Published Date: 17 November 2009
By Siobhan Synnot
JAMIE Foxx's place on the cultural landscape is both prominent and peculiar.
He's a chart-topping pop star at 41 and a brand-name comic in the US with his own satellite radio channel. He won an Oscar for his role in Ray, and his next movie, Law Abiding Citizen, is scheduled for release next week. Yet, just as other actors would be retreating to their beach homes or booking their Christmas break, Foxx has been putting himself through a punishing 50-date concert tour of the US. Record producer Quincy Jones once warned him: "it's not a hundred yard dash, it's a marathon." "Now is not the time to think about having a breather," adds Foxx: "We've got a long way to go."
And yet for all this high energy activity and talk, in person Foxx can seem such a studiously cool cat that he's barely awake. Last time we met, he was equally laid back and affable. It was only later that I discovered he was spending every moment between interviews sawing away at a cello he'd brought to the hotel, as part of his preparation for his role in The Soloist, in which he played a homeless schizophrenic who was also a brilliant musician.
For Law Abiding Citizen, he stars as a politically ambitious prosecutor, who does a deal that allows a killer to go free so that another will be executed, and in the process brings on his own head the wrath of Gerard Butler, whose wife and child were murdered by the two men.
"I heard about the project through my agent and wanted to be a part of it," says Foxx, who says he has been following Butler's career since his international breakthrough with 300 as the leader of Frank Miller's re-imagined Spartan warriors. "300 was my movie. I'd go around saying the lines. Butler probably thought I was stalking him because I had his DVD playing in my trailer the whole time. A lot of times you choose projects just because of the script, or the money or the opportunity to build those memories."
Those memories may carry more than a hint of old Charles Bronson revenge flicks; in Law Abiding Citizen Butler's character metes out some rough justice on all those he considers responsible for bungling his case, including Foxx. On set, however, Foxx took on the role of tormentor, teasing Butler mercilessly about his upcoming nude scene in the movie.
"He was followed around by a trainer for most of the film," recalls Foxx gleefully. "And his main job was to stop him from eating cupcakes. I understand; he had to do his whole thing for the ladies, which is great. But that nude scene is when we men go to the concession stand."
Law Abiding Citizen is Foxx's first film since the disappointment surrounding The Soloist, a film which was supposed to consolidate his position as a dramatic force. Besides learning to play the cello well enough to synch up with recordings of LA Philharmonic musician Ben Hung, Foxx consulted doctors to learn about schizophrenia, lost a lot of weight, shaved his eyebrows and had his teeth ground down. The movie then sat on the shelf for months while studio executives decided what to do with it
"It was supposed to have been released last year right before the awards season," says Foxx. "It's not a box-office movie; it's an art house film. It was never going to do the kind of business a Star Trek would pull in – but then that wasn't the reason I did the film. When you make something like The Soloist, you hope the right people see it. Even if they don't, I can look back and be proud that it's in my body of work."
In any case, Foxx has now put The Soloist behind him. He is still hoping to star in a movie about Mike Tyson, despite looking like something Tyson might carry around for lunch (he points out that, in the past, he built himself up to 16 stone to play executed gangster Stan Tookie Williams in the TV movie Redemption). Foxx also plans a route back to comedy at one point, teaming up with Martin Lawrence for a drag act film called Skank Robbers, once they get around to writing a script.
It's odd to think of Foxx as a comic, since his stand-up and sitcoms have not been shown outside the US, and the bulk of his movie profile is drama. "One time when I was in Europe, a journalist couldn't believe it either," agrees Foxx. "They went – 'Really? Because I don't see you as funny at all.'"
Foxx grew up in a small town near Dallas, Texas; back then he was known as Eric Bishop. After his father left home, his mother struggled for a while and then agreed that her son should be adopted by his grandparents. They made sure he went to church and practised the piano every day. Foxx's mother, Louise, now lives with him in his Hollywood home along with his two sisters. His 15-year-old daughter and her mother, an ex-girlfriend, live nearby. However he remains estranged from his father, who converted to Islam and does not approve of his son's worldly activities.
Foxx's musical training won him a scholarship before he was sidetracked by stand-up comedy. He worked alongside Jim Carrey on the TV show In Living Color, then, at 27, was given his own sitcom, The Jamie Foxx Show, which came and then went. After a string of forgettable comedy roles, he won a part as an American football player in Oliver Stone's bone-crunching Any Given Sunday. From there he moved to straight dramas alongside Will Smith in Ali and Tom Cruise in Collateral, both directed by Michael Mann (with whom he worked again on the Miami Vice film).
But he came back to music for Ray, still his finest hour on screen. He not only impersonated the late singer's rolling gait and distinctive speaking voice, but also the dynamism of his musicianship. "When Ray Charles was showing me how he played the piano, he said to me, 'All the notes are down there under your fingers, you've just got to find the right ones,'" Foxx recalls. It was a star-making performance, especially when you consider how conventional the rest of this biopic is: the kind of picture in which all creativity springs from a single tragedy, and a musical revolution is telegraphed as being under way by showing the men at the studio mixing desk smiling and nodding at each other.
Foxx has always loved music, and alongside the acting and freewheeling chat, he enjoys a surprisingly potent music career. Even more surprisingly, he says that when he was starting out, his goal wasn't to be an Eddie Murphy or Sidney Poitier, but Lionel Richie, the durable king of easy listening.
Like Richie, Foxx has his eye on large mainstream audiences, even if his roots suggest his personal taste might be edgier and more ambitious. He has performed on the Grammys and, oddly, the Country Music Awards, and his third CD, Intuition, is a platinum seller – rare in these tough times for music sales. The album's biggest hit to date has been Blame It, a rather smirky ode to laddish bad behaviour, featuring rapper T-Pain, Foxx vocals autotuned to the point that he sounds like a lecherous robot, and a stuttering hook that suggests you "blame it on the a-a-a-a-alcohol". Isn't autotune, which was designed to digitally restore wayward singers to the correct pitch, a bit of a cheat for a trained musician like Foxx?
"It's not real music," he agrees. "But my music guy, Breyon Prescott, said: 'If you don't do it, your album will be in the grocery store in the bargain bin with the nail clippers and the flip-flops.'"
His own preferences are less gimmicky, he says, but also less commercial, and if it wasn't for Blame It, he wouldn't have people coming to his gigs. It's the independence of performance that Foxx really enjoys: "Sometimes you'll do a movie and maybe the joke will be funny on the set that day, but when the movie comes out a year later, that joke may be old. A movie depends on how it's been cut and many other things – but when you're out on stage, you navigate your own ship."
Law Abiding Citizen is released on 27 November www.lawabidingcitizenfilm.com
This article was first published in Scotland on Sunday on 15/11/09
http://news.scotsman.com/entertainment/Interview-Jamie-Foxx-actor.5825180.jp
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