Tarantino Taking a Gamble on Sacha Baron Cohen

Variety is reporting that actor/comic Sacha Baron Cohen is in final negotiations to join Quentin Tarantino’s star-studded Western Django Unchained, playing a gambler named Scotty who buys the title character’s wife as a companion. It’s reportedly a small role but Tarantino was adamant on having Baron Cohen play the part.

The slave-turned-bounty hunter Django himself is played by Jamie Foxx while Leonardo DiCaprio and Christoph Waltz are the other primary leads in a cast that includes Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Don Johnson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Kerry Washington, Anthony LaPaglia, RZA, and more.

In the meantime, you can see Baron Cohen in Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, opening November 23.

The Weinstein Company will release Django Unchained on December 25, 2012, with Sony releasing the movie internationally.