Few actors have become as synonymous with malicious businesspeople as Christoph Waltz. After his Oscar-winning turns in Quentin Tarantino‘s Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained, Waltz has played dastardly villains of all sorts in everything from James Bond films to the recent small-screen remake of The Most Dangerous Game. In a slightly different role, Waltz portrays a different sort of bad guy in the new Prime Video series The Consultant. Based on the novel by Bentley Little, The Consultant is a series ideally suited for Waltz’s signature style while also blending elements from the other creative members of the team on this project.
Developed by Tony Basgallop, co-creator of the M. Night Shyamalan series Servant, and with the first episode directed by WandaVision director Matt Shakman, The Consultant follows the video game company CompuServe who lose their founder in a tragic accident. When consultant Regus Patoff (Christoph Waltz) shows up, his bizarre approach to leading the company begins to make waves. That leads employees Craig (Nat Wolff) and Elaine (Brittany O’Grady) to try and figure out who this mysterious consultant is and what his plans involve.
I got to talk about The Consultant with the cast and crew of the dark comedy thriller. Christoph Waltz talked about the fun of playing the devilish Patoff and why they didn’t use the character’s trademark bowtie in the novel. Creator Tony Basgallop talked about the difference in making this series compared to Servant. Director/producer Matt Shakman talked about making this series in half-hour chapters rather than the traditional hour-long drama. On the cast side, Brittany O’Grady talked about the difference in making this series compared to her role in The White Lotus. Aimee Carrero talked about shifting from The Menu to this project and how the two dark satires were similar. Nat Wolff also talked about approaching this series and how it may have been his “hold my beer” project compared to his brother Alex in Hereditary. Check out the full interviews in the embed above.
The Consultant premieres on February 24th on Prime Video.
