We all know Quentin Tarantino is a bit of a character, but according to actor Jamie Foxx, the filmmaker was a “tyrant” when they worked together on Django Unchained.
Foxx starred in the historical action movie as the titular slave-turned-hero. It was Foxx’s first time working with Tarantino, and it’s an experience that clearly made an impression, with the actor recounting what it was like to be directed by the meticulous filmmaker. Tarantino is renowned for being very particular about how he wants things to go down on his film sets, and having made some of the best movies of all time, we guess he has kinda earned the right to be a perfectionist.
In an interview with Howard Stern for Sirius XM, Foxx recounted the time he tried to play his character a certain way, and Tarantino swiftly told him how wrong he was.
“I was just getting to learn Quentin Tarantino, so he was a tyrant. He was like ‘Do not fuck my film up,'” Foxx explained. Stern then asks if Tarantino insists on every word being performed just the way he wrote it, to which Foxx replies, “Yes, but that’s exactly what you want. You want a director who, even if you’re going off the cliff, you know you’re going off the fucking cliff.”
Foxx then describes how Tarantino cut on the first day of filming for the Western movie and asked the actor to come with him to a private room. He then does a rather brilliant impression of Tarantino: “What the fuck was that? I knew I was gonna have this problem, listen, all of this shit… you have to be a fucking slave, OK? He’s not cool. He doesn’t know how to read. He’s a slave, and then he becomes the hero. But lose that shit.”
While that experience may not sound too much fun, Foxx did go on to say he would work with Tarantino again “a thousand times,” so clearly the working relationship was a positive one. That figures, seeing as many of the stars of Tarantino’s ‘90s movies have worked with him again and again.
Speaking of heroes, check out our list of the best superhero movies of all time. Or, for more meticulous filmmakers, here’s how Stanley Kubrick mastered the art of filmmaking.