The Django Unchained Character Kurt Russell Almost Played

"Django Unchained" is a surprisingly important movie in Quentin Tarantino's filmography. It was his first Western, it marked his first collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio, and it earned Christoph Waltz his second Oscar in a row while working with the director following his win for "Inglourious Basterds." The film arguably boasts one of the more impressive ensemble casts that Tarantino's ever assembled, and that's truly saying something. As it turns out, though, the cast could have been even more impressive — as Kurt Russell was supposed to be in it before dropping out late in the game.

By that point, Russell had already worked with Tarantino on his half of the double feature "Grindhouse," resulting in 2007's "Death Proof." They enjoyed the collaboration and intended to work together again on "Django." Unfortunately, Russell and Sacha Baron Cohen ("Borat") dropped out in May of 2012. The Guardian suggested that the project was a "poison chalice" of sorts, given the way it deals with slavery. To that end, Russell had been on deck to play a character named Ace Woody, who was pretty brutal.

Woody was going to work for DiCaprio's Calvin Candy as a man who trained enslaved people to fight one another to the death. These Mandingo fights are central to the film's story as Jamie Foxx's Django teams with Waltz's Schulz, posing as men who want to purchase an enslaved individual to get into the fighting game. Russell left the project for undisclosed reasons, but it's easy to imagine playing such a vile person on screen takes a great deal of consideration.

So, what did Tarantino do? Who filled those shoes instead? Russell's loss turned into someone else's gain — namely, Walton Goggins'.

Goggins, who was known largely then for his work on shows like "Justified" and "Sons of Anarchy" back then, had already been cast as another Candy employee named Billy Crash. Well, after Russell dropped out, Tarantino decided to combine the Ace Woody and Billy Crash characters into one. As a result, Goggins ended up with a much larger role in the film.

That worked out well; "Django Unchained" became the biggest box office hit of Tarantino's career up to that point, and it remains his highest-grossing directorial effort to this day. Meanwhile, in the years since the film came out, Goggins has become one of Hollywood's go-to character actors. Speaking to The Playlist (via IndieWire) at the time, Goggins expressed a great deal of gratitude for the opportunity:

"It was unbelievable, man. I've been around a long time and have had a lot of breaks in my life. And more often than not, those breaks have come through the back door and this one was no exception. To get an opportunity to work in this capacity, in a role that Kevin Costner had first, and then Kurt Russell had second. It was a chance of a lifetime."

It all worked out in the end. Tarantino's next film, "The Hateful Eight," reunited him with Russell (who played a lead role). It also led to another collaboration with Goggins, getting these two actors together on screen as originally intended. Russell would later appear in Tarantino's 2019 hit "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," which is one of the most acclaimed movies of his career. Things do, in fact, have a way of working themselves out.