Sacha Baron Cohen joining Django Unchained

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Just when you thought the cast list for Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained couldn't get any more eclectic, we get the news that Sacha Baron Cohen is in negotiations to sign up.

According to The Hollywood Reporter , Sacha Baron Cohen is set to play a "minor but showy role," as a gambler who buys Django's (Jamie Foxx) enslaved wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington).

Baron Cohen joins what's possibly the most mouthwatering cast of next year, including the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz, Kurt Russell, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Samuel L Jackson and more.

Probably still best known for comedy creations Borat and Ali G, Baron Cohen has been gradually carving a niche as a 'proper' actor with supporting roles in Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd and Martin Scorsese's Hugo .

His next big comedy character will be seen in The Dictator , which opens next summer. He's also rumoured to be playing Queen's Freddie Mercury in a long-gestating biopic of the flamboyant frontman.

Django Unchained opens on Boxing Day 2012, which means our best-of-the-year lists could need some last-minute rejigging…

Matt Maytum
Editor, Total Film

I'm the Editor at Total Film magazine, overseeing the running of the mag, and generally obsessing over all things Nolan, Kubrick and Pixar. Over the past decade I've worked in various roles for TF online and in print, including at GamesRadar+, and you can often hear me nattering on the Inside Total Film podcast. Bucket-list-ticking career highlights have included reporting from the set of Tenet and Avengers: Infinity War, as well as covering Comic-Con, TIFF and the Sundance Film Festival.