Leonardo DiCaprio had difficultly using racial slurs in Django Unchained until Samuel L. Jackson offered some good ol’ family friendly advice.
Calvin Candie is one of the most reprehensible villains of modern cinema, and Leonardo DiCaprio gave a powerful performance as the villainous slave owner in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. However, the actor did struggle with Candie’s use of racial slurs, which were very prevalent in Tarantino’s script. In fact, Jamie Foxx told Vanity Fair that DiCaprio even had to stop a read-through of the script because of it.
“The subject matter. The N-word, specifically. Leo had a hard time saying the N-word,” Foxx explained. “We’re doing a read and Leo says, ‘Hey, guys. Cut! I just can’t do this. This is not me.’ Samuel L. Jackson goes, ‘Say that shit, motherf***er! It’s just another Tuesday. F*** them.’” You can always count on Jackson for some good family-friendly advice.
Foxx also helped DiCaprio get into character. “I told Leo that in slavery days we would never talk to each other,” Foxx said. “So I’m not your friend. I’m not Jamie Foxx. I’m Django. And as I told him, you won’t really be able to play that character until you understand what slavery is about. It was tough. it was a horrific. So the next day I see Leo and I say ‘what’s up’ to him. ‘L? L, What’s up?’ He don’t speak to me. He’s ready. Everybody started digging in.“
Jaime Foxx can currently be seen starring alongside Cameron Diaz in Back in Action, a Netflix action comedy in which they play two former CIA agents who are dragged back into the world of espionage when their cover is blown. It’s also the movie which Foxx was filming when he had a brain bleed that led to a stroke and mouths of recovery. Unfortunately, our own Chris Bumbray wasn’t too impressed with the movie, saying it’s all too familiar to the countless other action comedies on streaming services. “It’s the kind of movie you can throw on in the background, not pay too much attention to and perhaps walk away slightly amused by – but not more than that,” Bumbray wrote. “Then again, I suppose that’s exactly what Netflix wanted.” You can check out the rest of his review right here.
Originally published at https://www.joblo.com/django-unchained-leonardo-dicaprio/
