CELEBRITIES
Age is just a number for the tireless actor who believes his profession is all about having fun By Cindy Pearlman
‘Sleepless’ star Jamie Foxx believes age is just a number and is determined to keep having fun.
ot so long ago, Jamie Foxx was hanging out at a hot club and doing a bit of DJ- ing. “Everyone in the club sees me hanging out with Drake and Kanye,” Foxx said. “These girls wander over, and I’d say the average age was about 21. One of the girls pointed to her friend and said, ‘I’m 20, she’s 22. And then there’s our other friend, she’s ancient! She’s already 27!’”
How old is Foxx, she asked?
“When I said 49, she looked at me like I had a terminal disease,” the actor recalled. “She said, ‘40 … what? Did you say 49? Oh my god!’ Then she turned to her friends and said, ‘Come on, girls, let’s go.’
“I said proudly, ‘ Yes, 49 — and you can’t die from that number!’” On a rainy morning at a Beverly Hills hotel, Foxx — who will turn 50 in December — wasn’t feeling his age.
“It’s about the way you live your life,” he said. “I live young.”
Wearing a red- plaid shirt, tight black jeans and gold sunglasses, the actor indeed had the energy of those 20- year- olds. Foxx entered the suite, then immediately raced to the balcony to pose for a selfie with one of his co- stars in the new film Sleepless.
When she almost dropped her phone, he hugged her and cried, “Get it right, girl!”
“Yes, I’m doing my 50 thing,” Foxx sang, dancing around the room before dropping into a chair. “My daughter is like, ‘Dad, will you please allow your life to catch up to your age?’”
The film, which opened in the US on Friday, co- stars Michelle Monaghan and Dermot Mulroney. It casts Foxx as Vincent Downs, a Las Vegas cop whose personal life has hit the skids because of his obsession with investigating the drug underworld. When a narcotics raid goes wrong, a drug kingpin retaliates by kidnapping Downs’ teenage son, and Downs must race against the clock to save his son.
Foxx was the first to sign on for the film and personally gave his stamp of approval to director Baran bo Odar, best known for Who Am I (2014).
Odar is known for giving his actors a one-word summary that instantly informs their characters. Monaghan’s word was “angry”. What was Foxx’s?
“Sexy,” he said teasingly. “He talked to me about the sexiness of the character. He would whisper at me between takes, ‘sexy.’ That’s all I needed.”
The exuberant actor burst into song: “Sexy cops and robbers! We’re playing sexy cops and robbers!”
Foxx got more serious, a little more serious, when he talked about why the role appealed to him.
“I did think this was a great character for me,” he said. “He’s layered, in a way, where you don’t know if he’s good or bad. You don’t know that from moment to moment. You’re never sure of his struggle. Personally I find those types of not-all-good, not-all-bad characters so much more interesting to watch.”
In a separate interview, Odar said that he was awed by Foxx’s ability to jump in and out of character.
“One long shooting day,” he recalled, “we were on Hour 14 and exhausted. Jamie was in a car and needed to escape. Between shots, Jamie was so tired from doing his own stunts that he was sleeping at the wheel. Then I yelled ‘action’ and he was so focused and into the role immediately. When I yelled ‘cut’, he fell asleep again.”
Foxx did many of his own stunts, none harder than a scene that required Monaghan, playing one of Downs’ fellow cops, to punch him in the face. She did it with a little too much gusto and broke off half of one of his front teeth.
“I told her to keep going during the take even though I was bleeding out of my mouth and she split her knuckle,” Foxx recalled. “The next day my best friend, who is a dentist, came to the set and hooked me up with some porcelain.”
The scenes that supposedly take place in Las Vegas were actually filmed in Atlanta, where Foxx gave Odar some problems — unintentionally.
“When we filmed on the streets,” the director explained, “we couldn’t go anywhere without 200 people shouting, ‘Jamie! Jamie!’ He takes the time, meets the people. He’s a big entertainer.”
