Jamie Foxx revealed how Samuel L. Jackson motivated Leonardo DiCaprio to deliver the racial slurs in Django Unchained, as only Jackson can.
While revisiting the role of Django in a video for Vanity Fair, Foxx immediately remembered DiCaprio struggling with the subject matter of the film, specifically his character Calvin Candie’s use of the N-word. He recalled, "We're doing a read and Leo says, 'Hey, guys. Cut! I just can't do this. This is not me.'"
"Samuel L. Jackson goes, 'Say that shit, motherfucker! It's just another Tuesday. Fuck them,'" Foxx continued.
"I told Leo that in slavery days we would never talk to each other," Foxx added. "I'm not your friend. I'm not Jamie Foxx. I'm Django. And I told him, you won't really be able to play that character until you understand what slavery is about. It was tough. it was a horrific. So the next day I see Leo and I say what's up to him. He don't speak to me. He's ready. Everybody started digging in."
From that moment, it seems as though DiCaprio was able to disappear into his character after those conversations. Jackson took a similar approach with Stephen, telling GQ in September about a conversation that he had with Django Unchained director Quentin Tarantino about where the actor wanted to take his character.
"When I finished reading it and I said, 'That's what you want me to be?' It's on the page, but you haven't seen him,'" Jackson remembered. "'You've just written him. You haven't seen him. So, are you ready for what this is gonna be? And he was like, 'Whatever you bring, bring it!' So, I brought it."
Jackson recalled making Stephen so despicable that Tarantino expressed concerns over keeping certain deleted scenes in the movie that would make people hate the actor.
Jackson responded, "C'mon man, you backing out of your own shit? This is your shit and you don't wanna do it. I'm willing. I'm here doing it. This is the story, let's get it."
In an interview with The Times in 2022, Jackson recalled teaming up with Tarantino to urge DiCaprio to become comfortable with his character saying the N-word. Jackson also defended the director having his characters use it in his films.
“While we were rehearsing [the slave movie] Django Unchained, Leo [DiCaprio] said, ‘I don’t know if I can say ‘n*****’ this many times.’ Me and Quentin said that you have to," he recalled. "Every time someone wants an example of overuse of the n-word, they go to Quentin — it’s unfair. He’s just telling the story and the characters do talk like that. When Steve McQueen does it, it’s art. He’s an artiste. Quentin’s just a popcorn film-maker.”
In 2018, Foxx expressed a similar sentiment, explaining that he didn't have an issue with the N-word being used a ton of times in the film. “I understood the text," he told Yahoo Entertainment. "The N-word was said 100 times, but I understood the text — that’s the way it was back in that time.”