Now that we know all (well, something) about Django Unchained, it seems a long time ago that the details of Quentin Tarantino's western were super-sketchy, and it was thought that it might be called The Angel, the Brute and the Wise, and that it might have Franco Nero in it.

Nero, the original Django, is still unconfirmed for Unchained, but it turns out that TATBATW is his own film: a tribute to Sergio Leone and, slightly less obviously, John Huston. And it looks as if Tarantino will very likely appear as an actor.

Nero explains that he asked Tarantino to play a cameo: one of three bandits that Nero kills with a shotgun loaded with gold coins. "He said 'Oh yeah!'" says Nero. "'So I can come with Robert Rodriguez and my friends to play them!'"

Sounds like a nice little nod to Once Upon a Time in the West, where Charles Bronson guns down classic Western veterans Jack Elam, Woody Strode and Al Mulock in the film's opening minutes (legend has it that it was supposed to be Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach, but Eastwood wouldn't play). Tarantino hasn't signed anything so formal as a contract with Nero, but has put his scrawl to "a letter of intent".

Of Django Unchained, Nero says he knows practically nothing, but reveals that, "Every time Tarantino and I speak he wants to know everything about Sergio Corbucci, the director of Django [and of the awesome The Great Silence]. I hope that Quentin will ask me to be in the movie. I would be very happy, of course."