideal to speak Tarantino dialogue. JOHN NUGENT