Jamie Foxx Says Quentin Tarantino Was A 'Tyrant' On Django Unchained (But In The Best Way)

"Django Unchained", the eighth movie by Quentin Tarantino, wouldn't have been a hit with a different writer-director attached. By that point, Tarantino had become a trusted brand all to himself, and his name alone was enough to sell a film; like a movie about a freed enslaved person set in the 1850s. Sold as an homage to the Spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s and Sergio Corbucci's "Django," in particular, Tarantino himself didn't necessarily think "Django Unchained" fell into quite the same category as those films. "I don't know if 'Django' is a Western proper," he told the New York Times. "It's a Southern. I'm playing western stories in the genre, but with a southern backdrop."

Will Smith was famously in line to play the lead before eventually passing on the role because it wasn't enough of a star vehicle. Smith would have given a fine performance, but there's one problem. He's from Philadelphia, not the South. Enter Texas native Jamie Foxx, who turned out to be the perfect choice for Django and even rode his own horse, Cheetah, in the film. For the Oscar-winning actor that completely inhabited Ray Charles in the biopic "Ray," getting into the mindset of Django proved a little more difficult than Foxx imagined.

The character of Django has an incredible arc in "Django Unchained," going from prisoner to bounty hunter to hero, all within a matter of months. In a blessed life full of fame and fortune, shaking off some of his natural swagger and charisma wasn't as easy as Foxx initially thought. He was playing the hero from the jump — a creative choice that Tarantino didn't approve of at the start of production. 

'You're Not Jim Brown!'

A key figure in 1970's Blaxploitation films like "Three the Hard Way" and "Slaughter," Jim Brown let Hollywood know that he could attract a big audience to come out to the theater. The combination of Tarantino and Foxx resulted in the largest box office of the director's career, but it took them both a little time to get on the same page creatively. "I was just getting to learn Quentin Tarantino so he was, again, a tyrant," Foxx said on the Howard Stern Show. "'Do not f**k my film up,'" he recalled hearing Tarantino say. Foxx may have been trying to emulate powerhouse performers like Jim Brown or Fred Williamson, which wasn't quite what QT was looking for. 

Foxx made sure to let Stern know that Tarantino was coming from a place of passion, wanting every word to feel authentic. "But that's what you want. You want a director who even if you're going off the cliff you know that you're going off the f***ing cliff." Known for his great impressions over the years, dating all the way back to his "In Living Color" days, Foxx started doing a pretty spot-on version of Tarantino to reenact what happened on set when the actor was trying a little too hard to look cool:

"'You're not Jim Brown! He's a f***ing slave and then, and then, he becomes the hero but lose that s**t.' Door swings open he walks out."

The way that Foxx transitions from the quiet, insecure, defeated Django to becoming one of the fastest guns in the South to rescue his beloved Broomhilda von Shaft (Kerry Washington) from Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) is pretty remarkable. If he had kept that same attitude through all of "Django Unchained," the finale wouldn't have near the impact that it did. Asked if he would ever work with Tarantino again, Foxx didn't hesitate. "A thousand times."

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