Spotlight By: Rick Mele
Chances are, unless you've been living in isolation the past three years, you've seen and heard plenty from Jamie Foxx lately. With big-budget blockbusters like Collateral and Miami Vice, an Oscar-winning turn in the biopic Ray, and an award-winning album in Unpredictable, Foxx has certainly been busy recently. But even with all that media saturation, you've probably never seen the charismatic Foxx quite like this.
His new movie Dreamgirls is already poised to be a major Oscar contender and a genuine star-maker for newcomer Jennifer Hudson. For Foxx, however, it's a chance to venture into some new territory. The film, an adaptation of the Broadway play of the same name, follows a three woman R&B group trying to make it big in the 1960s pop music scene. Alongside Beyonc' Knowles, Eddie Murphy, and the afore-mentioned Hudson, Foxx plays Curtis Taylor Jr., their aggressive and just downright mean manager, who takes the girls' group to new heights.
Most of the initial buzz revolves around Jennifer Hudson's surprise star turn, but having the notoriously charming Foxx play the film's main villain has raised more than a few eyebrows as well: 'Even Oprah said 'I don't like you being mean!' I was like, 'Oprah, that's not really me.' 'The persona of Jamie Foxx and the character [are] different.'
For Foxx, this was more than just an opportunity to play against the grain, it was also a necessity for the script: 'I think if we'd have done the play of it, then you'd give Curtis' a soliloquy and a nice song, and some wings and let him fly off the stage. But in the movie' it was important to play Curtis unforgiving and relentless so [the other actors] would have somewhere to go.'
In crafting the ruthless Curtis, Foxx drew on his personal experience, saying 'Everybody has a Curtis in their life. Everybody in here, you can think of the person who told you you weren't going to make it' and you wanted to make it because of that. Curtis is this guy that I met in doing my record' So I took those elements to show you what Curtis was about. It's like a mix of all these other record people out there. In this business that we're in, when you see those overbearing managers that can deliver the dream, but can't execute it, that's what Curtis was. [He's] become this hardened character.'
As Foxx talks, it becomes clear that, for him, the journey of his character was the most important part. But before you accuse Foxx of merely intellectualizing Curtis after the fact, he'd like to remind you, 'I have an Oscar' I got a BET award.' Seriously though, Foxx says that while shooting, a conscious effort was made to keep Curtis's character as raw and bristling as possible, even down to his musical numbers: 'I went down, [and] I said, I only wanna sing it once. Because Curtis shouldn't be the artist, Curtis should be the manager. So his song should be dry, it should be noticeable, in a sense. And [because of that], he's really gonna stick out.'
After all was said and done, Foxx got just the result he was looking for: 'My boy Johnnie Mac called me, I'm at the screening, and when the screening was over, a black girl walked up to Johnnie Mac and said, 'You tell Jamie Foxx I'm gonna slap him for what he did to Eddie Murphy and what he did to Effie.' So that's what you want out of that Curtis character.'
But no villain could exist without the heroes, and the titular Dreamgirls have been getting some glowing reviews. For Jamie, the overwhelming talent of his costars made it hard for him to stay in character during some scenes: 'Oh my God. I'll start off with Beyonc' first: you really know what the hubbub is all about when she sings her song and performs. Incredible.'
'And man, when Jennifer Hudson sings her song' and they've got the camera on me first, and they're telling me to hold it together because I'm supposed to be mean' it just blows you away. And there's no way you can get away from that. So we did it about six or seven times for me to get myself together, but the thing about it was, she was singing it along with the track every time, so [even] people on the cameras were wiping their eyes. It was incredible.'
It's no secret, though, that Jamie was lobbying openly for former American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino for the part of Effie White: 'I mean, yeah, but you can't see the future. I know if I was putting something together, you see Fantasia, before you actually do the movie, of course''
But after seeing Hudson handle the part magnificently, consider Foxx another one of the many converts. And he's more than happy to sit back and watch her burgeoning career get off the ground: 'It's great to see that happen. 'Now you've got somebody else who's gonna be another force. And when she drops her record, and all the things that can come behind it, it's gonna be great. And to watch her go through it, and to see some of the jitters that she has, and to see how she's accepted. I don't know if you saw The Oprah Winfrey Show, but people went crazy man, and that's really the measuring stick. When the Oprah Winfrey crowd gives the thumbs up, it's a problem.'
And if anyone should know about careers taking off, it should be Jamie. In the past few years, he has become one of the hottest entertainers in the business, with a simultaneously successful movie and music career that would make anyone jealous. The trick to dealing with this tremendous windfall, Foxx says, is to enjoy it, but not get complacent: 'I said [to my manager], let's not get so comfortable that we kind of like blaze through this thing. We won an American Music Award and we didn't have a glass of champagne, we didn't take time out [to celebrate]. I said, some people work their whole life to get to that point' let's stop for a little bit.'
'And that's what you have to do, you have to stop for a little bit and enjoy, but at the same time, be smart enough to use that good energy [to] find great projects. Because nothing works without projects, all of the accolades and everything is byproduct' So you use that energy to go find better projects and then, eventually, it's like flying. You can't fly 40,000 feet all day, because you'd run out of gas. Sometimes you have to level off and find what's comfortable for you to do, and just enjoy life.'
Foxx attributes much of his humble attitude to his friend never giving him what he calls the 'star pass': 'I've hung out with some stars, and you're playing basketball, they let them score all the baskets, or you're shooting pool and they let them make all the balls' My homies, they don't let me get away with that.' But Foxx also thinks his background in comedy keeps him from not taking life too seriously: 'I think having that comic gene kind of makes you look at things in a different way. We make this joke about people having this 'Do not disturb' sign on their lives. And you have to watch out for that.'
He attributes this outlook to conversations with his mentors: 'Quincy Jones puts everything in perspective, because you know you'll never have as much money as he has... He said, life is a marathon, you get to be 50 years old, but you live to be 85, that's 35 years you've got to figure out what type of man you'll be. So when you get a chance to talk to him, or Sidney Poitier, those people, they put everything in perspective.'
So what's up next for the enigmatic Foxx' Well, for one thing, he's certainly keeping himself busy: 'We're gonna wait a while [for another album]' but we're gonna go out on tour on December 26th, and we're gonna hit 30 cities. We're gonna do the comedy and the music, so I'm looking forward to that. Myself, Fantasia, and there's gonna be some surprise spots by Snoop, if he's not, uh, incarcerated. If Snoop is outta of jail, we're gonna do our thing, off the heezy fo sheezy, outta jeezy.'
One thing is for sure, Foxx loves to entertain, making it no wonder he's risen to become one of the most recognizable stars of our time. And I wouldn't bet on that changing anytime soon.
