The Glorious Christoph Waltz

The quite glorious Christoph Waltz has seen overnight success thanks to his loathsomely compelling portrayal of a Nazi official in Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds, a role for which he recently won a shiny gold Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

Waltz, 53, has only just begun to make his mark on the film industry. He is set to direct the German feature-length film Up and Away (Auf und Davon, in German) for which he wrote the script and is loosely based on the novel by Meike Winnemuth and Peter Praschi.

The story is about a dating show host who becomes conflicted with feelings for one of the contestants of the show.

His directing premiere isn’t the only project on which Waltz has been working. He will be on camera for the movie Water for Elephants (2011) as an animal trainer, a role for which he gave up the opportunity to act as Sigmund Freud in The Talking Cure, which is also set to release in 2011.