Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained already stars one actor who started out young and has since been hailed as one of the best of his generation, with Leonardo DiCaprio expected to play an evil slave owner in the Civil War-era film. Now he might be ready to bring in the next generation of talent. Variety reports that Joseph Gordon-Levitt is in talks to join the film, which is set to start shooting in January with a cast rounded out by Jamie Foxx, Kurt Russell and Don Johnson, plus Tarantino veterans Samuel L. Jackson and Christoph Waltz.

Variety doesn't have details on which role Gordon-Levitt might play, and even over at The Playlist, where they've read the script, they're a little bit stumped. But word has been that Tarantino is reshaping the script before shooting begins, so it's entirely possible that he took a shine to Gordon-Levitt and cleared room for him in the story. Who can blame him? Between his terrific, still-underseen turn in this fall's 50/50, his gravity defying acrobatics in Inception, his everyman demeanor in 500 Days of Summer, and of course, the mysterious promise of him playing a villain in next summer's The Dark Knight Rises, Gordon-Levitt is turning heads everywhere. You don't wonder which great director he'll work with next, but how long it will take him to work for all of them.

Given recent news that Sony has pushed Gordon-Levitt's film Premium RushDjango works out, he'll have a hell of a year set up-- Dark Knight Rises in July, Premium Rush in August, and Django Unchained set for a lightning fast turnaround in time for Christmas Day next year. Hard to think of anyone who deserves it more.