TONIGHT
E-mail a friendJamie Foxx
airdate April 9, 2004
Jamie Foxx is one of only five performers to have both a Billboard #1 single and an acting Oscar and one of few actors to win the quadruple film awards crown (Golden Globe, SAG, BAFTA and Academy Award) in the same season. He can also boast having a multi-platinum-selling CD, 'Unpredictable,' and multiple Grammy nods.
Jamie Foxx
Tavis: If Jamie Foxx isn't the busiest guy in show business, it ain't for lack of trying. It's a busy '04 for the talented comedian and actor. Later this year, he plays the legendary Ray Charles in the feature film 'Unchain My Heart: the Ray Charles Story.' In May, he stars in the romantic comedy 'Breaking all the Rules,' and this Sunday night on FX cable, you can catch Jamie in the real-life drama about infamous gang leader Stan 'Tookie' Williams. The film is called 'Redemption.' Variety calls his performance 'brilliant.' Here's a scene featuring the brilliant Jamie Foxx from 'Redemption.'
Stan: The Crips became my family.
Barbara: But have you ever stopped to think how many young black men you and your family sent to their graves?
Stan: I don't understand what you're saying. You know, I thought we were doing an interview. You're sitting here chastising me about things. I told you-- Listen, if somebody hadn't started the gangs, what we were doing, somebody would've came along and done it anyway.
Barbara: No...
Stan: don't you think that if it hadn't been the Crips, it would be something? I told you from the get-go it was about survival. Survivalis why we were here. That's just the way it's been throughout history.
Barbara: Bull-
Jamie Foxx: Mmm!
Tavis: Mmm!
Jamie: Deep.
Tavis: Jamie.
Jamie: Tavis.
Tavis: How you living?
Jamie: I'm good, man.
Tavis: If I had known you were gonna wear stripes, I would've put something else on. I feel like--
Jamie: Well, it's all good.
Tavis: Like a pinstripe suit.
Jamie: Just in case this don't work out, we can start a group.
Tavis: Ha ha ha! Just start-- There you go!
Jamie: There it is!
Tavis: I like it! I like it. I like it. How you been, man?
Jamie: I've been fabulous.
Tavis: Yeah, you have been fabulous, and you've been awfully busy. Let me start by telling you, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, congratulations on all your success.
Jamie: Thank you.
Tavis: And I say that because you have broken out of this mold of what people I guess thought you were going to be or thought what your gift and skill was wrapped around. Your whole thing is all dramatic now. I'm cracking up thinking you've gone from Wanda...
Jamie: Right.
Tavis: Hey! You've gone from Wanda to Tookie! Who knew?
Jamie: Well, I did. It's just a matter of--I think it's the choices that you're given and the opportunities to get good work. And my career went in a funny way. It was like there for a minute, I didn't even know if I was gonna be able to do stand-up or comedy anymore, because once we did the thing on 'In Living Color,' it really wasn't a lot of phone calls or whatever. And then when we got 'The Jamie Foxx Show,' the great thing about that was it was Warner Bros. And then this show--this movie called 'Any Given Sunday,' luckily--
Tavis: Little, small Oliver Stone movie.
Jamie: But the luck of how that fell into our hands allowed us to make that mark. Like, 'OK, here's a dramatic, little bit of comedy thing. He can handle it,' and then the next thing you know, people started looking, and then it was just a matter of pacing ourselves and getting that great opportunity and those great projects.
Tavis: When you look back on years from now your body of work, is that gonna be the...
Jamie: That would be the turning point. 'Any Given Sunday' would be the turning point. And Jamie King, who's my manager, who really, really fought for that, that would be the turning point, and then when you lay up your body of work--like we did this thing for Denzel, and everybody knows that Denzel is just incredible when you look at his body of work. It's one thing to look at him and say, 'OK, there's ‘Training Day,'' or, 'There's ‘Hurricane,'' but when you do--when you put it all up on the wall, you say, 'That's what we're really looking for.' If you get a chance to go from one--to go Willie Beamen, to go to Ray Charles or Bundini Brown, and then you look up, and you see how many things that you actually had a chance to do and then do decent with them.
