Kevin Costner To Play the Despicable Ace Woody in DJANGO UNCHAINED!

Something that Quentin Tarantino just loves doing more than anything else is bringing former Hollywood stars out of the murky depths of cinema obscurity and back into the motion picture spotlight in such a way as reminding people of just how good these actors once were and how much pleasure their performances once gave us. There's a great interview on the special edition of the DVD for Jackie Brown and I'm sure Tarantino aficionados have seen it many times where the eccentric director explains that in Hollywood there is a list of regular names that float around for the same roles from project to project and rarely do studio's go outside of that when making their hirings... but what Tarantino loves to do is bring back old faces onto that list. I'm paraphasing but his theory was that these actors have never gone away, they've never lost their talent and their work is still good... they just got past the date Hollywood thought they were bankable. Every major star is one or two flops away from this happening. Kevin Costner is a prime example. One of the five most popular leading men of the 1990's who was in the biggest films every year, he suddenly found himself in the middle of some gigantic flops (The Postman, Waterworld) and very quickly casting directors thought his star had burnt out. In the decade and change since, he's popped up in some notable films but mostly it's been the b-movie dreck... Costner always good but the films maybe not so. Tarantino quite rightly thinks he is due for a comeback and it's cool news to hear from Deadline that the actor has been cast as Ace Woody, the henchman and mandigo slave driver to Leonardo DiCaprio's evil plantation owner who runs his own 'Candy Land'. Having read the script it's pretty inspired casting and we are sure intrigued to see what an actor who we are so used to playing characters of vigor, play someone so despicable. It's a small role but Ace Woody has some of the more shockingly memorable parts in the film. Django Unchained shoots later this year and is due for release on Christmas Day 2012 - around the same time Zack Snyder unleashes Superman: The Man of Steel, a film in which Costner will be playing Jonathan Kent - the adopted father of Clark Kent. You couldn't think of two roles on the opposite side of the scale. The stereotypical picture of the working class, hard-working but moralisitc American and the mandigo slave driver! Costner is going to make us love him and hate him at the same time. Can't wait to see it. Django Unchained has a typically Tarantino cast of awesome potential - Jamie Foxx leads alongside Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Costner. Fleming says that the major role of Broomhilda - the enslaved wife of Jamie Foxx's lead Django, is not going to end up with Kerry Washington as talks with the actress have seemingly broken down. An uknown is being sought and it's not particularly surprising considering the high nudity the role requires.