Playboy's 20Q: Jamie Fox

the funnyman on fly girls, the trouble with rap and that hot condoleezza rice

Actor-comedian Jamie Foxx, 34, was born Eric Bishop in Terrell, Texas, where, he says, "Everyone who is African American is either a yardman or a maid." Foxx' parents were divorced when he was six years old, and his mother's adoptive parents adopted him as well and raised him as their son. So, legally, Foxx' biological mother is his sister, and his grandmother is his mother--and chief source of comedic inspiration.

Foxx' family encouraged him to take piano lessons, and when he was 13 he was playing Sunday services at his church. Upon graduating from high school, Foxx won a music scholarship to the United States International University in San Diego, but he soon realized classical piano wasn't going to be his life's work. He enjoyed making people laugh too much. After Foxx moved to Los Angeles, where he did stand-up at local comedy clubs, he changed his name to the androgynous Jamie Foxx when he noticed most club owners booked women sight unseen. Foxx' act at the time consisted mainly of impersonations--Mike Tyson, Louis Farrakhan and O.J. Simpson, among others, and his alter ego, Ugly Wanda. It was Wanda who caught the attention of the producers of Fox Network's hit series In Living Color. Foxx appeared on the show for three years, co-starring with Jim Carrey and Damon Wayans. At the same time, he played Crazy George on the critically acclaimed Fox show Roc.

Foxx moved to the big screen in 1996 opposite Janeane Garofalo and Uma Thurman in The Truth About Cats and Dogs and in The Great White Hype, co-starring Samuel L. Jackson and Jeff Goldblum. The WB Network then offered him his own series. The Jamie Foxx Show, which he co-created and executive-produced, enjoyed a successful five-year run. Foxx headlined such films as Booty Call, with Vivica A. Fox, and Antoine Fuqua's action comedy Bait. His 1999 performance in Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday garnered a Best Supporting Actor nomination from the New York Film Critics Awards. Foxx currently portrays Drew "Bundini" Brown, Muhammad Ali's cornerman and inspiration in Ali, starring Will Smith and directed by Michael Mann. He recently completed his Cold Comedy stand-up tour, and he's kept his musical roots, releasing a top 20 R&B album, Peep This, in addition to contributing songs to the soundtracks for Any Given Sunday and Bait.

Robert Crane caught up with the comedian at his production office in Los Angeles. Crane reports: "Foxx appeared without his entourage, half an hour late. He constantly adjusted his do-rag, picked at his lunch and looked me in the eye. He seems incapable of not having a good time. A former high school football player, Foxx looks more like a wide receiver or defensive back than someone in show business. He'd be ideal for Deion Sanders' biopic."

1

[Q] Playboy: Should the U.S. government hire Suge Knight to fight the war on terrorism?

[A] Foxx: Suge would probably scare everybody. He'd just do a huge drive-by--Afghanistan, Pakistan. It would just be one red Mercedes and all of our problems would be over.

2

[Q] Playboy: You cut your teeth on In Living Color with all those Wayans kids. Didn't Mr. Wayans Sr. have a hobby? What was he thinking?

[A] Foxx: I think he really loved his wife and she was understanding to have that many kids. And Keenan is following that path. There's the Wayans, and then there's Wayans Light. They're all hilarious. I would love to sit down with Keenan's father to find out where they got all the comic genius.

3

[Q] Playboy: Do you keep in touch with the Fly Girls?

[A] Foxx: No, but I have some new fly girls I keep in touch with, and they don't dance. They just do their thing. J. Lo was a Fly Girl. She's moved on now, huh? She's still fly, though. I knew all of them very personally. I knew them all, and they knew me, and they remember that whenever they see me.

4

[Q] Playboy: You starred in Booty Call--what were you thinking?

[A] Foxx: I needed a job, and I needed to do something fast in order to take a step in my career. Maybe not an Academy Award performance, but definitely a peek-a-boo performance on Sunset Boulevard.

5

[Q] Playboy: You threatened to spank Prince at the MTV Awards if he wore those butt-revealing pants. Are you sorry you didn't?

[A] Foxx: A little. If nobody would find out about it, I'd spank him publicly--if I had on a veil. I don't know how he'd take that, but he'd have to take it, because I'd spank him with my index finger up.

6

[Q] Playboy: Name one black star who couldn't take Prince.

[A] Foxx: Who couldn't beat him up? Gary Coleman couldn't take Prince--actually it would be a draw, because they're about the same size.

7

[Q] Playboy: Help us understand the conflicts brewing in the hip-hop community. We hope it's not about money but rather about art.

[A] Foxx: Come on, man. You think it's about artists? Of course it's about money. If you can't get any height--because, really, rap stars are just poets who have fallen into this society of bad boys--you've got to be the guy who goes to jail. That sells records, so that's what they do. It's not really about the art, because the art died a long time ago. There aren't too many guys out there who are actual artists with the words and stuff. Now it's about how big my record company is, how many jewels are on my necklace.

8

[Q] Playboy: What's your party mix?

[A] Foxx: It's just enough ghetto to remind me I haven't left the hood, with some high-end people from the Hollywood crowd and a couple of white girls who dig me. My food is gourmet wieners and hamburgers--not quite doing it like Hef does. I'm like the black version of Hugh Hefner without the budget. I'm Jerome Hefner. I'm putting it down like that. Finger foods in more ways than one.

