Samuel L. Jackson is calling for Quentin Tarantino to release a director’s cut of his Django Unchained. The actor and director have worked together since Pulp Fiction, with Jackson becoming a regular among Tarantino’s trusted troop of actors. In Django Unchained, Jackson played his most vile character to date, Stephen, a power-hungry house slave on Calvin Candie’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) plantation. Having worked his way up to the “Big House,” Stephen is distraught when he sees Django (Jamie Foxx) riding into the plantation as a free man on a horse. The final cut features one or two scenes of Stephen terrorizing Django, both verbally and physically, but, according to Sameul L. Jackson, they had shot a lot more gruesome scenes.
Speaking to GQ, Samuel L. Jackson recounted some of the deleted scenes from Django Unchained. The actor said that several vile scenes involving his character were cut from the finished film. Jackson recalled one scene involving Stephen and Django where they test the power dynamic between each other. He explained:
“Jamie and I had a scene in the house when I took Christoph [Waltz] to his room… I take [Django] in the room and I tell him, ‘You can do what you want to do in this room because we’re gonna burn everything up anyway.’ And he slaps me.
Slaps me down. Threatens to strip me naked and whip me all over the plantation.
That’s the setup between me and him.”
Samuel L. Jackson said that much of Django Unchained came from improvisations during rehearsals. The actor didn’t reveal how many scenes were cut from the final film. However, he hopes that Tarantino will break his rule about deleted scenes and release a Director’s Cut of the movie. He said:
“I always thought he was gonna put a director’s cut out and keep it. Because we did shoot it.”
The Deleted Scene Would Have Enriched Another Scene in Django Unchained
Samuel L. Jackson also revealed that the deleted moment would have deepened a scene later in the film, which did make the final cut, albeit, a shortened version of it. After Django is captured by Calvin Candie’s men, he is hung upside down and beaten, before being interrogated by Stephen. Jackson said they shot a much longer version based on the previous deleted scene, explaining:
“So, by the time we get to the point he’s hanging upside down in that barn, I had a whole speech that’s not there, where I tell him, ‘I’ve been on this plantation for X number of years and seen this, that, and the other done to all these slaves around here. Ain’t nobody gonna put their hands on me. ’till you.’ And then I start using that hot poker to burn parts of his body.”
The two scenes described by Samuel L. Jackson are among a dozen reported scenes that were cut from Django Unchained. Given Tarantino’s penchant for letting his actors spew natural dialogue during the scenes, leading to some lengthy run times, it’s hard to fathom how long a director’s cut of Django Unchained could be.
Django Unchained
is currently streaming on Starz.