Leonardo DiCaprio Speaks on His Role in 'Django Unchained'

Quentin Tarantino's latest endeavor "Django Unchained" explores the pre-Civil War South, embedded in slavery and struggle.

The scum of the film comes in the form of Calvin Candie, a wealthy plantation owner with a penchant for violence. Leonardo DiCaprio, who stars as Candie, has come a long way since his youthful days in "Titanic" and reveals to VIBE that the challenges in playing an evil white man in a slavery flick is exactly why he accepted the role.

"I wanted to go in there and try to embody somebody and an attitude that is so foreign to me and go the distance," he says, comparing Candie to King Louis the XIV. 'He sees all these atrocities happen but he's able to separate himself in an almost inhuman way in order to prolong his lifestyle.

The "Inception" actor says he had to tap into another creative space besides experience for the role. "It took me to places I didn’t even imagine...I can't identify with his thought process or what his life was like. But once I got there and started playing him, it's not that you understand what he's thinking but you certainly see how that decadence and that need to prolong something like that is almost a religion to him.'

Even if Leo plays a secondary character among the A-list cast comprised of Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz and Kerry Washington, he was well aware of his character's influence. "I was a supporting character but at the end of the day, he has the greatest impact on the story and certainly [in the characters'] relationship, he's the dividing force...It felt good that I got to depict this guy as horribly as I could and he is where he belongs now."

"Django Unchained" in theatres now.