Christoph Waltz is no stranger to playing villains, but he has always done it on the big screen. For his first venture into television, Waltz joins Liam Hemsworth in Quibi’s actioner, Most Dangerous Game, an entertaining and handsomely produced series about a man desperate to make money to take care of his family. Whenever we know Waltz is playing an antagonist, we know we are in for a treat, but he brings something different to a man who might actually want to help Hemsworth’s character survive.
When Waltz’s Miles Sellars proposes The Hunt to Hemsworth’s Dodge, you find yourself almost wanting to participate yourself. Waltz is so charming and convincing, and there is a bluntness to what he is offering. Dodge is dying, so what does he have to lose? Take of your family while you can Miles insists.
If this were a big blockbuster, Miles would introduce the game and fade away, but Most Dangerous Game wisely keeps Miles around as he is a voyeur in his own business. Miles isn’t screaming in a control room to see Dodge slaughtered by the people who can afford to engage in The Hunt. It makes us question whether Miles is even a villain at all.
Awards Daily: Quibi is such a new platform. There’s nothing really like it. What type of feelings did you have when you heard about the project or was it not different for you at all?
Christoph Waltz: It was completely different. It’s a form I’ve never seen before. I’m very much into dramatic forms and dramatic structure and construction. I’ve never seen this before.
AD: I’ll be honest in that I didn’t know how a big action series would fit into smaller episodes. But I got so into it. I watched it all in one sitting.
CW: At first, I was a little skeptical—I’m a skeptic anyway. I was worried that would drag it out and chop it off. On regular series, they can go on and on and the interest is to drag it out as long as it can. Not in this case. They invented a new form and a new manner of narrative. I found that fascinating.
AD: It made me want even more. Some of the episodes are ten minutes and some are shorter, so it’s enough of a tease to want me to keep watching.
CW: Yes.
AD: In the first episode, Miles and Dodge talk about their fathers in their first meeting. I was wondering what you think Miles’ father would think of his version of the American dream?
CW: (laughs) That’s a good questions. I think that since Miles’ father, as told by Miles as needed, is nowhere near Hamlet’s father’s ghost. If you understand what I mean.
AD: I do.
CW: There’s the ghost of the paternal influence and the superego that directs the needle and moral compass. Not with this. His father doesn’t exist. It’s a craft invention to get under Dodge’s skin and establish some form mutuality to facilitate a trust. And initiate a process that will draw him in. It’s a devious invention, that father. Miles’ father is probably some innocent clerk at some insurance company or retired somewhere in a bourgeois suburb, middle-class life tending to his backyard. It could be anything.
AD: The entire season I kept wondering if he was real.
CW: The father he invokes is an invention or a device. Who knows!
AD: I love the scenes where we get to see Miles watching Dodge’s progress throughout The Hunt. You really have a hunt of your own when you’re reeling Dodge in. Do you think Miles enjoys watching the game play out more or getting someone to participate?
CW: You’re absolutely right. The reeling someone is the creative part. Watching the game is administration or supervision. It ables Miles to find a candidate for the next game and then it’s just executive supervising the operation. The creative bit for a character like that is to prepare to reel in an innocent soul and deceive them to the degree that he thinks it’s the best for himself.
AD: I kept wondering how Miles would get me to play. There’s such an ease that you bring to the proposition that is very charming. You seduce the viewer some too.
CW: Well, thank you. To get into this person’s mind and his circumstances is to find the soft spots and the sensitive point to hook into him. That’s the fun part of doing something like that.
AD: I think the relationship between Miles and Connell is so interesting. Miles is the boss and Connell loves what he does in tidying up this big messes. Talk to me about that relationship.
CW: I agree. That’s a great character. Someone who stepping behind his function. Hey, I don’t count, but I do agree to do what is laid out by people who hired me. Yet that doesn’t mean there is no personality behind it, and that’s where these two men connect. The interesting part about this connection is that they connect on a personal level and almost an eye level. Miles might be a more of an initiator and there is a hierarchy behind it. Maybe Miles is the boss in it? Agreed. But that doesn’t mean that the relationship is exclusively defined by these parameters. There’s plenty of talkback and differing opinions and convincing the other one. They know that they need each other despite of that hierarchy. They do it voluntarily and it makes a lot of money for them. If people are good at what they are doing, they work well together and respect each other.
AD: So all about the work?
CW: Well, not all about the work, but it’s what they agreed to do. One of the old American sayings that I love so much is ‘A job worth doing is a job worth doing well.’
AD: When the big twist comes at the end of the season, Dodge tells Miles, “You’re insane” and you reply with, “All the greats are.” It’s almost a throwaway line and it made me think that Miles has been told that during every hunt. Does Miles thinks he’s one of the greats? How does he see himself?
CW: You’re picking up on really interesting points here. That’s what makes him interesting. I don’t think he himself considers himself insane. He does certainly see how someone on the receiving end of this could feel that way. I’m sure you’re right—he hears it every time. Miles knows that what he does is very unusual.
AD: That’s an understatement.
CW: But it’s done by mutual consent. The trickery is not really the main incentive here and, yes, the person being hunted is insane. It is insane! But that doesn’t mean that Miles is insane. I guess Miles thinks that most of the hunters are, though, because they are. What Miles does works.
AD: I love how the show ends. Miles tells Dodge to enjoy his new life. Would Miles change the hunt for the next time? Or is it such a well-oiled machine that it’s better to not mess with it?
CW: I think it depends on the hunters and the personalities involved. That’s what Miles does very well. He can put together a hunt as an event, and I’d think that the customers are kings. He has to watch that the hunt is as attractive for the hunters since they are playing the insane amounts of money. Talk about insanity.
Most Dangerous Game is now streaming on Quibi.
