Jeff Goldsmith, the former senior editor of Creative Screenwriting Magazine and a man who only bullshits on April Fool's Day, tweeted the following earlier today;
Casting Rumor: Leonardo DiCaprio WILL play villian Calvin Candie in Tarantinos Django Unchained! QT wanted him for I.B. & now has him!
Interesting. Goldsmith is right of course, the first casting meeting Quentin Tarantino had on Inglourious Basterds was with Brad Pitt (who would take on the role of Aldo Raine) and DiCaprio, the latter who the trades at the time claimed was wanted for the lead villain. Indeed I remember vividly reading the part of Hans Landa with DiCaprio in mind because of this and I thought it was great casting and I'm sure he could have done a great job with it, but it was said he turned down Landa as he thought Quentin needed a real German to play the part. Though over the course of many viewings of Inglourious Basterds, I can't help but wonder if he was really being courted for the role of the German war hero/movie star Frederick Zoller that was played by Daniel Bruhl, a supporting character that seemed to suit DiCaprio down to the ground, but who knows? Either way that initial meeting happened and DiCaprio was wanted but turned down a role. So onto Django Unchained and the part of the evil plantation owner Calvin Candle. He is the lead villain of Tarantino's spaghetti western, an evil son of a bitch who who deals in Mandigo slaves at his Candyland home and has enslaved the wife of our title character Django, a slave freed by a German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) and is trained into the art of contract killing. It's a significant part in the movie but one that is only similar in screen time to that of David Carradine in the Kill Bill saga and it calls for a charismatic, eccentric (he's a lover of French culture and demands on being called 'Monsieur' but would be embarrassed if you spoke French to him as he doesn't know the language) and believably powerful actor who can pose a threat. DiCaprio, despite it not being anything he has done before, would be an inspired choice, even if the part on the page reads much older. I had actually thought the role was Keith Carradine's, half brother of the late Kill Bill actor David and who word had it early on was being courted for a part. However with some smoke saying Idris Elba could now be in the mix for the title role that Will Smith might have turned down, perhaps Tarantino needs an international name to appease the Weinsteins greenlight for the very noncommercial film. Indeed, Brad Pitt seems to have been courted for the role initially, so perhaps Tarantino has always wanted this from the get-go. Hypothetically if the story is true and I'm certainly of the belief it is is Goldsmith is reporting it, there would still be a few stumbling blocks before a contract could be signed. One of course would be scheduling as DiCaprio is always in demand and usually has his next few features long mapped out and indeed when Django Unchained films in the summer he will likely be already be working on Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby. Plus there's the fact that DiCaprio, despite his often brave and mostly nonmainstream choices, still has a very particular image and this movie or role is not something his diehard and loyal fans would expect to see him portraying. But if Tarantino has indeed got his man, wow, terrific casting. Idris Elba, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson in the four major roles of the next movie, a Spaghetti Western, Quentin Tarantino? I'd say that was pretty exciting, wouldn't you... but we aren't quite there yet.