Jamie Foxx has had a pretty progressive career in Hollywood. During his early days in feature films, the ever-improving actor was mostly seen as a good fit for comedy movies, especially after a significant role in s*x comedy Booty Call.
A few years later, he showed he had more cards up his sleeves with his brilliant performance in the sports drama Any Given Sunday, wherein he starred alongside Al Pacino. But it wasn’t until the biographical musical drama Ray, that Foxx led a serious film impressively from the front.
The way he immersed himself into the project to highlight 30 years in the life of iconic musician Ray Charles, left critics speechless and he was honored with an Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actor in the Leading Role.
How Quentin Tarantino’s Behavior Surprised Oscar-Winning Star Jamie Foxx
By the time Jamie Foxx agreed to join hands with Quentin Tarantino for Django Unchained (2012), he had already become an established and well-respected actor. And yet, the Pulp Fiction director pleasantly left the experienced star stunned with how he dealt with his actors.
The nature of Tarantino’s Django Unchained, which also starred Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz, and Samuel L Jackson in major roles, was typically loud and hilarious, but the subject matter was pretty dark and serious, as the plot zooms in on a slave’s journey from being freed to going on a rescue mission to save his enslaved wife (Kerry Washington) from a corrupt plantation owner.
Tarantino, throughout the filming, ensured Foxx and Washington were doing okay. Recalling the whole experience, the 55-year-old said [via IMDb]:
“It was really different because Hollywood is not like that. Hollywood is very much about getting the shot, getting it right, and moving on. Even when we’re shooting an incredibly difficult scene and we have to do a few takes, he’s just like ‘That’s alright, man. All we need to do is get it right, one time. It’ll work.’ When you have a director like that, it speaks volumes.”
However, the early days of filming weren’t that smooth. In fact, Tarantino had a little outburst in his attempts to explain the theme of the movie to Foxx.
What Quentin Tarantino Said to Jamie Foxx on the First Day of Django Unchained’s Rehearsal
Django Unchained is laden with elite talents, and Waltz even won an Academy Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role for his portrayal of a bounty hunter. But the whole movie depended on the character arc of Foxx’s Django, who was supposed to go from a slave to a hero.
However, Foxx apparently didn’t get the gist of his character on the first day of the movie’s rehearsal, leading to Tarantino giving him a piece of his mind. During an interview with Howard Stern on The Howard Stern Show, he said:
“On the first day of rehearsal, I’m reading my lines like [hums] and he said cut and closed the door and was like ‘umm, what the f*ck was that?’ I said ‘what do you mean?’ He said ‘I knew I was gonna have this problem. Listen, all of this sh*t – you have to be a f*cking slave. He’s a slave. He’s not cool, he’s a f*cking slave. He doesn’t know how to read.”
Foxx understood and accepted Tarantino’s point instead of replying back in the same tone – something that isn’t unusual with A-listers. When Stern asked if he’d work with the eccentric filmmaker again, the Oscar-winning actor, without taking any second, said he’d work with the Reservoir Dogs director a thousand times.
Source: IMDb, The Howard Stern Show
