Django Unchained had Jamie Foxx as the lead character, but he wasn’t the first option to play Django, and Will Smith was offered the role but turned it down. Quentin Tarantino has explored various genres throughout his career – from crime to martial arts films, and in 2012 he paid a visit to the world of western with Django Unchained.
Set in the Old West and Antebellum South, Django Unchained tells the story of Django (Foxx), a slave who is freed by dentist-turned-bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Django Unchained became Tarantino’s highest-grossing movie and received many nominations for different awards, with Christoph Waltz taking home the Academy Award for Best ing Actor. The performances of DiCaprio and Foxx were also praised by critics and audiences, making it hard to imagine someone else playing their characters – and even harder to believe that there were some who turned down the offer to play them.
Such is the case of Will Smith, who was offered the role of Django and turned it down. Of course, by the time Django Unchained was in development, Smith was already a big name in the entertainment industry, but he was taking a break from acting – however, that wasn’t the reason why he turned down the role. Speaking to EW in 2013, Smith revealed he ed on the offer to play Django because he wasn’t the lead, and he “needed to be the lead”. Smith added that he even told Tarantino that he needed to kill the bad guy, but that obviously wasn’t enough to change Tarantino’s plans, so he turned it down. Although Schultz is the one who ultimately kills Candie, he isn’t exactly the lead as Smith thinks, and Django is, after all, the one who kickstarts the events of the movie.
Smith returned to the big screen the same year Django Unchained came out with Suicide Squad in 2016. Smith added on that same interview with EW that he liked Django Unchained and thought it was brilliant, but it wasn't the role for him.
Tarantino’s film career is not over yet, and it could be possible for Will Smith to add a Tarantino movie to his filmography in a near future – as long as it’s a lead character that suits Smith’s vision, of course. It’s impossible to say if Will Smith would have been a better Django than Jamie Foxx, but he would have definitely given the character a different vibe.
