Following the premiere of Django on Sky Atlantic, fans have had many questions, one of them being: “Why is Django played by a white actor?” If you are curious why a white actor plays Django in the 2023 Sky Atlantic series, here is everything you need to know.
Why is Django white in the TV series?
The reason Django is white in the TV series is because the actor playing him, Matthias Schoenarts, is a white man of Belgian-European descent.
The Django series is a reimagined and modernized take on the 1966 Spaghetti Western film, Django, that featured Italian actor Franco Nero, who is also of white European descent.
Furthermore, Matthias Schoenarts, the actor playing Django revealed in an interview with RadioTimes that the series was only a reimagination and had an infusion of modern contemporary themes in its story. It wasn’t intended as a complete reinvention of the original 1966 Django film. This also explains why Django’s white ethnicity was retained from the original film that starred Franco Nero. Had there been a reinvention, it is possible that Django’s ethnicity would have undergone some change.
The question of Django’s white ethnicity in the recent adaptation arose because of Quentin Tarantino’s 2012 film Django Unchained, a loose adaptation of 1966’s Django, which put a black slavery story spin on it and starred Jamie Foxx, a black man in the role of Django. However, this film has no relation to 1966’s Django or the 2023 Django series as it is its own story with unique themes and an allegory of slavery and racism.
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