Christoph Waltz Says Marlon Brando ‘Mythology’ Is ‘Ridiculous’ and ‘Annoying’

Samantha Bergeson
·2 min read
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Christoph Waltz is calling out the “posthumous sanctification” of late legendary actor Marlon Brando.

According to Waltz, the revelry around Brando’s legacy is “annoying,” to not mince words.

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“Now it’s Brando’s 100th birthday. I read two articles and I found them both really annoying, and this posthumous sanctification […] to make him […] a mythology,” Waltz told Interview magazine while in conversation with Caleb Landry Jones. “And it’s ridiculous, because he was a ham.”

Waltz added of Brando, “In the beginning he was fantastic. No one had ever seen anything like it.”

However, Waltz also called Brando’s performance in “The Missouri Breaks” “difficult to watch.” He added that Brando’s reputation of being “difficult” on sets, or accusations of inappropriate conduct on the set of “The Last Tango in Paris,” did not affect his perspective on Brando’s acting ability.

“I don’t care about that one bit,” Waltz said when Jones referenced Brando’s alleged “difficult” professional demeanor.

Said Jones, “I remember hearing you [Waltz] talk about Brando and going, ‘It’s frustrating and self-absorbed.’ You’d think after a year on stage [for ‘Streetcar’] you’d have something. But then I think that created some of the frustrations that are in the film.”

The actor added that while Brando is “just all over the place” in “The Missouri Breaks,” there was still “logic to the madness.”

Jones said, “I know people say he’s ‘difficult’ and all, but I don’t know if the folks he was working with were always ready to… There’s that great YouTube video behind the scenes of ‘The Score’ with [Robert] De Niro and Brando doing a few takes in a row, and Brando’s just grasping at straws for anything that’s alive, anything that wasn’t his. Maybe it’s selfish for Brando to work this way.”

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