Quentin Tarantino: The initial germ of the whole idea was a slave who becomes a bounty hunter and then goes after overseers that are hiding out on plantations.

I just started writing, and Django presented himself to me.

At the beginning he just was who he was – the sixth slave from the seventh on a chain gang line.

But he just kept revealing himself to me more and more as I wrote.

I’ve always wanted to do a Western. I like all kinds of Westerns, but since Spaghetti Westerns have always been my favorite, I thought that the day I do one, it would be in that Sergio Corbucci universe. 

Christoph Waltz: I read the script as it was in the making. It unfolded in front of me, more or less.  

I went up to Quentin’s house and he sat me at his table and put the pages in front of me and then watched me read it.  

It was a wonderful ritual.  

I was very touched that he would actually let me participate not in the genesis of the script, but in his train of thought.

Pilar Savone (producer): As you hear Quentin typing in his house, you’re a couple months out, you start calling all the players.

You call [Stunt Coordinator] Jeff Dashnaw, and you call [Sound Mixer] Mark Ulano, and you call [Makeup Department Head] Heba Thorisdottir, You call everybody and you say he’s getting close.

You try and keep everybody available because we’re a family, we’ve all done so many movies together, and we love working together.