Tavis: You're doing better than decent with them. You knocking 'em out the park.
Jamie: Yeah.
Tavis: Speaking of which, this Stanley 'Tookie' Williams project, 'Redemption,' I was blown away by it. You--first of all, let me ask you. You met Tookie, I saw.
Jamie: Met Tookie, yeah.
Tavis: Tell me what it was like when you met him first time.
Jamie: First time I met Tookie... Now, you gotta understand, Tookie's 252 pounds, and he has 24-inch arms. Tookie said, 'When I was 18, I had 18-inch, 19, I had 19,' on up to 24. If he hadn't been, you know--if he had've kept going--we'll never know how big he would've been. So he was a very massive person.
Now anybody knows, most African Americans that I know knows somebody in jail or somebody that's been to jail or been to jail themselves, but it's a different thing when you go to death row, because there's a period at the end of that sentence. That means there's dreariness, that means that people are waiting to be executed for whatever may be right or wrong. Now me, myself, I don't believe in the death penalty, so that was a rough thing with me, dealing with those things, but when he comes out and he puts you at ease with his spirit and the way he looked at things. He said, 'This happened for a reason, in a sense, for me to get this idea and for me to get these--these ideas out to children and my message out, so don't let these bars bother you.'
Now, in that, as we did the interview, he kind of closed up a little bit. He was answering questions as if we were on this show, like as if we were being censored. And so I talked to my manager and the producer. I said, 'I gotta come back, and I gotta know the real thing. I gotta know how he was when he was 19 and he was calculating.' And people overlook that word 'calculating.' 'calculating' meaning that when he saw a person coming towards him, he calculated on how he was gonna hit him or how he was gonna take his money or how he was gonna show that he had the, you know, his brute strength, whatever.
And that was the meeting that allowed the movie to become the movie, because he really opened up and said, 'You know, some of these things I've dug. I've dug being the baddest guy in the party or being the baddest guy in L.A.,' because that was his version of being a famous basketball player or famous football player. So when you look at his life, it's like, man, here's a guy that was smart for one. If he had been given another set of circumstances, what could he have been? Maybe a Fortune 500 company, maybe somewhere on Wall Street. So there was just so many things going on in that meeting.
Tavis: There are a lot of folk, though, Jamie, respectfully, who say that we create our circumstances. It's not what's given to us. That we create our circumstances, much like you creating a career for yourself. Tookie had the chance to create something. That's what he created.
Jamie: But it's not so, because you can't paint that brush with everybody, because you don't have the same circumstances. Maybe there was a father or mother that took you and put you in the system. I was having a dinner with some rich white cat.
Tavis: There's a whole lot of them.
Jamie: Yeah. Ted Hartley, as a matter of fact. And Ted Hartley said, 'Jamie, how did you--how did it happen for you?' I said somebody put me in your system. If you don't get downloaded into the system, then you'll stay on this treadmill of what you think is supposed to be. I mean, when you woke up every day and you saw certain role models in your life, maybe you saw somebody positive. But if they woke up in the sixties and seventies, then what did they have to go to? And then, you know, they went into what they've only seen.
You have to be put into the system, and that's what he learned after all of these things happened to him. Now he's trying to write it. Now he's trying to tell kids, writing children's books telling them not to go this route, because now he realizes, but it took all these things for him to realize that. You know?
Tavis: One other question about Tookie before I move on. You got so many projects jumping I gotta divide my time up wisely.
Jamie: Yeah, but the Tookie thing--
Tavis: Tookie thing is big! And it is Tookie. I love that scene in the movie where, 'It ain't Tukie.' You correct somebody in the movie. 'It's Tookie.'
Jamie: And I didn't ever want to get it wrong, either, sitting there, as big as he was.
Tavis: Yeah, you don't want to get that wrong! All right, so anyway, back to Tookie. Some of the victims, who I read in print who are waiting for this thing to premiere on FX, have said that the problem they have with it is not with Jamie Foxx. But the problem they have with the project is that Tookie has never apologized to the families of the victims and that you can't really ask for 'redemption', as it were, if you ain't gonna apologize to the victims and their families, certainly.
