Jonah Hill Is Back On For Quentin Tarantino's 'Django Unchained'
At the end of last year Jonah Hill mentioned that he was offered a part in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, but had to pass due to scheduling issues. Well, something changed, because now he's in the film for real.
So who does Hill play? Deadline says only that it's not the role he was initially offered — that role might have been Scotty Harmony, which is a small but fairly pivotal part in the original script. I won't give up the details on how Scotty precisely fit into the story, but he was basically our introduction to villain Calvin Candie, played by Leonardo DiCaprio.
The role of Scotty went to Sacha Baron Cohen, but Cohen had to drop out of the movie, and there was some doubt as to whether the Scotty character would even end up in the final cut.
Deadline suggests the character is still part of the film, but explicitly says Hill isn't cast in that role. So we'll wonder for a while about just where the actor will show up. Given his more recent roles, which put him in dramatic and action-oriented stories, he could play just about anyone. And given Tarantino's tendency to make interesting pairings between actor and role, I'd almost count on being surprised by Hill when the final film rolls out.
And while it's a little weird that a film that already has two trailers out in the wild is still casting roles, we've known that there could be some late additions to Django Unchained. So it's not all that unexpected to get this report today.