Samuel L. Jackson played Stephen Warren, a loyal slave to Calvin J. Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), in 2012’s ‘Django Unchained’. Jamie Foxx led the film as the titular character, who had an animosity with Warren and his master.
A scene between Stephen and Django meant to give more context on their tension, but Quentin Tarantino cut it to protect Jackson from possible backlash.
The ‘Pulp Fiction’ actor recently shared with GQ, “Jamie and I had a scene in the house when I took Christoph [Waltz] to his room when they first get there. When I take him in the room, when I tell him, ‘You do what you wanna do in this room because we burn everything up and throw it away anyway.’ And he slaps me, he slaps me down, threatens to strip me naked and whip me all over the plantation. Calvin ain’t gonna let you do that. That’s the setup between me and him that they didn’t use in the movie.”
“So, by the time we get to the point where he’s hanging upside down in that barn, I had a whole speech that’s kind of not there while I tell him, I’ve been on this plantation for X number of years and seen this, that and the other, done all these slaves around here, and nobody will put their hands on me til’ you.”
Although Jackson was willing to keep the scene, Tarantino felt Stephen was already quite hateable and the film was controversial enough with its violent content and use of racial slurs.
The actor continued, “And then I start using that hot poker to burn parts of his body. Of course, [Quentin Tarantino was] like, ‘I don’t want nobody to kill you. I mean you evil enough, we keep that sh*t in the movie, people are gonna hate you. Something will happen and I’ll be responsible.’ It’s like, ‘Come on man, you backing out of your own sh*t. This is your sh*t and you don’t wanna do it. I’m willing. I’m here to do it. This is the story, let’s get it.’ I always thought he was gonna put a director’s cut out and keep it because we did shoot it.”
Despite the said scene’s removal, ‘Django Unchained’ created enough tension between Django and Stephen, which eventually led to Stephen’s death at the end of the movie. The 2012 movie earned $426 million at the box office and an 87% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The story followed a slave training under a bounty hunter with the goal of finding his wife. The cast also featured Kerry Washington, Walton Goggins, Dennis Christopher, and James Remar, among others.
