--Courtesy of Tambay A. Obenson
In an interview with the UK's Sun, while plugging the film across the pond, Quentin Tarantino stated, while, as we already know, Idris Elba was one of the actors he looked at for the lead role eventually played by Jamie Foxx, "he never stood a chance of getting the part," because "he’s British," Tarantino said.
“Yeah, Idris is British and this is an American story. I think a problem with a lot of movies that deal with this issue is they cast British actors to play the Southerners and it goes a long way to distancing the movie. They put on their gargoyle masks and they do their phoney accents and you are not telling an American story any more. They are just making hay of it, whether it be James Mason in Mandingo or Michael Caine in Hurry Sundown, they get British actors to do this."
The first thing that I thought was, if he never really stood a chance of getting the part, why even look at him for the part in the first place...?
Says Quentin, “Leo is not from the South, but pretty much every other white actor in the movie is from the South. And most of the black actors are from the South. And I’m from the South.”
The other actors Tarantino looked at for the part were Chris Tucker, Terrence Howard, Michael K. Williams, and Tyrese.
