Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio in Django Unchained. Photo / Supplied
Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio in Django Unchained. Photo / Supplied
It's a confronting film packed with violence and racial slurs, but Django Unchained remains one of Quentin Tarantino's best films.
The movie about a German bounty hunter who helps a freed slave rescue his wife from a plantation owner caused plenty of controversy when it was released in 2012.
It went on to pick up five Oscar nominations, with Tarantino winning for Best Original Screenplay, reports news.com.au.
To celebrate this explosive movie, we've tracked down some little-known facts about Django Unchained.
Will Smith was Quentin Tarantino's first choice to play Django, but the Men In Black star turned the role down after an hours-long meeting with the director.
"It was about the creative direction of the story," Smith told The Hollywood Reporter about his decision to pass.
Jamie Foxx as Django. Photo / Supplied
"To me, it's as perfect a story as you could ever want: a guy that learns how to kill to retrieve his wife that has been taken as a slave. That idea is perfect. And it was just that Quentin and I couldn't see (eye-to-eye).
"I wanted to make that movie so badly, but I felt the only way was, it had to be a love story, not a vengeance story."
Leonardo DiCaprio received a standing ovation from the cast and crew after injuring himself in a scene and continuing on.
According to producer Stacey Sher, the actor cut himself on a glass during the fiery dinner party confrontation scene.
Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio in Django Unchained. Photo / Supplied
"Leo had slammed his hand on the table countless times and he moved his hand further and he crushed a crystal cordial glass," Sher told Variety. "Blood was dripping down his hand. He never broke character. He kept going. He was in such a zone. It was very intense. He required stitches."
Those in the room at the time were blown away by DiCaprio's acting ability and erupted in applause when the scene was over.
"In that scene he had pages and pages of monologue," Sher said. "His performance was masterful. His level of commitment is extraordinary."
That scene ended up being the one Tarantino chose to include in the movie.
FOXX'S FUNNY GIFT FOR INJURED CO-STAR
Christoph Waltz received a funny gift from Jamie Foxx. Photo / Supplied
Christoph Waltz, who played Dr King Schultz, was badly injured when he was thrown from a horse while training for the film.
Waltz was "a little scared" about getting back on the horse after his injury healed, but a hilarious gift from co-star Jamie Foxx made things a little easier.
"Jamie gave me a saddle with a seatbelt," Waltz said. "He really did, he gave me this big beautiful saddle and there was a seatbelt on with a buckle and everything."
DiCaprio has described his character Calvin Candie as "horrific" and added he was "one of the most narcissistic, racist characters I've ever read in my entire life".
Some of the lines he had to say were so offensive that at one stage DiCaprio had to stop filming because he felt so uncomfortable.
Quentin Tarantino, Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson in 2012. Photo / AP
Jamie Foxx told Wenn.com: "At one point he (DiCaprio) was feeling it was tough saying his lines, 'ni**a, ni**a' and Samuel (L. Jackson) pulled him aside and says, 'Hey motherf***er, this is another Tuesday for us. Let's go!'"
The movie caused controversy by using the N-word more than 100 times in the script, but Jackson defended the use of the racist slur in an interview with the independent.
"If you're going to deal with the language of the time, you deal with the language of the time. And that was the language of the time. I grew up in the South. I heard 'ni**er' all my life. I'm not disturbed by it," he said.
TARANTINO'S FAVE AUSSIE ACTOR
John Jarratt in Django Unchained. Photo / Supplied
Quentin Tarantino gave John Jarratt a small role in Django Unchained to make up for missing out on a role in another one of his films.
As Jarratt explained in a Reddit Ask Me Anything session, the director is a huge fan of his.
"Tarantino knows more about Aussie films than anyone in the world, including Australians. He particularly liked that film I did which I thought was s**thouse called Dark Age … He liked my other work as well.
"He got off the plane (in Australia) in 2003 and said, 'I want to meet John Jarratt, my favourite Australian actor', and then I received a phone call asking me to go to the Kill Bill premiere in Sydney."
The two met up and chatted about movies, and Tarantino was keen to cast Jarratt in his 2007 movie, Grindhouse, but was talked out of it by the film's other director, Robert Rodriguez.
Tarantino felt he owed Jarratt a role to make up for it and cast him as a mining company employee in Django Unchained.
"I finally got into one of his movies," Jarratt told the Sunshine Coast Daily in 2013.
