Jamie Foxx
Jamie Foxx
Eric Marlon Bishop, known professionally as Jamie Foxx, is an American actor, singer, songwriter, and comedian. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor, BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, for his work in the 2004 biographical film Ray. The same year, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the crime film Collateral...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth13 December 1967
CityTerrell, TX
CountryUnited States of America
You guys have so much energy. I threw a party in Toronto and there were, like, 4,000 people who couldn't get in.
When you sing R&B songs in front of an audience, you look out and there's 85% women. I think R&B music is sort of designed for a man singing to a woman. I don't sing it like the sexy thing, but sort of pseudo-sexy. We rally the women together because it's about being independent and things like that.
I play a slave. How black is that? I have to wear chains. How whack is that? But don’t worry. I get free. I save my wife and I kill all the white people in the movie. How great is that?
It's hard to be a celebrity nowadays. It's not about your track record anymore. If you have a great movie, you're good. If not, people are ready to write you off. I think the only ones who are really winning are people like Will Smith. People go, 'Oh, it's Will Smith. I've got to see him, whatever he's in.'
Being just an actor, sometimes people are like, "Hey, man, we don't wanna see you no more, in front of the camera," and I don't want that.
I want to be the person who eventually doesn't have to be in front of the camera. I can be behind the camera and really change things cinematically, and this is giving me an opportunity to do something behind the camera, which I really want to maximize.
In looking at Hollywood and its structure, the director controls the medium, and I want to be in control of certain things. I want to be able to get my own ideas and my own feelings out there, and the only way to do that is to be behind the camera.
I'd like to say I'm R&B's savior. Whether that's the truth or not, I'm definitely going out there with my mic and my shield to declare, 'I am here to save R&B.' I will have the people saying, 'Sir, there is a man at the musical gates saying he is here to save R&B.
When you're an actor or actress in this business, usually the natural progression is to direct, but a lot of times, we don't get a chance to get to it. Myself, I really want to get into it. I want to be the person who eventually doesn't have to be in front of the camera.
I'm a southern gentleman.
Will.i.am and I performed at Wango Tango. That's when my daughter said that I had made it in music.
My Grandmother would say, 'Make sure you look good. Make sure you speak well. Make sure you remain that Southern gentleman that I've taught you to be.'
I had that upbringing. Of watching 'Bonanza,' watching 'Hee Haw,' which both black and white would watch. I rode horses. I did gun spinning as a kid. I do these things.
Actually, music gave me the support when I needed it. I would never have gone to college unless I'd gotten a piano scholarship. And now I'm so glad I got to learn to play the cello, which is a different experience, you're flexing a different muscle, but it's beautiful because it is music.