Jamie Foxx Joins Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained

Jamie Foxx has joined Quentin Tarantino's upcoming film Django Unchained.

The Oscar winner will play the titular character, a freed slave who tries to rescue his long-lost love, Broomhilda, from a plantation owner, Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), with the help of a German bounty hunter, who will be played by Inglourious Basterds' Christoph Waltz. Fellow Tarantino alum Samuel L. Jackson also stars as Candie's slave, Stephen, while Kerry Washington, Foxx's Ray co-star, is in talks to play Broomhilda.

"I think, just to be able to work with Quentin Tarantino and Samuel Jackson, Leonardo DiCaprio, and to be able to tell a story that needs to be told," Foxx told CNN, explaining why he took the role. "If you're a fan of, I mean, you know — it's just amazing. It should be [an] amazing [thing]."

Tarantino originally offered the lead role to Will Smith, who turned it down. He then met with Idris Elba, Terrence Howard and Chris Tucker before casting Foxx, according to Variety.

Django Unchained is scheduled to hit theaters Christmas Day 2012.