Jamie: Those are things that we have no control over with that set of circumstances. You cannot look at anybody and not say that you don't feel for the victims. This project, however, leaves that open.
Tavis: Right.
Jamie: There is a point in the movie where we do touch on that with Lynn Whitfield and the blood being thrown on her and everything like that. Those things that we're speaking of, Tookie's gonna pay that ultimate price. He is gonna pass away. They are going to kill him. You know, so that's the one thing that we're not saying, too, and the thing is, is that in our system, it's supposed to be for rehabilitation.
He chose--he said, 'Listen, I understand what's in front of me. I understand what's about to happen,' you know, and that within his own demons or within his own thing, you know. We don't know what that is, because he still maintains that it wasn't like it said it went, without going into his whole, you know, thing, without damaging whatever his appeal is. But he said, 'I'm gonna dedicate, though, so that no one else in my situation or in my shoes or my skin color or whatever will come this way,' and he dedicated every ounce of his body and his soul to that.
Tavis: So tell me right quick then who Tookie really is? Is he this murderous thug on the one hand, or on the other hand, is he the Nobel laureate--this guy's been nominated for the Nobel Peace prize.
Jamie: Yeah, he's both of them. He's absolutely both of them. How many preachers do you know said, 'When I started out, I was on the street, and now--Lord, have mercy, Jesus--now I'm in the pulpit.' You have to understand that people can change, and then to see somebody change and really do good. I mean, it wasn't just books that was in America. I mean, this went all over the world.
I mean, everybody has to be given a chance, you know. I mean, and you never know what the set of circumstances your life is gonna go. We could be here today, something could happen on that street today just out of nowhere, and then we take it upon ourselves to take care of it, and the next thing you know, it's a whole 'nother set of circumstances for our life. We don't know what's--you know, what our ending is gonna be, either, so it's all up in the air, and like I said, it's all in the movie for you to make your own decision.
Tavis: I don't know what mine's gonna be, but I'm certain if I could hang out with you, something good would have to rub off.
Jamie: Yeah, man!
Tavis: You hitting it so hard these days. Speaking of hitting hard, let me jump from Tookie to Ray Charles.
Jamie: Right, right.
Tavis: The last time we had a chance to hang out together, I think we were--you were in New Orleans.
Jamie: Exactly.
Tavis: And I was in New Orleans. I came by the set to see you. We hung out for a minute. I was amazed to see you in character.
Jamie: Anybody got some shades? Just asking.
Tavis: We'll find some shades. Somebody find him some shades, somebody. They'll bring 'em to me if we can find them somewhere. But you, you went into that Ray Charles character, and you put that thing down.
Jamie: Yeah, had to.
Tavis: Tell me about meeting Ray. You talked about meeting Tookie. Tell me about meeting Ray Charles, what that experience was like.
Jamie: When you meet Ray Charles, first of all, he doesn't have a stick. He doesn't have a dog or anything like that, so you actually don't get the sense that he's actually blind. You're like, 'Wait a minute. Is this dude--'
Tavis: 'Is he really blind?'
Jamie: 'Is he really blind?' Because he knows--he knows everything in the--they got 'em?
Tavis: They got you some sunglasses. They'll bring 'em to you. Go ahead, so tell your story, yeah.
Jamie: Well, let me see 'em there.
Tavis: Bring 'em to me. There you go.
Jamie: And the thing about it is, uh--and the thing about it is that he was--he was more--and you know, I think it's something in wearing shades, too, that actually...
Tavis: ...that makes you like that!
Jamie: That makes you like that because like these are just regular shades, but when you put 'em on...
You know, and I think it's really in the shades.
Tavis: Ha ha ha!
Jamie: It's really in the...
Tavis: It's in the shades, huh?
Jamie: The shades. So in meeting him, we had to get his blessing.
Tavis: Right.
