Like a runaway slave hoping to save his wife from an evil plantation owner, more casting news is escaping about Quentin Tarantino's upcoming Django Unchained, which is shaping up to be the It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World of revisionist spaghetti westerns.
So far, Tarantino has filled his flick with Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kurt Russell, Samuel L. Jackson, Christoph Waltz, Don Johnson and Gerald McRaney. But this film apparently has a ton of speaking parts, so we have a few more announcements to report.
RZA, who did the music for Kill Bill, will appear in Django Unchained as Thaddeus, a "violent slave." Also jumping aboard for this dark and bloody trek are Anthony LaPaglia and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Australian slave-trading brothers and Kerry Washington as Broomhilda, who, as the wife of the unchained Django, is the character that sets this whole filled-to-the-seams story in motion.
Talking to Deadline, LaPaglia expressed his excitement to be working on Django Unchained and, well, just to be working at all.
"[Django Unchained is] wildly ambitious and imaginative, deals with that subject matter in a way it hasn't been dealt with before," LaPaglia told Deadline. "The way the cast has shaped up, it's exciting to be involved."
Considering himself a member of an informal club of actors with "careers in various states of disrepair," LaPaglia goes on to bemoan the state of the industry and the actor's place in it.
"When you work for studios, the majority of the acting budget goes to the handful of megastars, and what is left is surprisingly small, and surprisingly non-negotiable," LaPaglia said. "They actually go down a list, start at the top and say, 'Will you do the part for X,' and if somebody says no, they go right on to the next actor. That's not a criticism, just a recognition of how the business runs now . . . Why do you think so many veteran actors are turning to TV series?"
Whoa, Anthony LaPaglia! While we love you and absolutely sympathize with the career dilemmas an actor faces, this article has gotten off track. This is a casting update, not an editorial.
Anyway, to sum up: Tarantino is still adding actors to the cast of Django Unchained…wait just a second. Now that I think about it, Anthony LaPaglia, Django Unchained might be the answer to the problem you were talking about. As we all know, the Old West (and South) was chock full of miscreants, ne'er-do-wells, polecats and mountebanks, and it seems Tarantino has written each and every one into Django Unchained.
Hey, all you struggling actors! Tell your agent to get you in a room with Tarantino's casting people. There's a good chance there's a gig in it for you (and a commission for your agent). Please, don't thank me; thank Anthony LaPaglia.
To go uber-nerd for a moment, for me the big question is who is QT going to get to be his new editor? Sally Menke died last year and she was basically his closest collaborator. It'll be like that when John Williams dies and Spielberg has to find another composer.
And were there really Australians in the American south during slave times? I wasn't aware of that, but if it allows us the spectacle of Joseph Gordon-Levitt attempting the accent then I'm all for it. So far it's defeated every actor that has ever attempted it. Even Meryl Streep.