“You’ve got to have fun in life,” Foxx said. “I never forget that I’m doing something called make-believe. I work in Hollywood. I’m not that guy going, ‘It’s another 14-hour day! And all they have here is Evian water. And craft service is garbage!’ I try to make it where there’s still something fun to do every single day.”
Sometimes that’s an important lesson to teach. “I remember when I did Any Given Sunday (1999),” Foxx said. “The guys who played football players were going for eight hours straight, knocking each other’s heads off. I could see, on the field, that there was about to be a walkout from the long hours.
“At one point director Oliver Stone called ‘action’ and the guys playing football ran all the way off the field. I saw Oliver standing in the middle of that field going, ‘What just happened?’”
Foxx decided to run interference.
“When I reached the guys,” he recalled, “I said, ‘You’re making a movie! You know how many people want to make a movie? You’re doing something that is a dream. So let’s go out there and get it!’” Problem solved.
“I don’t believe in ‘Woe is me’,” Foxx said. “That’s one of the keys to a happy life.”
Born Eric Morlon Bishop in Terrell, Texas, Foxx was adopted by his maternal grandparents after his parents divorced. A natural comedian in school, he also played piano from the age of five. In fact, after his real-life dreams of football stardom fell short, Foxx studied music at United States International University in San Diego, majoring in classical music and composition.
By that time, however, he had already started dabbling in stand-up comedy. Open-mike nights led to club bookings and then regular gigs on In Living Color (1990-94), Roc (1992-93) and his own sitcom, The Jamie Foxx Show (1996-2001).
By the time that show went off the air, though, Foxx was looking towards the big screen. He played substantial supporting roles in Any Given Sunday and Ali (2001), even during the run of his show, but afterwards he dove in headfirst with Collateral (2004), Ray (2004), Jarhead (2005), Dreamgirls (2006),
The Soloist (2009), Django Unchained (2012) and Annie (2014), among others.
His top year was 2004 when he not only won an Academy Award as Best Actor for his performance in Ray as the legendary singer Ray Charles but also was nominated as Best Supporting Actor for his work as a taxi driver who picks up a hitman in Collateral.
Foxx continues to be busy. He’ll be seen later this year alongside Ansel Elgort, Jon Hamm and Kevin Spacey in Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver, playing a man coerced by a crime boss into working on a heist that’s doomed to fail. Next year he’ll play Little John in a new version of Robin Hood. A particular favourite is the upcoming television series
White Famous. Foxx is writing, producing and playing himself in the show, which also stars Jay Pharoah and Stephen Tobolowsky.
“It’s about black comedians,” he said. “We try to be mainstream, but we don’t want to lose the edge of the street.
“In one episode Jay won’t wear a dress because in the black comedic culture no guy wants to wear a dress to be funny. I tell him that I’ve done it, Eddie has done it. He comes to see me on my set. I’m in my dressing room and I have a dress on. I’ve got my leg up, flashing, and I say, ‘You’ve got to have the balls to do this.’
“I go on to tell him that, when I was accepting my Oscar, I had my dress on underneath my suit.”
When he’s not away on a set, Foxx lives outside Los Angeles with his two children. In his spare time, he reported, he’s recording new music and working on new comedy, even occasionally showing up at clubs to try out new material.
“I’ve got jokes,” he promised. “I even do comedy workshops at my house. I have young comedians come over and we work out some stuff.”
His career has had slower periods, but Foxx said that he’s never allowed them to get him down.
“There are ebbs and flows, losses and wins to any career,” he said. “The important thing is that you’re always able to work.”
Characteristically, Foxx then turned a serious subject into a funny one.
“I talk to Jeremy Piven, who I think is one of the most incredible actors,” he said. “I’ll say, ‘Jeremy, it’s tough being a white male actor. There are a billion of you.’
“There are about nine of us,” Foxx said, laughing. “There’s me, Samuel L, a few others. If I know one thing, it’s that we’re going to work.”