Jamie Foxx Lays Down the Law

By Thomas Leupp , Hollywood.com Staff | Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Jamie Foxx is ready to lighten up. After his acclaimed performance as the titular music legend in the 2004 biopic Ray earned him a Best Actor Oscar, the one-time comedian followed with a seemingly endless series of dramatic projects, including the political thriller The Kingdom and the musical drama Dreamgirls. Most recently, he co-starred with Robert Downey Jr. as mentally ill cellist Nathaniel Ayers in The Soloist.

This week Foxx embarks on a new stage of his movie career, one considerably less weighty than its predecessor, with Law Abiding Citizen, an over-the-top, edge-of-your seat thriller that combines the suburban revenge motif of the Death Wish movies with elements of Saw and Se7en. After that, he's got three comedies in the pipeline: Valentine's Day, Due Date and Skank Robbers. (Yes, Skank Robbers. More on that below.)

Yesterday we caught up with Foxx for an exclusive interview, wherein he was kind enough to update us on all of his current and upcoming projects:

This movie presents a mix of several seemingly contrasting elements, melding moments of dark humor and shocking violence with some serious commentary on the justice system. In your conversations with director F. Gary Gray, what did you discuss in terms of the overall tone you were aiming for?

Jamie Foxx: "First of all, F. Gary Gray is a genius. He came into this movie six weeks out and turned in a fabulous project. I think it was just a matter of us defining our characters. My character’s a guy who wanted to be Giuliani. He’s gonna move up to D.A., then move on up to mayor. And with that type of ambition, the emotions are sort of pulled out of his life, because if he’s emotional about everything, he may not be able to move up the ladder as quickly as he wants to. Then, [it’s about] defining a person like Gerard Butler’s character, which, I think, anybody that looks at this film, and sees the opening of this film, is going to say, ‘Wow, how much hurt can a person bear?’ And I think that’s why you’ll have [people] rooting for him. Even me, when I watched the movie, I was rooting for him to do damage up to a point. Then you go, ‘Ooh, wow. It’s gotta stop.’ It’s beyond what we would call ‘high-brow,’ but when you have the consumer go and watch it, they’re like along for the ride, like a Charles Bronson joint, like a revenge film."

Your co-star, Gerard Butler, got to have a little fun with his role, while you had to more or less play it straight. Could you talk about working with Gerard? He seems like kind of a prankster.

JF: "He definitely is. As far as his wit and everything, he’s absolutely charming, man. But he’s actually a little shy. When it came down to getting into the work of [the movie], he was shy about, you know, ‘I gotta show my body in the film.’ And that was a cool quality, because a lot of times in Hollywood, people let all this stuff sort of go to their head."

Gerard was shy about taking his clothes off?

JF: "Yeah, of course. You look at how he was rocked-up in 300, it sort of puts people in the mindset like, if I don’t see you in shape all the time, every time you’re out, we’re gonna wonder, ‘What the hell?’ So there’s a lot of pressure. But I think he did well. I think he was cut up enough in this, playing a husband. A husband wouldn’t look like Schwarzenegger."

After a streak of mostly serious films, including Law Abiding Citizen, you're coming out with two ensemble comedies, Valentine's Day and Due Date. Was it a conscious decision on your part to lighten things up, after all of your post-Ray dramatic work?

JF: "Yeah. I think you have to roll with it, you know what I’m saying? I think that you run your course in movies and, luckily, I had a background in comedy. Right now everybody’s following the dramatic thing. Look at the last couple of movies [Adam] Sandler’s done. A lot of people are trying to go that run. Even Mo’Nique now has a beautiful drama out with Precious. So while everybody else is running over there trying to get that thing, I’m gonna go over and get these jokes now — even down to Shenehneh and Wanda, which is the Wanda character from In Living Color and Martin [Lawrence], who plays Shenehneh. We’re gonna do a movie together and just really, really knock a hole in the game’s head right now with that type of big, broad comedy."

You're bringing back one of your In Living Color characters?

JF: "Yeah. Go online and look up Martin Lawrence and Jamie Foxx’s Skank Robbers. We put a teaser trailer out for it already."

You put a teaser out before you had a script or anything?

JF: "We shot the trailer a while back to see what people would say because, you know, people might think this is corny, you know what I’m saying? And people went nuts. I’m like, ‘Yo!’ So we went to Screen Gems and Clint Culpepper, who is a friend of Martin’s, and we set it up. Now we’re getting ready to shoot that thing and get it on out."

Due Date has you reuniting with your Soloist co-star, Robert Downey Jr. Is he the one who got you interested in the project?

JF: "Yeah. With Robert Downey Jr., you just grow so much from meeting this guy, seeing this old Hollywood [actor], now getting his new birth, his new legs, watching how clear his eyes are and how great he is with his wife and everything. It’s just beautiful ... it just makes you say, ‘Anytime you’re doing anything, even if I have to be an extra or run the cameras, I’m gonna be there.’"

Did you consider lobbying for a part in Iron Man 3 in return?

JF: [Laughs] "Hey man, if they’d let me do it, I’d be up in there."

You've talked about re-teaming with Ray director Taylor Hackford on a Mike Tyson biopic. When do you think that might happen?

JF: "We got that on the back-burner. I don’t want to speak on that too much, but I would love to do it with him."

For a while you were slated to make Damage Control with Michael Mann, your director on Collateral and Miami Vice. Is that still happening?

JF: "Yeah, but we’re gonna do it in a different way. I believe we’re gonna do it as a television series. I think it’ll have more legs there. Do you know what it's about?"

Not really. I only know that it centers on a guy who does public relations for professional athletes.

JF: "It’s sort of like an agent who has this stable of athletes that he works with, but they’re constantly getting into trouble, and he’s going around ... It’s basically what you’ve been seeing — from Michael Vick to Plaxico [Burress], to all these guys — and here’s this guy who goes around, with cash in hand, sometimes, and he’s basically what Jeremy Piven’s character [from Entourage] would be if he was a sports agent."

Would you just be producing it with Michael, then?

JF: "Yeah, produce it and write it. We’ve got our fingers crossed that it jumps off."

It’s a strange era for sports athletes living in the spotlight, especially with the advent of Twitter.

JF: "I don’t even think you understand, dawg. It’s so crazy out there right now, with the Twitter thing. The other day I’m sitting at a table, talking to the coach at Michigan-"

Rich Rodriguez?

JF: "Yeah. So we’re sitting there, talking — this is before the season started — and we’re having a great time. And somebody is at the next table -- is it twitting?"

Tweeting.

JF: "Tweeting the whole thing. And you know, there’s no way for you to interpret or combat what people are saying. It’s crazy."

140 characters doesn’t allow for a lot of context.

JF: "Yeah, it's crazy."

Law Abiding Citizen opens everywhere this Friday, October 16, 2009.