With Will Smith looking less and less likely to be the A-list face of Quentin Tarantino's racially charged spaghetti Western, Django Unchained, attention has now turned to Leonardo DiCaprio, rumored last week to be up for the villlain role. It was Jeff Goldsmith who first tweeted the possibility of DiCaprio joining, and now tonight Deadline has confirmed the actor is in the early stages of discussions.
The role he'd be up for is Calvin Candie, who we had known pretty much just as an evil slave owner. Deadline offers more info, stating that Candie is the owner of Candieland, a club that utilizes female slaves as whores and male slaves in brutal death matches. Candie takes posession of Django's wife in a card game, forcing the freed slave to fight to get her back, teaming up with a German bounty hunter named Schultz. Christoph Waltz, who won an Oscar in Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds
, is expected to play Schultz. Samuel L. Jackson has been mentioned to possibly be up to play Candie's right hand man, a valet who keeps the other slaves in check. Tarantino had been trying to secure DiCaprio's involvement in Basterds a couple of years ago, but things never panned out. There was talk of him taking on the Schultz role, but it proved to be a better fit for Waltz. Candie is said to be a showstopping villain in the same frame as Landa from Inglourious Basterds. If so, expect to see DiCaprio's name mentioned when awards start getting handed out.
With the arrival of DiCaprio it solves one of Tarantino's big holes, which was to have a major star fronting the film. That was supposed to be Will Smith's job, as he'd been Tarantino's primary choice to play Django. But that doesn't appear to be happening, and we're already hearing other names crop up. The first was Idris Elba, who tweeted a couple of weeks ago about meeting a "controversial" director about an important film. He's now been confirmed as being in consideration for the role, which would be awesome if you ask me. The other two new names are completely out of left field: Jamie Foxx and Chris Tucker.
Yes, THAT Chris Tucker. Rush Hour
Chris Tucker. He's not someone I think anyone would peg as a physical presence on screen, unless it's for physical comedy. His last film was Rush Hour 3
, which he had to be dragged out to do with the promise of a fat pay day. There won't be any fat pay checks here, so why would Tucker consider it? He and Tarantino are known buds, but that doesn't seem like enough reason to me.What do you think? Do you want to see Leonardo DiCaprio working with Tarantino? Who do you want to see play Django?
