Evan Parke, an actor with a handful of television credits on his resume (most notably a recent stint on the daytime soap The Young and the Restless), just locked up a part in a major motion picture that’s due in theaters this Christmas.

Parke landed a role in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, according to Deadline. Who will he play? No idea. By this point, I thought Tarantino had locked up his major casting decisions, with Jamie Foxx in line to play Django, a freed slave having to fight to get his wife (Kerry Washington) out of shackles; Leonardo DiCaprio as Calvin Candie, a sadistic ranch owner who makes captive men fight to the death on his property, and supporting (though still significant) parts for Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Christoph Waltz, Anthony LaPaglia, Sacha Baron Cohen, Don Johnson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Man, that’s an extensive cast. I can’t wait to see how QT puts them all to use.

Parke, meanwhile, has had some big-screen success, acting in Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes remake as well as Peter Jackson’s updated King Kong in 2005. He has stayed busy on ABC’s Desperate Housewives and episodes of NCIS and Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Needless to say, a part in the latest Tarantino film sounds like a massive step up for Parke, a chance for the actor to strut his stuff-- unless, of course, QT does away with him and casts him as a slave who gives his life for Django’s cause in the opening scene. We’ll find out when the film opens on Dec. 25.