SAN DIEGO – “Django Unchained” star Jamie Foxx wasn’t the only one playing the title character in his new movie – so was Quentin Tarantino.
“When he would come to the set, and if he was shooting Django that day, he would be Django,” said Foxx, speaking with reporters on the Comic-Con press line for the upcoming film. “If he was shooting [Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Calvin] Candie, he would be Candie.” SAN DIEGO –
Describing Tarantino as (essentially) a whirling dervish of creativity on set (yes, he actually handwrites pages in the middle of shooting), Foxx is also pretty sure the “Inglourious Basterds” helmer is the only one who could inject a slavery drama with shameless genre elements and actually get away with it.
“It’s a Western that acknowledges slavery, but the slave becomes a bounty hunter and then becomes a hero and then becomes a super-action hero,” said Foxx. “So if you look at it, it has a whole lot of layers to it. The language and everything [i.e. the “n-word”] had to be the way it was because that’s really the way it was. And then, only Quentin Tarantino can do what he’s doing to where even though it’s really a touchy subject, there are gonna be times where you laugh out loud. …[When] Django actually goes to confront his masters, and he plays James Brown, ‘Big Payback,’ in the back[ground]…you’ve gotta laugh a little bit at that.”
Still, it had to be a little terrifying for Foxx’s white co-stars, which include DiCaprio and Walton Goggins (playing the sadistic Billy Crash), to call him…you know, that word…even if they were only playing characters.
“Walton would apologize, but after awhile I said ‘stop apologizing,'” said Foxx. “Same with Leo. When we jumped into this, it’s like, ‘we’re gonna get into these characters and be these characters,’ and…I think it was Samuel Jackson that expressed to everyone, ‘This is just another Tuesday, or Wednesday.’ You know…if you approach it like where you’re apologetic to everything…and that’s good that they have that spirit, that they have that inside them that they know that those words are hurtful, but in order for us to get the movie done we really had to go there.”
You can watch the rest of Foxx’s interview in the video above!
“Django Unchained” is slated for release on December 25.