ranco Nero had no inkling that when he started filming the original Django movie nearly 50 years ago that he\u2019d be making history. There was no real script, the budget was at first big enough to finance only a single scene. \u201cWhen we started, I really wasn\u2019t sure if we\u2019d ever even finish the film,\u201d Nero says.
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Instead, Nero\u2019s interpretation of a brooding, mostly silent and unflappable cowboy drifter made Sergio Corbucci\u2019s ultra-violent film a spaghetti Western classic that spawned at least 30 sequels — Nero reprised Django in only one of them, 1987\u2019s Django Strikes Again, directed by Nello Rossati — and inspired minions of dedicated fans. One of them was director Quentin Tarantino.<\/p>\n
In Tarantino\u2019s film, Django Unchained, which opened Christmas Day in the U.S. and Canada and will premiere in Europe on Friday in Rome, Jamie Foxx plays the title role; Nero appears in a cameo.<\/p>\n
Nero, 71, has acted in nearly 200 films including the role of Sir Lancelot in Joshua Logan\u2019s Camelot, Horacio in Tristana from Luis Bunuel and Gianni Versace in Menahem Golan\u2019s The Versace Murder. He even provided the voice for Uncle Topolino in Pixar\u2019s Cars 2. But he remains best known as Django.<\/p>\n
Nero was at the Capri, Hollywood Film Festival as part of a special tribute to Django, featuring a screening of Corbucci\u2019s 1966 classic, an extended trailer of Django Unchained and the Capri Legends Award, the festival\u2019s top honor. He spoke with The Hollywood Reporter on the sidelines of the festival.<\/p>\n
The Hollywood Reporter: After you finished making Django, what was the first sign you had that it was something more extraordinary than you might have guessed?
\nFranco Nero: I think it was a few months later, when I was in the U.S. to make Camelot, the Warner Bros film. I had a print of Django with me, and one day I decided to do a screening for the crew and some people there. They all said it was such an original movie, that it was not at all like an American Western. They loved it so much I had to do three more screenings, and I remember actors like Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, who were shooting their own films in that area, they all came. And Terence Young, the film director, saw it three times. That\u2019s when it started to strike me that the film was something special.<\/p>\n
THR: What do you attribute this to, that almost 50 years later the film is still resonating with people, many of whom weren’t alive when it came out?
\nNero: It\u2019s a good question. I have done many, many interviews, especially in the last year, with Quentin\u2019s movie. I almost always get asked that question, and I really don\u2019t know the answer. It\u2019s one of the things that cannot be explained.<\/p>\n
THR: Tarantino was only 3 when Django when it first came out, but it obviously made an impression on him.
\nNero: That\u2019s right. During the shooting, he wanted everyone to see the original Django film.<\/p>\n
THR: At what point did you first hear about Tarantino\u2019s fascination with the film?
\nNero: It\u2019s a long story that goes back almost 15 years. I was doing a movie in Spain, called Talk of Angels, for Miramax [in 1998]. It\u2019s a story set during the Spanish Civil War, in 1934, and the actress Penelope Cruz played my daughter. One day, she had to leave the set to fly to San Sebastian, for the film festival, and when she came back she said, \u201cYou know, Franco, I met this young director named Quentin Tarantino, and when I told him I was doing this movie with you, he was crazy about it. He said: \u2018Oh! Bring him here, bring him here. I have to meet him!\u2019\u201d That was the first time I heard of Tarantino. After that, I saw interviews with Tarantino where he talked about me.<\/p>\n
THR: When did you finally meet? And when the idea of a new film based on Django emerge?
\nNero: Well, several years later he came to Rome for the local premiere of Inglourious Basterds [in 2009], and he said to the production that he wanted to meet me. We had lunch in Rome and he told me all the story, that he first saw Django when he was 14, when he was working in a video store. He knew practically all my work, he recited lines from my movies, and the music from my movies. He knew almost all of them.<\/p>\n
THR: So that\u2019s when you first discussed the movie?
\nNero: No, sorry, no. It didn\u2019t come up until [2011] when I was in Berlin for the festival and I saw [producer] Harvey Weinstein and he mentioned it to me. He just said, \u201cOh, Franco, you\u2019re going to be in Quentin\u2019s new movie.\u201d That was it. I hadn\u2019t heard anything about it. All of a sudden people started saying to me, \u201cOh, I hear you\u2019re going to be in Tarantino\u2019s movie.\u201d But still nothing official until, finally, around October 2011, a call from Tarantino and he said he was doing the movie, Django Unchained. He told me the idea for the film, and I said I had an idea for the script. Do you want to hear it?<\/p>\n
THR: Yes, yes, of course.
\nNero: My idea is that Jamie Foxx [who plays Django], through the movie, had a vision of a horseman dressed in black, coming toward the camera. It haunted him. Until the very end, then there\u2019s the horseman — that is me — and the camera pulls back and there\u2019s a young black boy, and a black mother, who looks up and says \u201cThat\u2019s your father,\u201d and I would give him some advice, like “Fight for freedom,” or something like that. Quentin said he would think about it, but in the end he didn\u2019t go for the idea. He said I should be an Italian character with a cameo role. I was hesitant, but he said, \u201cTrust me!\u201d So I did, we shook hands, and I loved working with him.<\/p>\n
THR: What are the biggest similarities and differences between your version of Django and Foxx\u2019s version?
\nNero: Well, both are men of few words; both are very skilled with the guns. They are men of action. My Django was seeking revenge for his wife, Mercedes, but Jamie Foxx\u2019s version\u2019s wife is still alive, and he succeeds to reunite with her. I betray my partner, but Jamie Foxx is a much better partner to his former slave owner [played by Christoph Waltz].<\/p>\n
THR: Could the two Djangos have become friends if had they met?
\nNero: Well, I became friends with Jamie Foxx in real life. But I\u2019m not sure the Djangos would have gotten along. <\/p>\n
THR: In that case, if they were enemies, which Django would win a fight between them? You\u2019re a pretty good shot in the original.
\nNero: [Laughs] Well, I don\u2019t know. In the new movie, this Django knows how to shoot as well. But, well, I think I would have won. The difference is that in the new movie, his partner is the one who teaches him how to shoot. But in the original, I already knew.