Actor Jamie Foxx attends "Django Unchained" Old West Town at Comic-Con on July 14, 2012 in San Diego, California. Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for The Weinstein Company/AFP

Jamie Foxx struggled to watch his Django Unchained co-star Kerry Washington face a "whipping" in a brutal scene and is convinced audiences will be moved to tears by the chilling shoot.

The actor plays a freed slave out for revenge against an evil plantation owner portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio, while Washington plays Foxx's on-screen wife.

The Last King of Scotland actress was required to be whipped for one scene in Quentin Tarantino's movie, and Foxx reveals those watching were overcome with emotion.

He tells Britain's Empire magazine, "It runs deep. At the beginning, when we started shooting, they were whipping Kerry and I had to watch it. It affected me. At the time, we were playing music to the whole plantation. The music was a gospel song by Fred Hammond called No Weapons Formed Against Me Shall Prosper, and just to see everybody go to a place... There were people with tears in their eyes.

"Those moments, well, we can't really tell here right now because we're still shooting the movie. But I think those moments we put on the screen are going to jerk people. Their emotions are gonna be really running high."