Will Smith Reveals Why He Turned Down Tarantino's Django Unchained

Will Smith has revealed why he turned down the lead role in Quentin Tarantino’s slave-era drama ‘Django Unchained’.

The star was talking at The Hollywood Reporter’s Actor’s Roundtable discussion when he explained his issues with the movie.

The lead role of Django, a black slave searching for his wife, who has been taken by a psychotic plantation owner, eventually went to Jamie Foxx.

“It was about the creative direction of the story,” Smith said, sitting opposite Samuel L. Jackson, who took a main role in the movie as Stephen, the overseer of the plantation slaves.

“To me, it’s as perfect a story as you could ever want: a guy that learns how to kill to retrieve his wife that has been taken as a slave. That idea is perfect. And it was just that Quentin and I couldn’t see [eye to eye].

“I wanted to make that movie so badly, but I felt the only way was, it had to be a love story, not a vengeance story.

“We can’t look at what happens in Paris [the terrorist attacks] and want to f**k somebody up for that. Violence begets violence.

“I just couldn’t connect to violence being the answer. Love had to be the answer.”

Smith also spoke about how he 'fell out of love’ with acting around four years ago, but rekindled it thanks to his daughter Willow.

The star took something of a hiatus between 'Hancock’ and 'Seven Pounds’ in 2008 and 'Men In Black 3’ in 2012.

“In retrospect, I realise I had hit a ceiling in my talent. I had a great run that I thought was fantastic, and I realized that I had done everything that I could do with the 'me’ that I had,” he said, adding that he went into a period of reflection, when he realised he’d become 'product orientated’.

“I really dived into me, and then all of a sudden it was like, 'Oh!’ And I found the connection. Your work can never really be better than you are, you know? Your work can’t be deeper than you are.

“I have a 15-year-old daughter, and she got me and shifted my focus from product to people.

"It took a couple of years, but as soon as I got knocked off of product and started shifting to people, the whole world opened up for me again, and acting opened up in a whole new way - to not go into day one of a movie trying to figure out what everybody has to do so we win, versus opening up and every person is a whole new world.

“It was a pathology that broke for me a couple of years ago and I fell in love and then I couldn’t imagine what else I could do that could add so much to my life other than acting.”

Smith will be courting an Oscar nomination in his next movie, playing Nigerian forensic pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu, who brought attention to the effects of head trauma injuries in the NFL.

It’s out in the UK on February 12. Check out the trailer below.

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Image credits: PA/Miramax