In Character: the Cast of Django Unchained

Similar to the varied and extremely talented cast of Lincoln, the ensemble of actors in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained deserve special mention. Here are the majority of the people who pop up in Django; many are a part of Tarantino’s worthy troupe, while others are better known in any number of films and TV shows. Enjoy!

Zoë Bell

Role in Django Unchained: Tracker

Notable Roles: Lost, Planet Terror, Whip It

Best Role: Best known for her fearless stunt work in Xena: Warrior Princess and Kill Bill (where she stunt doubled for Uma Thurman), Bell has never been better than the wise-ass, balls-to-the wall, go-for-broke version of herself in Tarantino’s own Death Proof. Watching her spin on that moving car without the security of straps is something I’ll never forget.

Michael Bowen

Role in Django Unchained: Tracker

Notable Roles: Jackie Brown, Kill Bill: Vol. 1, Walking Tall, Lost

Best Role: Everyone remembers Buck (he came here to… fuck, remember?), but Bowen’s protective, restrictive, and outright scary portrayal of the father of a child genius in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia is incomparable to anything else he’s done. That role should’ve launched him into the big leagues.

Robert Carradine

Role in Django Unchained: Tracker Lex

Notable Roles: The Big Red One, Escape from L.A.

Best Role: Carradine is arguably the most famous nerd of all time, playing Lewis Skolnick in Revenge of the Nerds and its many sequels.

Laura Cayouette

Role in Django Unchained: Lara Lee Candie-Fitzwilly

Notable Roles: Enemy of the State, Kill Bill: Vol. 2, Hell Ride

Best Role: Cayouette has popped up notably in a handful of films, but none more memorable than as Leonardo DiCaprio’s sister in Django Unchained. The way she pleads for her brother to behave at the dinner table is just… terrifying. (Note: I couldn’t find a still of Cayouette in Django, so that’s a picture of her telling Michael Madsen to clean up a shitty toilet in Kill Bill: Vol 2.)

Dennis Christopher

Role in Django Unchained: Leonide Moguy

Notable Roles: Chariots of Fire, Profiler, Deadwood

Best Role: That final race scene in Breaking Away, when Christopher’s character elects to tape his shoes to the bike pedals, is enough to call it his best role.

Bruce Dern

Role in Django Unchained: Old Man Carrucan

Notable Roles: They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, The Great Gatsby, The ‘Burbs, Monster, Big Love

Best Role: One of our finest living character actors, Dern has been stealing scenes for several decades, most prominently as a shamed vet sent home from Vietnam in Hal Ashby’s Coming Home.

M.C. Gainey

Role in Django Unchained: Big John Brittle

Notable Roles: Breakdown, Con Air, Happy, Texas, Club Dread, Beerfest, Lost

Best Role: Tough call. How about as the naked guy who chases down Paul Giamatti in Sideways? That took, you know… balls.

Walton Goggins

Role in Django Unchained: Billy Crash

Notable Roles: The Apostle, Miracle at St. Anna, Justified, Straw Dogs, Lincoln

Best Role: I mentioned Goggins’ marvelous work on The Shield in my Lincoln In Character post, and believe you me, that certainly hasn’t changed. He is flawless in that show.

Jonah Hill

Role in Django Unchained: Bag Head #2

Notable Roles: Knocked Up, Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, 21 Jump Street

Best Role: Now, admittedly, I’m not the biggest Jonah Hill fan. And although I’m still baffled by his Oscar nomination for Moneyball, that is easily his best work to date.

Don Johnson

Role in Django Unchained: Big Daddy

Notable Roles: Nash Bridges, Tin Cup, Machete, Eastbound & Down

Best Role: Oh God, does anything beat Miami Vice’s Detective James Crockett? Nah.

Rex Linn

Role in Django Unchained: Tennessee Harry

Notable Roles: Breakdown, Rush Hour, The Hunted, The Walking Dead, CSI: Miami

Best Role: Perhaps best known as Detective Frank Trip in CSI: Miami, I love Linn’s hammed up portrayal of crooked Treasury agent Richard Travers in the perfectly trashy action flick, Cliffhanger.

Franco Nero

Role in Django Unchained: Bar Patron

Notable Roles: Die Hard 2, Letters to Juliet

Best Role: You know the guy who asks Jamie Foxx to spell his name in Django Unchained? That’s Franco Nero, the original Django. That’s why he knows.

James Parks

James Parks (right)

Role in Django Unchained:

Notable Roles: From Dusk Till Dawn 2, Kill Bill: Vol. 1, Death Proof, Machete, Red State

Best Role: Parks has played Edgar McGraw (better known as Son Number One) in a handful of Tarantino-participated flicks. Take your pick which is the best.

Michael Parks

Role in Django Unchained: The LeQuint Dickey Mining Co. Employee

Notable Roles: Twin Peaks, From Dusk Till Dawn, Kill Bill: Vol. 1, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Red State, Argo

Best Role: Similar to his son, James, Michael Parks is best known for playing cranky Texas Ranger Earl McGraw in a handful of films. And while I LOVE his work as that character (particularly in From Dusk Till Dawn), his unrecognizable work as Esteban Vihaio in Kill Bill: Vol. 2 is easily his career highlight. I just can’t believe that’s him.

