Confirming everyone’s expectations, Quentin Tarantino has officially cast Samuel L. Jackson in Django Unchained, with Jackson and Kevin Costner playing two of the most valued employees in Leonardo DiCaprio’s bustling slave-trading business. Indeed, with a team comprised of Jackson’s house slave and Costner’s sadistic trainer of “mandingo” fighters, as Henry Ford once said, “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself—particularly when ‘success’ is defined as relentless slave abuse.” Anyway, while Jackson’s participation is not exactly a surprise, given the earlier speculation and the fact that Tarantino clearly sees Samuel L. Jackson as his on-screen alter ego, probably no one was expecting Gerald McRaney to join the cast, so there. Variety doesn't specify what role Tarantino has in mind for McRaney, but ideally he’ll be back in Deadwood mode, i.e. grizzled, intimidating, and casually racist. Either that or Major Dad mode, keeping slaves in line by letting them know that he’s not angry with them, just disappointed.

Advertisement