The star first found fame on hit U.S. comedy series In Living Color and he went on to land his own TV programme, The Jamie Foxx Show.
The 45 year old was desperate to transition onto the big screen, so he tried out to play a basketball player in Stone’s 1999 drama, which also starred the likes of Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz, and Dennis Quaid, but Foxx reveals he had a hard time convincing the filmmaker he was perfect for the part.
He tells U.S. TV host Oprah Winfrey, “I had to work hard to get there. Oliver Stone, when he met me, he said, ‘You stink. You’re terrible. You can’t act at all.’
“Because I came from TV and everything was loud on TV. I said my lines too loud, (my movements) were too big and as I walked out of his office for my first audition, he wrote and made me hear what he was saying, ‘Jamie Foxx – slave to television.’ He says, ‘I wanna give you the lead part, but you gotta work on it, because you stink.’ He said, ‘You really stink.'”
And the hunk confesses it was a huge blow to his confidence: “It was terrible because in my mind I had my series, so I thought I was (a shoo-in as) Jamie Foxx.”
