LOS ANGELES -- Jamie Foxx figures he has the "Oscar curse" down. And the best way he knows to explain it is in basketball terms. Stay with us here.
"You won the Oscar, you're at the top of the mountain," says Foxx, who won Best Actor nod for Ray this year. "You say, 'I want those scripts back there,' the ones they always said, 'No, you can't have those scripts.'
"So now they offer you roles and what you have to do is create on the dribble. The Oscar curse, if you know basketball, to me that's a person who's got (no choice but) to come off the screen and shoot. Meaning someone's got to set it up for him.
"With us (Foxx and management) we create off the dribble. So we do standup (comedy) so we can go to our left. We do music, so we can go to our right. We can go around our back and shoot. So y'know with me, I'm down in Miami right after (the Oscars) at Wet Willie's crackin' jokes," the veteran comic says.
The music? Well, there's Gold Digger, the chart-topping R&B single in which he duets with Kanye West. And he has his own album coming out Dec. 6. "It's not just a smash, it's smithereens," he says of the single. "I don't know too many Oscar winners got #1 songs."
As for going around his back and shooting, there's Jarhead, Sam Mendes' gritty look at the life of Marine snipers in the first Gulf War, who go stir-crazy waiting for a chance to kill. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, the movie has Foxx as borderline-psychotic Staff Sgt. Siek, a drill sergeant in the Great Santini/Full Metal Jacket mold.
The timing of Jarhead's release makes it look like Foxx's first post-Oscar project, but in fact the movie was in mid-filming when the actor won.
"At the time (I signed on), nobody knew what Ray was gonna do. It didn't even have a home. It was, like, 'We gotta get crackin', get a hustle on. And this was a great hustle 'cause it's got meat on the bones. It's not contrived. Coming after the Oscars it doesn't look like I was after the money, trying to do Booty Call (an early Foxx film)."
And he's in a supporting role, not out to prove he's a bankable lead. "I don't want it to look like I'm Johnny Carson now; I've always been Ed McMahon," he quips.
Indeed, a small group of press is for the most part just another audience for Foxx ("I was making love to this girl after the Oscars and she said, 'Oh Jamie!' and I said 'No no, that's not my name.' And she said, 'Oh Academy Award-winner Jamie Foxx!' And I said, 'Yeah baby'").
But he is serious on a couple of subjects. The first is Stan "Tookie" Williams, the founder of the L.A. Crips gang, whom Foxx played last year in a TV movie. On Death Row in San Quentin for murder, Williams became a children's author and anti-gang crusader.
"He's a tortured soul and a tortured man, but out of that torture, some great things happened. We got 50,000 letters and e-mails from young kids that don't wanna gang-bang. He got nominated for a Nobel peace prize. And it's like they can't wait to execute him. What's sad is they're executing him on my birthday, which is Dec. 13."
He's also serious on the subject matter of Jarhead, servicemen, the nature of their job and the people it attracts. "When you look at these guys and the job they have to do, like Staff Sgt. Siek, he was trying to teach these guys simplicity. This is what you do. If you don't do this, you get killed.
"In Hollywood, we sit and drink cappuccino and go to brunch. And we think (out loud) a lot. My friends when they come up from Texas, they're like 'Why they always talking? Why'n'ty'all be quiet?'
"Bein' in the military is a simple life. It's a simple way of thinking is what Staff Sgt. Siek was trying to get through."
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