ON SET: DJANGO UNCHAINED

Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx at Comic Con.

Quentin Tarantino's raw, brutal take on the pre-Civil War South led on-set tears and apologies for cast members.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Walton Goggins apologized to the black actors they were working alongside for their use of the n-word in the film and other brutal actions. But at Comic-Con in San Diego on Saturday, July 14, star Jamie Foxx says the violence and language was needed for the story.


"I think that if you don't tell the story of slavery like this, you don't need to tell it anymore. If you don't say what the language, how the n-word was used, if you don't say it with the brutality of what it was -- I don't think you do it. And I think we're grown up enough now to understand and look back on it now and know that it is a film. I mean we've got a black president. We've come a long way," Foxx said.

"Django Unchained" stars Foxx as a man on a mission of vengeance as he tries to rescue his wife (Washington). Waltz plays a dentist-turned-gunslinger who takes Django under his wing as they take on the owner of a plantation (Leonardo DiCaprio) where slaves are trained for bloody sport. Samuel L. Jackson, a standout in Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction co-stars as DiCaprio's trusted house slave.

Walton Goggins says he apologized to Foxx and others on-set. "It wasn't easy -- for Jamie, for all of the 'Mandingos,' all of the black people involved, the black actors. And it wasn't easy for us white actors either. I mean, I spent every take meaning everything that I said, but I began every take with 'I'm really sorry. I'm really sorry.' Because these were friends," he said.

Foxx and Jackson shook him off, Foxx says: "When we jumped into this it was like we're going to get into these characters and be these characters. And I think it was Samuel Jackson that expressed to everyone, 'This is just another Tuesday or Wednesday.' This can't be -- if you approach it like you're apologetic to everything, you know. And that's good that they had that spirit, that they have that inside them that they know that those words are hurtful, but in order for us to get the movie done we had to go there."

Kerry Washington plays Foxx's wife and says it was her most difficult film shoot ever. "This film for a lot of reasons and in a lot of ways was the most difficult thing I've had to do emotionally and psychologically. And I think a big part of that is having to really not just think about how awful this period of history was but to be in it, to live it. And it was hard for everybody. It was hard for the people of color who were acting in the film, but it was also hard for a lot of the white actors. I had -- there's a very difficult scene for me where my character goes through a very brutal moment and the white actors were in tears. It was very hard for all of us," she said.

Despite all that, Foxx promises moments of levity. "Only Quentin Tarantino can do what he's doing to where -- even though it's really a touchy subject, there are going to be times where you laugh out loud. When Django actually goes to confront his masters and he plays James Brown 'The Big Payback' in the back, you've got to laugh a little bit at that," he said.

"Django Unchained" debuts in theaters this December.