Quentin Tarantino left out a shocking rape scene that was in the script of his Oscar-winning film Django Unchained, according to the film’s star, Jamie Foxx.
Foxx, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in 2005’s Ray, revealed on the Baby, This is Keke Palmer podcast that Tarantino’s original story included a scene in which both Foxx’s character Django and the character’s wife Broomhilda (played by Kerry Washington) were raped.
“You got to be vocal and not be afraid” to speak up, Foxx told Palmer on the episode, released Tuesday.
“I know about Quentin, what he put in his script,” Foxx explained, “he don’t always shoot that.”
For Django, he said, “If you read the script, Broomhilda and Django get raped. But once we got together, Quenton and I and Kerry—we wanted to protect Kerry Washington. Why? Because movies are forever. Meaning that if there is some bombastic scene, you can’t take it out and it’s forever.”
Added Palmer, “And you can clip it out of context.”
The 2012 film follows Django, an enslaved man, who teams up with a German bounty hunter to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation.
Foxx said he was mindful that the scene could affect Washington’s career. The actress hadn’t yet starred in what would be her career-defining role in ABC’s political thriller series Scandal opposite Tony Goldwyn.
“We wanted to make sure that we protected Olivia Pope,” Foxx said, referring to Washington’s now-famous character. “And at that time, that television show wasn’t out yet, but I said, ‘Hey, she’s going to have this show, and we want to protect her and he was with it.”
Foxx said he also suggested that the film center more on Broomhilda’s character, so Django’s motivations were clearer.
“I’ll only say this because we have a great leader. I said, ‘QT, when I read the script, the only thing that I see is Django. He ain’t trying to cure slavery, but he love his woman. So right now, in the script, his woman ain’t in there enough.”
Tarantino “accommodated” the critiques, Foxx said. “Quentin goes, ‘Yeah, it’s an omelet… all these ingredients—I’m going to throw some more of Broomhilda. So in the movie when you watch it, those scenes where Kerry Washington is sort of in his eyesight, that wasn’t in the script.”
“He placed Kerry Washington to make sure it was the through line, so that Django, it was a guy about going to get love in the worst circumstance,” Foxx added. “So therefore, when people watched it, it’s like, ‘Oh man, he’s on a journey to get his girl.’”
Django won Tarantino the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and Christoph Waltz, who played the bounty hunter, earned Best Supporting Actor. Notable snubs from the Academy that year included Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Samuel L. Jackson.
The film earned $449 million worldwide and became Tarantino’s highest-grossing film, beating his previous record with 2009’s Inglorious Basterds, which had made $316 million.
