Jamie Foxx has shared the story of how Samuel L. Jackson coached Leonardo DiCaprio through one of the most challenging aspects of filming Django Unchained, offering a revealing look at the behind-the-scenes dynamics on one of the most talked-about film sets of the last two decades.

Released in 2012, Quentin Tarantino's revisionist Western starred Foxx as Django, an enslaved man who teams up with a bounty hunter to rescue his wife from a sadistic plantation owner played by DiCaprio. The film earned five Academy Award nominations and was a significant commercial success, but its release was not without controversy, particularly around its use of racial slurs, which appear approximately 110 times throughout the film.

Speaking to Howard Stern, Foxx recalled that DiCaprio found it genuinely difficult to say the N-word on camera, and for understandable reasons. "You know why that's tough?" Foxx said. "Because if it goes horribly wrong, you're going to be branded a racist."

The set was populated by what Foxx described as titans of the industry, including himself, Jackson and Tarantino. It was Jackson who ultimately gave DiCaprio the most direct encouragement to push through his hesitation, in characteristically blunt fashion. Foxx recalled Jackson essentially telling DiCaprio to stop overthinking it and just commit to the role, delivering his advice in the most Samuel L. Jackson way imaginable.

Foxx also offered his own perspective to DiCaprio, telling him that to stay in character he needed to understand that in the context of the story, they were not colleagues. "I told Leo that in slavery days we would never talk to each other. I'm not your friend. I'm not Jamie Foxx. I'm Django."

Jackson later corroborated Foxx's account in a separate interview with The Times, and went further by defending Tarantino against what he described as unfair criticism over the film's language. "Every time someone wants an example of overuse of the N-word, they go to Quentin," Jackson said. "It's unfair. He's just telling the story and the characters do talk like that."

The film remains one of the most debated mainstream releases of the 2010s, praised for its performances and direction while remaining a lightning rod for discussion around race, representation and the use of racially charged language in cinema.