Quentin Tarantino Didn’t Cast Idris Elba in ‘Django Unchained’ to Avoid ‘Phony Accents’ in the Film
Quentin Tarantino considered many actors for Django Unchained before landing on Jamie Foxx. Idris Elba was reportedly in the running for the role as well. But Tarantino axed the actor from the casting process early.
Quentin Tarantino confirmed that Idris Elba was briefly in the running for ‘Django Unchained’
Tarantino considered a list of some of Hollywood’s top stars for his action feature Django Unchained. He initially had Will Smith in mind for the part, but Smith turned the role down, opening it up for other stars to secure. The Wire alum Elba had a brief opportunity to appear in the Tarantino flick. But Tarantino shot the actor down early since he was British.
“Yeah, Idris is British and this is an American story. I think a problem with a lot of movies that deal with this issue is they cast British actors to play the southerners and it goes a long way to distancing the movie,” Tarantino once told The Sun (via Female First). “They put on their gargoyle masks and they do their phony accents and you are not telling an American story any more. They are just making hay of it, whether it be James Mason in Mandingo or Michael Caine in Hurry Sundown, they get British actors to do this.”
And although Elba might have been disappointed that he’d lost out on Django Unchained, he still appreciated the opportunity.
“Hey, you know I think that Quentin has a wonderful process of making his films, and seeing actors, and deciding who could do what is a big part of that. And I was happy to meet him about it,” Elba once told MTV News.
Jamie Foxx tried to psyche Idris Elba out of starring in ‘Django Unchained’
Foxx wasn’t sure whether or not he’d star in Django Unchained. Before he clinched the part, he was concerned that Tarantino would pick Elba for the highly coveted role. So the Oscar-winner tried to talk Elba out of the movie early in a chance encounter.
“’Your beautiful black ass ride up on that horse, it’s gonna be problems for everybody,’” Foxx recalled telling Elba in an interview with TIFF.
But when Foxx got a hold of the script, he was able to connect to it on a personal level and felt right for the role. This was in large part due to his Texas upbringing, where he was somewhat used to the language used in Django.
“But I understand that me being from Texas coming from a Southern place, it wasn’t as heightened as you guys listened to it. It was sort of like just another Tuesday. I had already learned the text and everything, I performed it in front of him. But here’s what I think won him over; I had my own horse,” he said.
Quentin Tarantino won’t be casting a British actor for his last movie
Tarantino will soon release his last film The Movie Critic for audiences. The feature will be the director’s swan song, and will be based on a film critic Tarantino used to follow. In an interview with Deadline, he shared that he was searching for an actor around the age range of 35. He already had someone in mind who he figured could nail the role, but he wasn’t sure he’d go with that actor.
But Tarantino assured that whoever he ended up casting wouldn’t be British, even though he had no doubt a British actor would do well.
“The truth of the matter is, yes, obviously, a Brit could pull it off, but I don’t want to cast a Brit,” he said.
Tarantino believed that British actors may have surpassed American actors on the big screen, which informed his The Movie Critic casting.
“Obviously, nothing against the Brits, but we’re living in a really weird time now. I think when people look back on this era of cinema and it’s just all these British actors pretending to be Americans and all these Australian actors pretending to be Americans, it’s like phantoms. Nobody is acting in their own voice,” he said.
