Quentin Tarantino has written some truly memorable villains throughout his career, and even though most have become quite popular with the audience, there’s one villain that Tarantino actually hates, and he isn’t wrong in disliking him so much. Quentin Tarantino has earned a place among the most respected filmmakers in the industry, all thanks to his peculiar visual and narrative style, mastery in writing dialogues, generous doses of blood, and his charismatic and multi-layered characters, both “heroes” and villains.
Tarantino’s career as a filmmaker began in 1992 with the independent crime movie Reservoir Dogs, which was a hit with critics. However, his big break arrived two years later with another crime movie but with the particularity of being told in a non-linear style: Pulp Fiction. Since then, Tarantino has explored different genres and has brought a variety of characters of which many have now become part of pop culture, such as Beatrix Kiddo/The Bride (Uma Thurman) from Kill Bill: Volume 1 and Kill Bill: Volume 2, and Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) from Inglourious Basterds. Tarantino has also brought to life some interesting villains, but there’s one that he doesn’t like at all, and with good reason: Django Unchained’s Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).
In 2012, Tarantino explored the Western genre with Django Unchained, a revisionist tribute to Spaghetti Westerns starring Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, and Leonardo DiCaprio. Set in the Old West, Django Unchained follows Django (Foxx), a slave who is freed by dentist-turned-bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Waltz), with whom he teams up to go after some of the most wanted criminals in the area as well as rescue Django’s wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), from Calvin Candie, a sadistic plantation owner. Candie owned the fourth largest cotton plantation in Mississippi, called Candyland, and the sources of his wealth were the cotton from the plantation, forcing male slaves to participate in brutal wrestling matches (Mandingo fights), and charging admission for people to watch these. Candie’s sadistic ways made him terrifying, and he also ended up being that one villain that Tarantino absolutely hates.
In an interview with ReelBlend podcast, Tarantino opened up about the characters he has created, particularly villains, sharing that he had a weird relationship with Django Unchained’s Calvin Candie. Tarantino explained that he has always had sympathy for all his villains and “liked them to some degree or another”, even Hans Landa, who was a bad person but he “could see his point of view” and Waltz made him likable, but with Calvin Candie it was different. Tarantino shared that Candie was different from the rest and he “kinda detested the character” and “really, really hated him”. He added that Candie was, to him, a character without ambiguity, which made him a “lesser character”, but Leonardo DiCaprio managed to bring ambiguity to him. It’s easy to see why Candie provoked such a reaction in Tarantino as he really is a detestable character: he’s racist, sadistic, impulsive, unpredictable, and selfish, and he had a very threatening presence.
Ultimately, Candie got what he deserved when, after altering the deal with Schultz just to mess with him, Django, and Broomhilda, and threatening to kill her if Schultz didn’t shake his hand, Schultz shot him and killed him on the spot. Schultz was then killed by Candie’s bodyguard, leading Django to go on a rampage and killing several of Candie’s henchmen. Calvin Candie is definitely one of Quentin Tarantino’s most problematic and obscure villains, and it says a lot about the character that not even Tarantino himself liked him.
