As if any other man could hold top spot on this list? If you'd said the name five years ago, people would have asked 'is that the bloke who invented the dance?' Now, he's known as the infamous villain from Quentin Tarantino's WWII romp, Inglorious Basterds. It was Waltz' first shot at working in an English-language film, although the talented actor demonstrated his penchant for languages by casually switching between French, English, German and Italian and on more than one occasion, within the same scene. One of the most notorious scenes of Tarantino's career is the opening to Inglorious Basterds, where we see Waltz' Hans Landa confront a French farmer he believes his harboring Jews in his house. Waltz amps up the suspense as he quietly imposes his control over his suspect until, without so much as an angry word, he finds out what he wants to know. It was a bold move from Tarantino to have such a talky, multi-lingual start to his 'action movie' but Waltz carries the scene impeccably, exuding equal parts menace and charm. It set the tone for the rest of the movie. Before the first scene had the chance to finish we were all hitting up IMDB to see where else we'd experienced this wonderful actor. Brad Pitt was fantastic as Aldo Raine, but it was Waltz' performance that left everyone talking and shaking their heads in disbelief that they'd never seen him before.
