Oz actor Anthony LaPaglia dumps Tarantino movie for Assange biopic

Melbourne -  Australian actor Anthony LaPaglia has dropped out of Quentin Tarantino’s movie to star in a movie based on Julian Assange’s life.

LA-based LaPaglia, who came home to launch his new Australian film ‘Mental,’ was to play a small part in the 49-year-old director’s upcoming film ‘Django Unchained,’ which stars Jamie Foxx as a freed slave-turned-bounty hunter.

But when his one day of shooting for Tarantino’s film was continually pushed back, threatening his commitment to local production ‘Underground,’ about Wikileaks founder Assange, LaPaglia faced a “tough decision.”

“For me to pull out of Underground would have hurt it,” the Daily Telegraph quoted LaPaglia as saying.

“They’d raised the money partially on me and Rachel Griffiths (being involved). They were about to start shooting and it would have created mayhem and may have shut the film down.

“The people at Django, their attitude more or less was, ‘Just dump the other film,’ but I couldn’t do it  out of respect to (director) Rob Connolly, out of respect to the material, out of respect to the commitment I’d made,” he said.

‘Underground’ will screen on Channel 10 later this year and ‘Django’ is scheduled to open in Australia on January 24.