50 Fun Facts About Django Unchained

In what year was Django Unchained released in US theaters?

It premiered at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York on December 11 and went wide two weeks later.

Who plays the title character, Django?

He also produced one of the soundtrack's original rap tracks during filming.

Who plays the German bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz?

Tarantino wrote the part specifically for him after their work together on his previous film.

What is the name of the plantation owner who holds Broomhilda?

He styles himself 'Monsieur' despite speaking no French, a running joke in the film.

Who plays Broomhilda, Django's wife?

Her character's full name is Broomhilda 'Hildi' von Shaft.

Who plays Stephen, the fiercely loyal head house slave?

He had already worked with Tarantino on Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown and Kill Bill: Volume 2.

Which actor really cut his hand on a glass in the dinner scene and stayed in character?

The other actors gave him a standing ovation after the take, and his hand is visibly bandaged in the next scene.

Which star turned down the title role, later saying it 'wasn't the lead'?

He nonetheless said he thought the finished movie was brilliant.

Before bounty hunting, what was Dr. King Schultz's profession?

He still travels in a wagon topped with a giant bobbing tooth.

What is the name of the plantation where Broomhilda is held?

Its enslaved men are forced into wrestling deathmatches for their owner's entertainment.

Which Beethoven piece is heard in the film?

Verdi's 'Dies Irae' from his Requiem is the other classical piece Tarantino worked in.

On which US holiday did the film open in American theaters?

It made $15 million that day, the third-biggest opening ever for the date at the time.

Along with the supporting-actor prize, which Oscar did the film win?

It was Tarantino's second writing Oscar, eighteen years after Pulp Fiction.

The actor who plays Dr. King Schultz had won his first Oscar for which earlier Tarantino film?

Both of his Oscars, BAFTAs and Golden Globes have come from Tarantino roles.

Django destroys the mansion at the end using what?

He and Broomhilda watch the explosion from a distance before riding off together.

The film opens with Django in a chained coffle of slaves in which state?

The slaves are being marched by the Speck brothers when Schultz intercepts them.

The plantation where Broomhilda is held is in which state?

Schultz and Django first pitch their offer at the owner's gentleman's club in Greenville.

Which former Nash Bridges star plays plantation owner Big Daddy Bennett?

Big Daddy leads the bag-headed night riders whose eyeholes are cut too small to see through.

In what year does the story open?

That places the action three years before the Civil War began.

The title nods to the 1966 spaghetti Western Django, directed by whom?

Tarantino got the idea for the film while writing a book about the director.

Which star of the 1966 original makes a cameo as a slave owner drinking at the bar?

He was first rumored for the villain's role and had pitched playing a ghostly horseman instead.

Which rapper performs '100 Black Coffins', a track produced by the film's lead actor?

The song became his most successful single in France.

Roughly how much did the film gross worldwide?

That was against a $100 million production budget, and it remains Tarantino's biggest hit.

It became the highest-grossing Western of all time, overtaking which 1990 film?

It also passed Tarantino's own previous film to become his top earner.

How many Academy Award nominations did the film receive?

The nominations were for Best Picture, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Cinematography and Sound Editing.

A 2014-15 comic-book sequel crossed Django with which classic masked hero?

It was the first comic-book sequel to any Tarantino film, and Tarantino insisted on using the original Don Diego de la Vega.

Which filmmaker said he would not see the film, calling it 'disrespectful to my ancestors'?

He added that American slavery 'was not a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It was a Holocaust.'

Tarantino's abandoned sequel novel, Django in White Hell, was reworked into which film?

He decided the developing story's tone did not fit Django's morals and dropped the character.

Dr. King Schultz hails from which German city?

In 1858 the city was part of the Kingdom of Prussia.

Big Daddy's cream-colored linen suit was inspired by its actor's signature look on which TV series?

The costume designer said the villain's look drew partly on Rhett Butler.

Which actor was in talks to play Mandingo trainer Ace Woody before dropping out?

Kurt Russell was cast next and also left, so the part was folded into Walton Goggins's character.

It was the first Tarantino film not edited by which longtime collaborator, who died in 2010?

She died of heat exposure while hiking in Griffith Park on a 113-degree Los Angeles day.

Editor Fred Raskin earned a BAFTA nomination but lost to William Goldenberg's work on which film?

Raskin had been an assistant editor on Kill Bill before taking over the cutting room.

Before her punishment scene, the actress playing Broomhilda spent time confined in what?

She and Tarantino agreed to it so the sense of confinement on screen would be real.

The actor playing Stephen said the character had 'the same moral compass' as which public figure?

Boston Globe critic Wesley Morris had made the same comparison in his review.

Tarantino maintains the masked riders led by Big Daddy are not the Ku Klux Klan but a group called what?

The Klan was not founded until 1865, seven years after the film is set.

The snowy winter sequences are a homage to which 1968 spaghetti Western?

Tarantino said he liked the action in the snow so much he gave his film 'a big snow section in the middle.'

What are the first names of the Speck brothers, the slavers Schultz confronts in the opening?

James Russo plays the surviving brother, whom the freed slaves finish off.

Which National Historic Landmark in Wallace, Louisiana, served as a filming location?

Its 22 surviving slave cabins line a double row along an allée of oaks.

Which actor plays two unrelated characters, one of the Speck brothers and Butch Pooch?

The second character is the bodyguard whose shotgun ends the dinner standoff.

Django's hat was made by the hatmaker behind Little Joe's hat on which TV Western?

The costume designer described Django's look as a 'rock-n-roll take on the character.'

The 'Django' theme song, reused from the 1966 film, was composed by whom?

The 1966 film's soundtrack is among its most praised elements alongside its lead performance.

What is the 1966 star's cameo character, who chats with Django at the bar, named?

The two swap notes on how the name Django is spelled: 'The D is silent.'

What is the name of the director's cameo character among the LeQuint Dickey Mining Company men escorting Django?

Tarantino also appears earlier as a masked night rider named Robert.

Ennio Morricone wrote the original song 'Ancora qui' with which Italian singer, who supplied the lyrics?

It was one of four new songs eligible for an Oscar; none was nominated.

Which Frank Ocean ballad did Tarantino reject because 'there just wasn't a scene for it'?

Ocean later posted the song himself on his Tumblr blog.

Tarantino credits Schultz to the 1960s German Karl May Westerns and their hero, named what?

In May's novels the hero is the German blood brother of the Apache chief Winnetou.

Django's fancy valet outfit was modelled on which Thomas Gainsborough painting?

His sunglasses, meanwhile, came from Charles Bronson's character in The White Buffalo.

Schultz's faux chinchilla coat was inspired by Telly Savalas in which TV series?

Broomhilda's final dress echoes one worn in the 1965 spaghetti Western Blood for a Silver Dollar.

The 1975 film Mandingo, source of the movie's slave-fighting term, adapted a 1957 novel by whom?

Historians note there is no definitive evidence that owners ever staged such fights to the death.