Who was originally considered for the role of Hans Landa in Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds"?

Inglourious Basterds is a 2009 war film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino and starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger and Mélanie Laurent. The film tells an alternate history story of two plots to assassinate Nazi Germany's leadership, one planned by Shosanna Dreyfus (Laurent), a young French Jewish cinema proprietor and the other by a team of Jewish American soldiers led by First Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Pitt). Christoph Waltz co-stars as Hans Landa, an SS colonel tracking down Raine's group and who is connected to Shosanna's past. The film's title was inspired by Italian director Enzo G. Castellari's macaroni combat film The Inglorious Bastards (1978).

Tarantino originally sought Leonardo DiCaprio to be cast as Hans Landa, before deciding to have the character played by a native German-speaking actor. The role ultimately went to Austrian Christoph Waltz who, according to Tarantino, "gave me my movie" as he feared the part was "unplayable".

Christoph Waltz (born 4 October 1956) is a German-Austrian actor and director, mainly active in the United States. His breakout role came in Inglourious Basterds. He would later collaborate with Tarantino once again in 2012, where he played bounty hunter, King Schultz, in Django Unchained.