Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. offer up an inside look at what it took to make The Soloist, a true story about a Los Angeles Times columnist who befriends a homeless musician named Nathaniel Ayers …
So, the real homeless Nathaniel — what’s he really like?
JF: “I had the chance to go down to LAMP and watch Nathaniel Ayers from a distance without meeting him, because a lot of times when people meet us, they will be on their best behavior. I just wanted to see him in his element, how he ordered his food, how he talks to people, and within five minutes you would have seen four different sides of this guy. He was happy, he was angry, he was jubilant — he was all these different things.”
And, Jamie, when you actually met … ?
JF: “When you are doing a character, you want to do the nuance. I dropped some weight, got my hair done nicely, and then I got the chance to meet him. I filmed him on my phone while he was talking just to capture some of those little nuggets. It was also a little scary to play someone schizophrenic. We’re all artists, and we all go different places in our mind. I know how they feel, and I feel that if I was to lose my mind, I would lose everything.”
Robert, is it true you rummaged through Steve Lopez’s closet? And you found what?
RDJ: “You are supposing that he allowed me into his closet. He marvels at the idea that I asked. He never even dignified it with a response. Nor would he allow me to interview him at a distance or at close range. We had a cigar together, and we talked. He wanted to tell me that to impersonate him would be a disservice to the movie.”
Be honest, Jamie: How Method did you go?
JF: “I actually thought I was Nathaniel at one point and called my manager late at night. I was explaining to him why Nathaniel does what he does. He will say ‘red shirt, blue shirt, jeans’ so that will keep him sane, but after he says it over and over again, if you’re on the outside it looks like this guy is insane. I believe the music is what calms him and soothes him because the music takes you completely somewhere else.”
Robert, how much of that did you see?
RDJ: “We would be at Disney Hall and [Jamie] would go over — because it had been a particularly difficult day — and he would entertain the 100 extras we had there while we were night-shooting during a scene that he had to have a meltdown in … It was like you were throwing a party in Miami for these people, and then you would go in and have this complete psychotic break, literally. I think the way out [of character] was to be yourself and the way in was to bring as much of yourself to bear as you could.”
How was it shooting in actual Downtown L.A. with real people as the extras?
JF: “At first, I was like, ‘I don’t know if I want to be this close to these people. I don’t know if I want to be that person.’ And then to see those people and then to feel some of their stories, it made you become more passionate about it. It made you look at it completely differently. You know we are in Hollywood behind our gates doing whatever we’re doing, and you don’t think you have those kinds of feelings and revelations, and it was really a revelation, and it was great being down there and shooting. It is a great place.”
What did you take away from the experience?
RDJ: “Honestly, if I had to put it in a principle, it was just a sense of humility, of feeling right-sized when it was done … when you are downtown at 4:30AM, and you are seeing people who are extras, and you are seeing people who are literally going to be looking for where to sleep when the sun comes up, when they are done making whatever pittance they were given for playing extras in this movie. It was just this sense of how little direct contact I had had with so many of the things I thought I was sure of. Really what I took away from it more than anything else — my God, sometimes you make a movie and sometimes the movie makes you. And this was one of those type things.”
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