Will Smith Says He Turned Down the Role of ‘Django’ Because He ‘Needed to be the Lead’

Actor Will Smith tells Entertainment Weekly he turned down the role of Django in Quentin Tarantino's 'Django Unchained' because the slave character was not the lead in the film.

By Jorge Rivas Mar 26, 2013

Actor Will Smith tells Entertainment Weekly he turned down the role of Django in Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’ because the slave character was not the lead in the film. [Here’s a snippet of Entertainment Weekly’s interview with Smith: ](http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/03/25/will-smith-django-unchained/) > When Quentin Tarantino’s western revenge-fantasy Django Unchained was first announced, casting rumors pegged Will Smith as the titular slave-turned-vigilante. But Smith, who teams with his son Jaden in this summer’s sci-fi epic After Earth, tells EW that he turned down the part because his character would’ve been second fiddle to the bounty hunter (played by Christoph Waltz) who teaches Django his trade . "Django wasn’t the lead, so it was like, I need to be the lead. The other character was the lead!" says the Men in Black star, whose departure opened the door for Jamie Foxx to play the role. > > Smith says that before he left the project, he even pleaded with Tarantino to let Django have a more central role in the story. "I was like, ‘No, Quentin, please, I need to kill the bad guy!’" (Ironically, Waltz was considered a supporting actor during his Oscar-winning award season, while Jamie Foxx was promoted as the movie’s lead.) Waltz won the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor earlier this year while Quentin Tarantino won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Foxx was [not nominated for an Oscar](http://oscar.go.com/nominees) for his portrayal of Django.