Jamie Foxx's Personal Horse Named Cheetah Landed A Role In Django Unchained
We've all heard about nepotism in casting, when the children of famous actors get roles just because of their parents' accomplishments, but what about pet nepotism? That's exactly what happened on Quentin Tarantino's biggest movie, "Django Unchained," though it worked out great for everyone involved. In an interview with Games Radar back in 2012, actor Jamie Foxx, who starred as Django, revealed that the main horse he rides in the film was his pet horse from real life. The casting came about because Foxx was practicing his horse-riding for the film with Cheetah, and the two were such a natural pair that it seemed only logical to put Cheetah in the movie.
Foxx got the horse for his birthday about four years before he was cast as Django and began filming, but he did tell Tarantino that he had his own horse pretty early on. The horse wasn't just some nameless pony, either, but given a named role in the cast: "Tony"! Django and Tony are a pretty great duo, just like Foxx and Cheetah, and they kick some serious butt onscreen. There were some issues with having a pet horse become an actor, of course, but the two took it in stride.
A man and his horse
On a behind-the-scenes featurette from the home video release called "Horses and Stunts," stunt coordinator Jeff Dashnaw explained that Foxx took the horse training very seriously, and Foxx explained that working with horses onscreen is really a team effort:
"I got a chance to ride my own horse in the movie, which is great. But my horse wasn't used to sets so [Dashnaw] was like, 'Hey the horse could be spooked when the big screens come down,' but they've got me doing tactical things so I knew what the horse could do, and that was really necessary because at any point something could go wrong ..."
They also shared a story where Foxx rides another horse bareback, going into a full run. Dashnaw advised Foxx to jump off if he got too nervous, but that would have been disastrous, as both Foxx and Dashnaw reveal with a laugh. The scene with the racing horse is in the final film, and the look of mild terror on Foxx's face is at least partially genuine. He may have trained to ride horses for the film at length, but bareback running is expert-level horse riding and can be dangerous even for people who have ridden for years. Thankfully, the actor held on and everything went well.
There's an old Hollywood adage about never working with children or animals because they can be unpredictable, but Foxx and Cheetah's existing friendship made that no worry at all.