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Jamie Foxx Interview - Oscar On His Mind
Jamie Foxx is prime for superstardom with his turn as Ray Charles in 'Ray'
NEW YORK -- Jamie Foxx wasn't just cast in the role of late R&B great Ray Charles -- he was anointed.
The comic-turned-actor first met the legendary blind musician a couple of years ago when Foxx was the lead candidate for the title role in the Charles biopic, "Ray."
"I just wanted to meet Ray Charles. I didn't think, oh this is the man I'm going to portray," says Foxx, a mild-mannered Texan.
"So he comes in, lays his hands on my chest and hugs me. It was a different Ray Charles. It was as if he was saying, 'I need you right now because I'm tying everything up. I need you to save me' in a sense. He grabbed my hands and touched my fingers. Then we went over to these two pianos and it was like (serious musician) Ray Charles took over."
Charles was dying of cancer. He knew it and everyone in the room knew it. But Charles, who recorded more than 75 albums and earned 12 Grammys, wanted to participate in how his story would be told. (The soul-music pioneer died in June at the age of 73.)
A formally trained musician, Foxx managed to keep up with Charles as they played a couple of his popular tunes together. Then the white-haired icon upped the ante. He broke into some jazzy Thelonious Monk and Foxx stumbled. Charles got angry and barked, "Now why the hell did you do that? The notes are right underneath your fingers." Foxx soaked in the words and started again. This time he hit the right notes. At the end of the piece, Charles smiled and said, "The kid's got it."
Director Taylor Hackford, who witnessed the meeting, recalls, "I watched Jamie go from his regular height to about 10 feet tall right at that moment."
Hackford, a lifelong Ray Charles fan, had tried for 15 years to get this story to the big screen. So he too was feeling pretty tall on the day Foxx and Charles connected. Having previously helmed the Ritchie Valens biopic "La Bamba" and a documentary about Chuck Berry, Hackford saw a cinematic goldmine in bringing Charles' rags-to-riches tale to the big screen.
"Ray Charles, to me, was a revolutionary," the bearded filmmaker says. "My choice is always that you should talk about the struggle. This is a film about life impacting art: what created Ray Charles and what was involved in making him the incredible icon that we all know."
He also had the blessing of Charles himself, who urged Hackford to "just tell the truth."
The truth, of course, isn't always pretty. Charles struggled for years with heroin addiction. He was a notorious womanizer. He fathered 12 children by seven women. He grew up poor, suffered devastating early tragedies, and contended with racists and would-be exploiters. He was also a talented musician and an intelligent businessman who heeded the words of his beloved mother, who said, "You're blind, not stupid."
Foxx, 36, immersed himself in the role, according to Hackford. He dropped 30 pounds from his already narrow frame and agreed to wear prosthetics over his eyes, blinding him to everything around. "Ray couldn't cheat so I couldn't either," he explains.
Once in makeup, someone would have to lead Foxx to the set and even to the restroom between setups. For Foxx, it was a necessary inconvenience. Playing the lead in a big studio drama is something he's been working toward since he started as a stand-up comic more than 15 years ago.
"I saw comedy as a way to get on television," he says. "I was acting like a comedian. I was holding my mic like Eddie Murphy, walking around like Richard Pryor and doing impersonations like Rich Little."
Born Eric Bishop, he adopted his gender-ambiguous stage name to boost his chances at getting called to the stage during open mic nights. It stuck. Only his sister Deidre still calls him Eric.
A regular on the comedy circuit for years, Foxx got his big break in 1990 from the Wayans brothers who cast him in their hit sketch comedy series, "In Living Color" (which also launched the career of Jim Carrey). Keenan Ivory Wayans was a taskmaster, says Foxx. "If you weren't on time for a rehearsal, even if it was one minute late, you'd have to explain that one minute," he recalls.
Wayans explained to him that as an African-American comic in a competitive, not completely color-blind industry, mediocrity was unacceptable. "You've gotta be top of the line all the time," he recalls Wayans telling him.
In 1996, Foxx launched "The Jamie Foxx Show" and has since gone on to star in and produce several specials, including HBO's "Jamie Foxx: I Might Need Some Security."
A talented musician (he attended college on a music scholarship) he and Kanye West were featured on Twista's No. 1 single "Slow Jamz" earlier this year. His debut music album, "Peep This," was released in 1994. He recorded the theme song to his 1999 movie, "Any Given Sunday." More recently, he signed a record deal with J Records. His first album for the label is due in 2005 and is expected to be in the vein of contemporary R&B. Foxx also hopes his work on the "Ray" soundtrack will boost his music career. (Though he lip-synchs most of the songs in the music-filled movie.)
Foxx received critical acclaim for his portrayal of gang member-turned-Nobel peace prize nominee Stan "Tookie" Williams in the cable movie "Redemption." He also portrayed Muhammad Ali's corner man Drew Bundini Brown in the 2001 biopic "Ali." Other screen credits include "Any Given Sunday," "Bait," "Breakin' All the Rules" and "The Truth About Cats & Dogs."
Recently, he co-starred with Tom Cruise in the hit actioner "Collateral," playing a cab driver held hostage by Cruise's hit man. The two actors forged a friendship and have subsequently appeared together at various special events. Cruise even paid a surprise visit when Foxx was a guest on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno."
Foxx's dead-on portrayal of Charles makes him a likely Oscar contender, but he's taking the buzz in stride, knowing the fickle nature of show business.
He describes this as "Cinderella time" professionally, where nearly everyone is supportive and encouraging him. But he expects the gild to wear off eventually. Indeed, he recently found himself in an embarrassing position when a Las Vegas man came forward alleging to have sexually explicit photos of Foxx.
"They can't tear me down," says Foxx of his detractors. "I'm a different animal. It's hard to penetrate Jamie Foxx because I don't live my life with any stakes. My career has always been from the outside. I'm like a jazz club you have to find. I don't need to be on the cover of magazines. The things that people have tried to do to (me), so what?"
"I'm not running for office and I shouldn't change the way I am," he adds, "because that's what makes it fun."
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