DICAPRIO TO PLAY 'SLAVE OWNER' IN TARANTINO BLOCKBUSTER

Since playing Jack Dawson in 'Titanic' way back in 1997, Leonardo DiCaprio's career has been vast and varied, with the actor playing a wide range of characters, often the stuff of boyhood fantasies; an undercover agent, a gunrunner, a conman.

However DiCaprio has somewhat skillfully steered his career away from any deeply controversial roles, declining Quentin Tarantino's offer to play Colonel Hans Landa, aka 'The Jew Hunter,' in 'Inglourious Basterds.'

Perhaps DiCaprio regretted this move after the film was a box-office and critical success, as it is reported that we may about to see the 36 year-old actor in his most notorious role yet.

And of course, nobody does 'notorious' like Tarantino.

It is alleged that DiCaprio is in talks with the director to star as a ruthless slave owner named Calvin Candie in Quentin Tarantino's next project, 'Django Unchained.'

The film is said to be about the revenge of a slave on his master, with Tarantino only completing the script late April.

Of the venture the director has said he wanted "to do movies that deal with America's horrible past with slavery but do them like spaghetti westerns, not like big issue movies.

"I want to do them like they're genre films, but they deal with everything that America has never dealt with because it's ashamed of it, and other countries don't really deal with because they don't feel they have the right to," Tarantino told the Daily Mail.

'Django Unchained' is said to be the first product of this idea, with 'Water for Elephants' star Christoph Waltz set to play German bounty hunter, and Samuel L. Jackson vetted for the role of Stephen, the 'assistant' to DiCaprio's character.

While it is unconfirmed who will play the lead alongside DiCaprio, 'the slave,' several Hollywood heavyweights are rumoured to be interested, including Will Smith, Jamie Foxx, Idris Elba and Chris Tucker.

We are expecting this one to be a 'must see,' and if DiCaprio plays his cards right, it could be the role that lands him his first Oscar.