'Django Unchained': Jamie Foxx Becomes A Superhero

Foxx and co-star Kerry Washington talk to MTV News about Quentin Tarantino's 'epic, cowboy Western.'

Superheroes ruled 2012, even if they didn't always come from the pages of a comic book. One such hero is the titular gunslinger in "Django Unchained," according to stars Jamie Foxx and Kerry Washington.

"What's accomplished in this movie is the character Django. It's accomplished. It's superheroic, in a sense," Foxx told MTV News during a recent interview. "This is his origin story, and I think that's fantastic."

'Django' Is A 'Hero' Story

Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino's newest movie, a Western taking place in the pre-Civil War south, focuses on Django (Foxx), a former slave turned bounty hunter with one goal in mind: saving his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), currently serving the will of slave-driving man-child Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). Django's journey takes him all across America with gun in hand as he kills bad guys and gets paid for it, leading him to his ultimate confrontation on Calvin's plantation, appropriately called Candyland.

"One of the things we both really loved about the script when we read it is that it's a hero's story," Washington said about the story at the heart of Tarantino's latest. "This isn't a sad, awful story about slavery. It's a story about two people who really, really love each other in a time where they're not allowed to. It's about the epic, cowboy Western adventure to rescue the woman he loves. It's in the context of an awful world, but every great story has dragons to slay. In our story, the dragon is slavery."

Foxx said that he studied all kinds of films to prepare for "Django," including the works of Clint Eastwood, as well as performances by Denzel Washington in "Glory" and Wesley Snipes in "New Jack City." The result is a film that the Oscar-winning Foxx is immensely proud of — and a world he hopes to return to one day.

"I know [Tarantino] doesn't do sequels necessarily, but [the ending] makes you excited," the actor teased. "It's fantastic."