9

[Q] Playboy: How do you tell a girl, "It's check-out time." Or do you have people who do that?

[A] Foxx: I just say, "Bounce! You know what it was all about. You didn't care about me when I was just walking down the street. Get out of here. It's over." I've been thrown out, too, so it's pretty equal.

10

[Q] Playboy: We know what your character learned from Al Pacino in Any Given Sunday. What did you learn?

[A] Foxx: I learned how to be modest. Al Pacino is nothing like the characters he's played. He is a professional in that he doesn't use his status to beat you over the head like some actors do. He doesn't do that at all. That's what I learned--to be modest no matter what the accomplishment. To see him be just a normal cat made me go, "Oh, it's cool to be normal. You don't have to do all the antics." That's the true talent.

11

[Q] Playboy: Do you think Condoleezza Rice is hot? She could make your ass disappear in a second.

[A] Foxx: Sounds good. Can I get some of that Condoleezza on my rice? My brown rice, as a matter of fact. Can I perform Condoleezza on you, Ms. Rice? I want her to do that to me, because once I'm done, she's going to have to make me disappear, because I'm filming it.

12

[Q] Playboy: Whose picture should be on the wall of the young African American?

[A] Foxx: I would have to say Muhammad Jordan-Smith, Muhammad Ali mixed with Michael Jordan and Will Smith.

13

[Q] Playboy: Would there be a place for your photo?

[A] Foxx: Not unless they just want to have a good time. I'm the party cat.

14

[Q] Playboy: Women--leave them laughing, or wanting more?

[A] Foxx: Leave them laughing, because once they start laughing, they will want more. That's what I've learned. I don't care how beautiful a girl is. If you can make a woman laugh, that's it. They'll always want to be around you. You don't necessarily have to have all of them, or sleep with all of them. Just the fact that all of them want to hang around you makes people say, "Is he fucking them? What is he doing? They're always around him." I don't like young girls. I usually stay with girls close to my age. I'm 34, so I stay with 29, 30 and up. At least we can reminisce on some things.

15

[Q] Playboy: What was the deal backstage at the MTV Awards?

[A] Foxx: Michael Jackson's ass. Jesus Christ. He has 60 bodyguards. I started screaming at the top of my lungs, "Fuck Michael Jackson. Who does he think is going to jump on him, Britney Spears? Should we shoot him? Can we break his leg? What should we do?" But that's because I feel in this business there's a huge gap between what you have as an entertainer and what you have in your personal life. Nobody puts his arms around Michael Jackson and says, "Dude, regardless if you sell one fucking record, I'm not going to let you do this to yourself." Nobody takes the time to say, "Hey, we're going to love you anyway. Maybe you can't sell 20 million records, but at least you can live your life pretty much sanely, as opposed to being the butt of everybody's joke. You've kind of lost touch as far as being a human is concerned." Sad thing.

16

[Q] Playboy: What material always works?

[A] Foxx: What I call "human material"--things that happen to you every day. Relationships--do you love them or do you hate them? I talk about jealousy, which happens to everybody who falls in love. I say, "Have you ever been jealous of a person who isn't even with you?" You see somebody you think you might like, and you think, Look at this good motherfucker. "What's up, Jamie?" "Fuck you." "What's wrong with you?" "You're looking at my girl." "You don't have your girl with you." "Well, she's with me in spirit." So I deal with things that I call the human things.

17

[Q] Playboy: What material has bombed?

[A] Foxx: It doesn't bomb, but it makes the crowd real quiet when I talk about going to the health clinic. But it's simply this--it's about communication. I say, "Have you ever gotten VD from a girl, but the girl is so pretty you don't want to blame it on her, because you might fuck up the relationship?" I was going out with this girl--this is a personal story. This girl was so pretty, but I couldn't tell her that I thought she gave me something, because I didn't want to fuck it up.

18

[Q] Playboy: What's funny now?

[A] Foxx: You talk about your fears. When you're on a plane now and see somebody Islamic, you automatically feel a different way. It's good for me as a black person living in the San Fernando Valley. I can drive up and down the streets at 100 miles an hour and look at a policeman and say, "Hey! America, man!" It's good to have the heat off me now. You know what I'm saying? Now they're charging up to the 7-Eleven. You make light of it, but you don't walk light. Don't be afraid to make jokes about it. It is a sensitive situation, but at the same time, life has to go on.

19

[Q] Playboy: Is it true you got your role in Any Given Sunday because P. Diddy throws like a girl?

[A] Foxx: That's what they say. I've never seen Puff actually throw, but I don't give a damn how I got the role. He is making millions. He can buy a fucking mechanical arm, or somebody who looks exactly like him. I didn't know that Puffy was up for the part when I went in. So maybe he threw like a girl, or whatever, but I got the part. Shit, he's got enough money to pay for whatever he needs to get it done.

20

[Q] Playboy: How will your film Ali improve upon Ali's film The Greatest?

[A] Foxx: For one, Muhammad Ali is not as good an actor as Will Smith. There are things in this movie that are going to enhance Muhammad Ali. And because you have Michael Mann at the helm, who pays such close attention to detail, it's going to be the last time they ever do the Muhammad Ali story.

Photography © Michael Lewis/Corbis Outline