Jamie Foxx has revealed that Leonardo DiCaprio was left uncomfortable by a big “problem” on the set of Django Unchained.
The issues arose when DiCaprio, in character as plantation owner Calvin Candie, had to say a racial slur.
However, his co-star Samuel L Jackson, who has previously defended director Quentin Tarantino’s use of the N-word in his films, had strong words for DiCaprio.
“Leonardo DiCaprio had a problem saying it,” Foxx, the 2012 film’s lead star, said in a new interview, revealing the actor told his co-stars: “It’s tough for me to say this.”
Jackson, who played Calvin’s fiercely loyal slave Stephen, quickly jumped to action, though, and tried to make DiCaprio feel OK saying the word while in character.
Foxx, who currently stars in Netflix film Back in Action, told Vanity Fair: “I remember Samuel L Jackson going, ‘Get over it, motherf***er! It’s just another Tuesday, motherf***er!’”
Meanwhile, Foxx told DiCaprio: “Leo, we are not friends. This is your property, these aren’t humans. This is your property” and, consequently, “when Leo came in the next day, he didn’t speak” to anyone so as to stay in character.
Tarantino has often faced criticism for using racial slurs in his films, including Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight, and Jackson touched on the debate in documentary QT8: The First Eight.
The actor questioned why people take offence to the word being used in Tarantino’s films, but don’t argue the same point when it’s spoken by a white actor in a film that’s considered more serious in tone.
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“You take 12 Years a Slave, which is supposedly made by an auteur,” Jackson said. “Steve McQueen is very different than Quentin… So it’s ok for Steve McQueen to use [the N-word] because he’s artistically attacking the system and the way people think and feel, but Quentin is just doing it to just strike the blackboard with his nails? That’s not true.
“There’s no dishonesty in anything that [Quentin] writes or how people talk, feel, or speak [in his movies].”
He also addressed the subject during an interview with Esquire, calling the backlash “bulls***”.
“You can’t just tell a writer he can’t talk, write the words, put the words in the mouths of the people from their ethnicities, the way that they use their words,” he said, adding: “You cannot do that, because then it becomes an untruth; it’s not honest. It’s just not honest.
