In a dramatic real-life scene at the Cannes Film Festival, an intruder interrupted a French-television interview with Christoph Waltz to fire shots at the actor and threaten him with a grenade. Incredibly, both of the shots the man fired were blanks and the grenade was fake.
Waltz and fellow interviewee Daniel Auteuil were quickly hustled away from the scene by security officers.
Naturally, Waltz was shaken by the event.
“The police have him. They tackled him to the ground,” Waltz told The Daily Mail shortly after the scare. “I don’t know who he was or where he came from or what his problem was.”
A French police source said the attacker seemed to be crazy. The officer added there were no bullets in the gun and the grenade was just a dummy. However, the attacker was also carrying a knife.
“I’m fine there’s nothing to worry about now,” Waltz said hours afterward.
Although everything ended well, the incident will likely heighten security efforts at the popular film festival — particularly as more than $1 million in jewels were stolen from a Cannes hotel just the night before.
As for Waltz, the Academy Award-winning star of two Quentin Tarantino films has been exposed to plenty of gun violence — just of the safe, cinematic variety. Hopefully it will stay that way in the future.
