Will Smith Turned Down ‘Django Unchained’ Because Django Wasn’t the Lead: “I need to be the lead!”

Will Smith won’t consider any role that doesn’t feature him in the lead. This movie star attitude actually cost him the lead role in the Oscar-winning film, Django Unchained.

Will-SmithWill Smith won’t consider any role that doesn’t feature him in the lead. This movie star attitude actually cost him the lead role in the Oscar-winning film, Django Unchained.

Smith told Entertainment Weekly, “Django wasn’t the lead, so it was like, I need to be the lead.  The other character was the lead!”  The actor is referring to the bounty hunter character, Dr. King Schultz, as the role that appeared to have a bigger part in the story.  Funnily enough, the role (played by Christoph Waltz) was actually submitted to the Academy Awards as a supporting role, and Jamie Foxx (who ended up playing Django) was submitted as Best Actor.

Smith claimed he tried to convince writer/director Quentin Tarantino to make Django more central to the plot.  “I was like, ‘No, Quentin, please, I need to kill the bad guy!’”  But despite turning down the role, Smith’s career is still trucking along, including the upcoming summer release of After Earth, a sci-fi film he made with this son, Jaden.

At the end of the day, Smith was still a fan of how Django Unchained turned out.

“I thought it was brilliant,” he said.  “Just not for me.”

1 thought on “Will Smith Turned Down ‘Django Unchained’ Because Django Wasn’t the Lead: “I need to be the lead!””

  1. Dan Franko via Facebook

    I think Christoph Waltz has proven that the supporting roles are the better ones.

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