CANOE -- JAM! Movies - Artists - Foxx, Jamie: Foxx wants to inspire young filmmakers

Entertainer Jamie Foxx removes his sunglasses while posing for a portrait in Toronto on Tuesday, August 11, 2009. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese

TORONTO -- At first, the parallels between Jamie Foxx's Oscar-winning turn as Ray Charles and a just-launched HD short film festival aimed at budding movie makers aren't readily apparent.

But at a mid-morning press conference at Panorama earlier this week, Foxx was happy to connect the dots.

"The history of 'Ray' is interesting," he said, settling back into a deep-seated chair in the 51st-floor downtown restaurant, "because it started out as an independent film."

Like the entries he is hoping to attract to the LG Life's Good FilmFest, which awards $100,000 to the best short film submitted by the public, "Ray" had to subsist on a whole lot of heart and vision. Foxx recalled how he and director Taylor Hackford had to beg people to get the 2004 biopic made.

Before filming began, though, the 41-year-old actor-singer got some sound advice from the real-life piano virtuoso. After he messed up in rehearsals, Charles reminded Foxx, 'The notes are right underneath your fingers, you just have to learn how to hit them.'

"Which is what life is like really," he laughed softly.

Recounting some of the directors with whom he's worked over the years, including Michael Mann ("Collateral," "Miami Vice"), Oliver Stone ("Any Given Sunday") and Sam Mendes ("Jarhead"), Foxx said he hopes the contest "gives people a chance to live their dreams.

"I think [making movies] is one of the most interesting things you can do. It doesn't matter who you are," he added, describing his hardscrabble upbringing in a sleepy Texas town. "There's nothing out there that keeps you from doing what you want to do."

Foxx even pointed to his 15-year-old daughter's short films to highlight the ease of which young directors can enter the contest.

He also told reporters that his plan to dress in drag and reprise his role as Wanda from TV's "In Living Color" next January can provide inspiration for armchair film buffs. The new project, he eagerly admitted, was hatched after he convinced Martin Lawrence to join him for a day of filming with a couple of HD cameras and a shoestring budget.

"It doesn't matter who you are; there are a lot of people waiting in the wings," he said. "Some of it is going to be great and some of it is going to be average, but it's a great opportunity for people to share [their] vision."

Foxx also discussed the various ups and downs of his career ["I don't know how this got overlooked by the Oscars, but I was in a little film called 'Booty Call,'" he joked], from his beginnings as a standup comic shuttling back and forth between San Diego and Los Angeles, to his film work and now, more recently, music, his first love.

"I feel like music is more my calling," he said, happily reprising snippets of his vocals from Kanye West's 2005 hit, "Gold Digger," just hours before taking the stage at the Sound Academy for a show in support of his third studio album, "Intuition."

"With stand-up, you do jokes and some of it may fly. With movies, it might work," he said.

But with music, he loves the onstage experience of being in front of crowds and "hearing people sing."

Foxx admits it was hard establishing himself as a musician after first striking it hot in comedy, but ever since moving to Los Angeles he has loved to host parties and frequently encourages guests to get their karaoke on.

Jay-Z has been there and the Neptunes have hung out in front of his garage, but it was after hearing a then-unknown West sing that Foxx remembers thinking, "This young man is about to take off.

"Kanye told me, 'I want you to take off with me.' I have a song ["Slow Jamz" � the track that helped propel Foxx's recording career] we can sing. And I said, 'I have a studio out back. How does it go?'"

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