As it nears production, Quentin Tarantino’s next opus – Django Unchained – has picked up more crucial actors, including Django’s love interest, Broomhilda, who will be played by Kerry Washington.
The upcoming film has also managed to clinch Law and Order’s Anthony LaPagilia, and rapper RZA for roles.
According to Deadline, Tarantino wanted Washington to play Foxx’s love interest from the get go, but he was also interested in possibly discovering an unknown as well, like he did with French actress Melanie Laurent in Inglorious Bastards.
Washington ironically played Foxx’s wife in a previous film, Ray, and she also had featured roles in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Fantastic Four, and Boston Legal.
LaPagilia told Deadline he and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are supposed to play brothers, and that the script is “wildly ambitious and imaginative, deals with that subject in a way it hasn’t been dealt with before. The way the cast has shaped up, it’s exciting to be involved.”
And as Variety reports, RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan, who scored the Kill Bill film, will also play a slave in the film, as well as direct and star in his own martial arts film, The Man With the Iron Fists, which he wrote with Eli Roth, and is slated to star Russell Crowe, Pam Grier, and Lucy Liu.
Right as this post was being finalized, Collider reported that several other interesting cast members are coming aboard the Django train, including Tom Wopat, best known from The Dukes of Hazard, James Remar, who played Ajax in The Warriors and also had a role in 48 Hours, James Russo (Public Enemies), and Todd Allen (Friday Night Lights).
Meanwhile, Variety reported that Sacha Baron Cohen is also going to be on board, playing a gambler who buys Django’s wife. True, it’s a small part, but Tarantino apparently wanted the right actor to play it.
In addition to Washington, RZA, Cohen, and LaPagilia, the Django cast so far includes Jamie Foxx in the title role, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz, Kurt Russell, Dennis Christopher, Don Johnson, Samuel L. Jackson, Gerald McRaney, gore FX genius Tom Savini (who also played Sex machine in From Dusk Till Dawn), and more.
