WILL SMITH EXPLAINS WHY HE TURNED DOWN DJANGO UNCHAINED

Over a year ago, when Quentin Tarantino was still in pre-production on his blaxploitation/spaghetti western riff, Django Unchained, he initially had his heart set on Will Smith signing on as his leading man rather than Jamie Foxx.



Of course, the role ultimately went to Foxx and the controversial film's theatrical run has since come and gone, but Smith opened up the books on Django Unchained one last time to talk about why he chose to turn the project down.



Speaking with EW about his upcoming picture, the M. Night Shyamalan sci-fi thriller After Earth, Smith revealed that he declined the chance to work with Tarantino because of the eponymous character's position in the film. It turns out that for Smith, Django actually read like a sidekick to Christoph Waltz's charming bounty hunter - rather than the central character.



Here's what Smith said (with a tongue planted in his cheek):



Django wasn't the lead, so it was like, I need to be the lead. The other character was the lead! [...] I was like, 'No, Quentin, please, I need to kill the bad guy!'



Hollywood stars too often dodge around questions like this with safe, harmless answers so as to avoid sounding egotistical; it's nice to see a talent of Smith's stature openly admit his desire to be the hero and acknowledge his refusal to compromise on sacrificing screen time to Waltz (who won an Academy Award for the role). His choice also makes sense on other, more sensitive levels as well - why wouldn't Smith, one of the most prominent black actors working today, want to be the one to defeat the bad guy in a movie about a revenge-fueled ex-slave hunting down a vicious plantation owner to save his wife?

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