Jamie: He comes in, and the director was paying--of course, Taylor Hackford is paying attention to detail and what it was gonna look like, and Ray is really no nonsense, and that's because since he doesn't have sight, he doesn't have time for nonsense. He says, 'Can you play the blues?' We played the blues on dual pianos. He said, 'The kid's got it. I'm gone.' And he left, and that was all we had to do. And he came in a couple of other days for me just to get, you know, kind of like a little bit of his spirit. And then after he gave the blessing, there was a way to get to him. And the director got mad. 'How come you weren't at the studio? Ray was there.' And I said I can't watch him right now, 'cause he's in his 70s, and if we're gonna play Ray at 18, 19, 20, 21, I need to find out what that is so I can grab that DNA and then put it through the script. So we didn't have any film of him, but Quincy Jones...
Tavis: Who's Ray's boy.
Jamie: Ray's boy. In meeting Quincy...
He reaches and finds a cassette tape, popped the cassette tape in, and you hear this.
And in the back you hear,
Tavis: And how does Ray order his food?
Jamie: It's--
Tavis: We see every day the genius and the brilliance of Ray Charles, um, this one-of-a-kind man, a legend in his own time, in fact. What did you learn playing this character about his genius and his brilliance that we don't even know about this cat?
Jamie: More than his genius, his savvy, his swagger. I mean, thirties, forties, fifties--I mean, how many black men were just going across the country playing music? Here's a man who couldn't see, and as you see in the movie, he goes from Florida all the way to Seattle, Washington, where he meets Quincy Jones for the first time. Quincy is like 16, 17. And he never let his eyesight bother him, and he just didn't go and say, 'OK, I'm just gonna do a little music here and there.' He became a pioneer at it. And that was the thing, the resilience of this man and how he was--he was boss, meaning 'boss' in the sense that he had women. He had swag--he could cook. There's a scene where Quincy comes in and says, 'Why is it dark in here, man? You're cooking.' 'What do I need to see for?' And cooks great food. He just makes you really say, 'OK, let me readjust my satellite, 'cause I can actually see.' And, 'How lazy am I? Man, I can't get up today.' Now, here's a man who gets up, does it, and has been doing it for years and years and years and great at everything he does. Because it's more than just the music. When you talk to him, he gives you things for your soul. He tells you, about you, things that you're not even paying attention--that you're not even paying attention to, to give you extra advice on how to keep your career and your mental game together. It's incredible.
Tavis: What's the challenge, the difference, if there is one, between developing a character like Wanda...
Jamie: Yeah.
Jamie: The real--the thing is that they all have similar things. Like I said, you put that whole map of DNA--how they eat, how they dress, the emotions that they have, how they get happy, what makes them sad. And you take that same thing and you put it together, and then it's a matter of a little bit of tone, which being musically inclined, it's a tone thing.
Tookie, the way he talked...
Or with Ray it's...
And Ray--even Cosby.
Tavis: Great actress.
Jamie: And Lynn Whitfield, we did Tookie--the thing with. CCH Pounder said...
Tavis: One of the things you have, Jamie--and I'm loving you. One of the things you have that other folk don't have, though, is this innate--I assume God-given talent not to just get into the character, the emotions and what they felt and... You know. But you have them down. You got the voice down. How did you learn? Did you learn? Is this a gift, to do these voices? I don't know if I want you to do me one day.
Jamie:
Tavis: Ha ha ha! Don't do that, don't do that. OK!
Jamie: OK. No, what I'm saying is that it becomes this... If anybody's ever hung out with Eddie Murphy, Eddie Murphy is a genius at this.
Tavis: Right.
Jamie: And it's the same thing that you have on the inside. It's like this internal, like, computer, like a sampler in your head, and literally if I hang around somebody for 30 minutes, 40 minutes, it's already there, because we perfect it. We perfect it. That's what I constantly do.
And so when you see a Wanda character or a Tookie character or whatever it is, it's basically looking at all the different people that walk by, and take that character in, and then it's some other things, too. I call it the magic stuff. Just there's gonna be one point to where you're doing Mike Tyson as opposed to doing,
Tavis: Wow. Look back for me right quick on this 'Ali' experience. I was with Ali a couple of days ago, and every time I'm around this guy, I'm still just brought to my knees, just humbled in his presence. You played that Bundini character something serious, man. The head-- I liked that.