James Remar

Role in Django Unchained: Butch Pooch/Ace Speck

Notable Roles: Drugstore Cowboy, Blink, What Lies Beneath, Sex and the City, The Girl Next Door

Best Role: I love Remar in damn near everything I’ve seen him in, but he’s never been better than as Dexter’s twisted dad, Harry Morgan, in the titular Showtime program.

James Russo

Role in Django Unchained: Dicky Speck

Notable Roles: Beverly Hills Cop, A Kiss Before Dying, Dangerous Game, Donnie Brasco, Open Range, Public Enemies

Best Role: Russo’s ferociousness deserves specific mention, but I enjoy his work as River Phoenix’s aimless older brother (or is it his biological father…?) in My Own Private Idaho the most.

Tom Savini

Role in Django Unchained: Tracker

Notable Roles: Dawn of the Dead, Planet Terror, Machete, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Best Role: Two words: Sex Machine.

Amber Tamblyn

Role in Django Unchained: Daughter of a Son of a Gunfighter

Notable Roles: Joan of Arcadia, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, 127 Hours, House M.D.

Best Role: I can’t say that I’m the biggest follower of Tamblyn’s career, but I did enjoy her opening scene of The Ring. That shot of her in the closet? Whoa.

Russ Tamblyn

Role in Django Unchained: Son of a Gunfighter

Notable Roles: Father of the Bride, Seven Brides from Seven Brothers, The Haunting, Drive

Best Role: Oh this is easy: Amber’s dad has been around for a great long while, but he’s never been more effective than as the shady Dr. Jacoby in Twin Peaks.

Quentin Tarantino

Role in Django Unchained: The LeQuint Dickey Mining Co. Employee

Notable Roles: Pulp Fiction, Desperado, Four Rooms, From Dusk Till Dawn, Girl 6, Alias, Planet Terror

Best Role: QT gets a lot of shit for appearing in his own films. In fact, I read a glowing review yesterday of Django Unchained and it said the only fault of the film is the horrible casting of its director. While he’s no Brando, I do think Tarantino has the ability to bring some levity to his films. His best? Well, I think it takes balls to be the first speaking voice in your first movie, so I’ll go with his Mr. Brown from Reservoir Dogs. “Dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick.”

Tom Wopat

Role in Django Unchained: U.S. Marshall Gill Tatum

Notable Roles: Cybill, Jonah Hex

Best Role: No brainer: Luke Duke from the original Dukes of Hazzard.

And, hell, let’s discuss the stars as well:

Leonardo DiCaprio

Role in Django Unchained: Calvin Candie

Notable Roles: The Basketball Diaries, Catch Me If You Can, The Aviator, The Departed, Inception

Best Role: Damn tough call. As much as I love his anguished desperation in The Departed, I’m so remarkably drawn to what he did in Revolutionary Road. It was really quite profound.

Jamie Foxx

Role in Django Unchained: Django

Notable Roles: Any Given Sunday, Ali, Collateral, Jarhead, Miami Vice

Best Role: An obvious choice, but Jamie Foxx was simply perfect as Ray Charles. He elevated the standard of a musical biopic.

Samuel L. Jackson

Role in Django Unchained: Stephen

Notable Roles: Jungle Fever, Pulp Fiction, Fresh, Die Hard With a Vengeance, Unbreakable

Best Role: Christ, where do you even begin here? Best to keep it simple: the finest Samuel L. Jackson performance I have ever seen is as O-R-D-E-L-L R-O-B-B-I-E in Tarantino’s Jackie Brown.

Christoph Waltz

Role in Django Unchained: Dr. King Shultz

Notable Roles: Water for Elephants, Carnage

Best Role: Although I have yet to see any of the work Waltz did in his native Germany, I highly doubt any of his roles top Col. Hans Landa. That’s a bingo.

Kerry Washington

Role in Django Unchained: Broomhilda

Notable Roles: Ray, The Last King of Scotland, Mother and Child, Scandal

Best Role: While the movie usually gets written off as one of Spike Lee’s lesser efforts, I love Washington’s confidence in She Hate Me. She nailed that role.

Previous installments of In Character include:
Steve Buscemi
John Cazale
Don Cheadle
Patricia Clarkson
Cliff Curtis
Jeff Daniels
Viola Davis
Michael Clarke Duncan
Chiwetel Ejiofor
William Fichtner

Brendan Gleeson
Bruce Greenwood
Philip Baker Hall
Woody Harrelson
John Hawkes
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Richard Jenkins
Erland Josephson
Elias Koteas
Heath Ledger
the Cast of Lincoln
William H. Macy
Christopher McDonald
Alfred Molina
David Morse
Emily Mortimer
Gary Oldman
Guy Pearce
Kevin Pollak
Joe Pantoliano
John C. Reilly
Sam Rockwell
Campbell Scott
Michael Shannon
David Strathairn
Danny Trejo
Stanley Tucci
Emily Watson
Shea Whigham
Ray Winstone
Jeffrey Wright
Steve Zahn