DJANGO UNCHAINED – Jamie Foxx Opens Up On Early Trials

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Directors to Foxx – Don’t follow your instincts, do us all a favor.

Jamie Foxx is being refreshingly open and honest as he promotes Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained ahead of its upcoming Christmas release.  We’ve talked about it here over and over again, how actors get in front of a journalist or group of journalists and drone on and on about things about which even their most hardcore fans could give a shit less.  So it’s nice when a guy packs his sense of humor and cuts loose a little bit, which Foxx did in spades this week at a press roundtable in San Diego, after fronting the Django Unchained panel at Comic-Con.

Foxx regaled reporters with Oliver Stone’s less-than-rosy assessment of his abilities while hard at work on Any Given Sunday, Foxx’s first feature film and the worst movie ever made about professional football.  “You’re really not any good at all, are you?” Stone told him at the time, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Interesting method of encouragement.

The next to tee off on Foxx was Taylor Hackford, who directed Foxx on Ray.  “Listen,” Hackford told Foxx in the early going.  “If you eff this movie up, I’m going to eff you up.”  Apparently Hackford’s tough-love approach worked, as Foxx was scared right into a Best Actor Oscar for his work on the picture.

But that wasn’t enough to keep Michael Mann from taking Foxx by the ear when the two collaborated on 2004′s Collateral.  In the early going, Foxx told Mann, “How about in the cab I do my own thing?” to which Mann said, “How about you don’t do your own thing?”  When Foxx asked for clarification, Mann told him, “When have you ever seen a cab driver doing their own thing?  How about you just drive the cab?”

You’d think that certainly by now, having roundly convinced the showbiz establishment of his chops, Foxx might have finally done enough in front of the camera to have earned his right to do his own thing.  Right?  Quentin Tarantino apparently didn’t think so either, telling Foxx of his concern that audiences would look at him as Jamie Foxx rather than looking at him as Django.

Sheesh, Jamie.  Where’s the love?  According to Foxx, Tarantino spoke to Foxx about giving himself over to the character, telling him that if he was successful in doing so, the “pendulum-swing” would be sweeter.

Whatever you gotta swing, boys.  So long as Django Unchained bolts the plantation on Christmas Day.