Jamie: Yeah. The 'Ali' experience was great, because it was another great director with Michael Mann and Will Smith and Jon Voight and all these different people. The Bundini character for 'Ali' was just...how we would say...our term of endearment, what we call each other. I won't say it. He was one of those. And he was...he was that. And Ali needed that. It was like a mojo. It was like his rabbit's foot, and although he stole sometimes, he'd get high--
Tavis: He had issues.
Jamie: He had very many issues. But he knew that when he walked in that ring, he needed that edge. When he walked in that ring with Foreman, he needed Bundini going, 'Muhammad Ali is a prophet. How you gonna beat God, son?' And he would empower Ali, and nobody else understood it, 'cause most people was like, 'Why don't you get rid of this dude? This dude is horrible.' But we all have that. And we all have somebody that maybe's not the best for us, but we get energy from them, you know. And that's what Bundini was.
Tavis: You got a childhood--I know this story so well, I almost feel bad asking about it, because I've read and talked to you so many times about it over the years--but I'm still consistently and constantly amazed at how you started with such meager beginnings, adopted, uh, in a system of adoption.
Jamie: Yeah, yeah.
Tavis: And you never looked back.
Jamie: Never looked--but I had great parents that adopted me, my grandmother Esther Talley, Mark Talley, God rest him. They were just... My grandmother did great things. We were in a small town in Texas, railroad tracks separated south, you know, brothers was on the black side, and the white side.
Tavis: Why are brothers always on the south side? Every city, south side, north side.
Jamie: And then if you go to a city where it's wrong, you'll be like, 'Man, y'all on the wrong side.'
Tavis: Ha ha ha ha ha!
Jamie: Y'all should switch.
Tavis: Y'all should switch!
Jamie: But she allowed me--like studying piano. She said, 'This is gonna be a tool for you. You gonna make money with this.' So by the age of 13, 14, 15, I was playing for wine-and-cheese parties on the north side, south side, and she said, 'You're not gonna sit in this city and just think that this is the only thing.' She would get me on a bus. We'd get on a bus, and we would go all the way down the coast, all the way down to Florida, and hit every city down through Atlanta. Or we'd go to Buffalo, New York, or we'd go to Canada.
She said these are the things that you have to see in order to get into that system and get outta here, because they're gonna kill you here--not necessarily your body, but your mind. So then once you get over there and do your thing, you gotta come back and... You gotta be responsible. That was the thing, you know, responsibility, because I'm diggin' this fly, you know, living in the Valley and all this, and then I'm highfalutin' and all this. But then she said, 'But don't forget the responsibility.' And the responsibility comes in the bodies of work now that I'm 36. Tookie Williams is a great, great project to have, to now talk about serious issues. Because it takes you a little bit away from the comedy-comedy thing. Now we can speak on things, because it's in the body of work.
Tavis: Time is getting away from me. Is it a deliberate attempt on your part to start doing more dramatic roles?
Jamie: It's a deliberate attempt on my part to do roles that are great, but when we have roles like the Tookie story and other stories that can really impact our community, it's a deliberate thing. 'Cause remember when you was on another network, I talked to you about--I was young, and I was so into--I said I don't know how to do it, but I know that there's a thing--there's a black Hollywood that we haven't connected together yet, and there's a lot of things that I wanna do. And by having these projects--Damon Wayans called me today...'I got a project for you.' Keenen, 'I got this for you.' John Singleton, 'I got that for you.' Now by allowing yourself to kind of rise up into that area where they feel comfortable in giving things to you, now we starting to bring a lot of things together.
Tavis: And I'm so proud of you. And with a half a night, it still ain't enough time to hit all your projects. So you gotta come back some other time.
Jamie: Yeah.
Tavis: 'Breaking all the Rules'. We'll talk about that next time. Jamie, nice to see you. So proud of you. What size suit is that?
Jamie: This is a size, uh...
Tavis: Yeah, that's my size.
Jamie: Size fly.
Tavis: Ha ha ha ha ha! Size fly. I love this boy. That's our show for tonight. As always, you can catch me on the radio on NPR, National Public Radio. I will see you back here next time on PBS.
I thank Jamie Foxx for coming by to talk to us tonight about his many projects.
Good night from Los Angeles. As always, thanks for watching, and keep the faith.
Back to April 9, 2004