Playboy Interview: Jamie Foxx

When Jamie Foxx won his best actor Oscar last February, for Ray, he was up against Clint Eastwood, Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp and Don Cheadle, each in career-peak performances. The first-time nominee felt a confidence that night that wasn't based on ego or the several awards he'd won earlier, including a Golden Globe. Rather, it was based on the kind of shrewd analysis that has put him on the A-list in a hurry.

"I sat there with all those Academy members, whose ages ranged from 45 on up to 85 or 90," Foxx says. "The big thing that came through was that Ray Charles was their music. I felt it was out of the hands of Jamie Foxx. It was Ray Charles they would be celebrating. So I felt good."

Of course Foxx had a fallback. He had also been nominated for best supporting actor for his role in Collateral. And no matter what happened, he had completed one of the most impressive career transformations in Hollywood.

Foxx started in show business as a stand-up comic, modeling himself after Eddie Murphy, Jim Carrey and Martin Lawrence. When that resulted in Booty Call, The Players Club and other comedies underwhelming enough to put him in danger of a demotion back to television, he switched direction and reinvented himself as a dramatic actor--and earned two Oscar nominations to show for it.

Born in 1967 under the name Eric Bishop in the small Texas town of Terrell, Foxx was adopted by his grandparents when he was eight months old. While his precociousness and natural comic flair made him a class clown, Foxx was prodded by his grandmother Esther Talley to buckle down and become an accomplished, classically trained pianist after she put him in classes by the age of five and made sure he practiced.

Despite having little contact with his biological father and considering his mother to be his sister (Foxx's grandparents had adopted her, too), Foxx became not only a gifted, musician by high school but also star quarterback of the Terrell Tigers. He was the first player at his school to pass for 1,000 yards. A music scholarship at the U.S. International University in San Diego followed, but after two years Foxx dropped out once he decided to pursue a career as a stand-up comic.

He drew the attention of In Living Color creator Keenen Ivory Wayans. Looking to restock the talent on his edgy Fox network sketch show, Wayans signed Foxx, who quickly established himself as a staple on the show that also launched Jim Carrey and Damon Wayans. When the show was canceled, Foxx starred in and produced The Jamie Foxx Show, which aired for five seasons on the WB network.

Along the way he landed leads in a series of comedies that failed to get laughs or sell tickets. So Foxx took a break, turning his attention to the stand-up comedy circuit while awaiting better scripts. His big break came in 1999 when Sean "Puffy" Combs dropped out of a commitment to star in Any Given Sunday, because he was either too busy or could not convincingly throw a spiral. Foxx got the part. He then convinced Collateral director Michael Mann he could handle the role of the charismatic but troubled Bundini Brown, Muhammad Ali's famed trainer, in the film Ali.

For Ray, Foxx was personally vetted by Ray Charles himself. Foxx then immersed himself in the character, wearing contact lenses that left him so blind he couldn't see the results of his work until he viewed the finished film.

Despite a supporting role in the forgettable summer film Stealth, Foxx has made the most of his Ray momentum, starring in several promising films with major directors. First up is Jarhead, an adaptation of Anthony Swof-ford's Gulf war memoir by Oscar-winning American Beauty director Sam Mendes. Foxx is working a third time with Mann, joining Colin Farrell in a big-screen version of Miami Vice. Next is Dreamgirls, a movie based on the Broadway musical.

Though he dotes on his 11-year-old daughter, Corrine, Foxx, 37, is single and making the most of his status as a movie star and bachelor.

Playboy sent Michael Fleming, who last interviewed the Rock and Foxx's In Living Color cast mate Carrey, to talk to Foxx. His report: "We met in Foxx's penthouse hotel suite in sweltering Miami, where Foxx had just begun filming Miami Vice. Though the weather was hot, he never seemed to break a sweat as he described his unlikely trek from Stand-up comedian to dramatic actor. It would be easy to say that getting the break in Any Given Sunday and other dramas happened by accident. But what quickly comes through is how coldly calculating Foxx has been in identifying breaks and making the most of them. You sense his dedication, patience and self-awareness, and you realize this success is no fluke."

[Q] Playboy: You won an Oscar for Ray. Name some tangible benefits.

[A] Foxx: One was selling my Bentley online. I sold my 1996 Bentley drop-top on eBay for $150,000. I posted it as "Oscar winner Jamie Foxx's Bentley," and it sold like that, [snaps his fingers] With that money I bought a Lamborghini. We were trying to sell my house in Vegas, so finally I said, "Hey, you know what? Why don't we say 'Oscar winner Jamie Foxx.' " Sold it like that. Eleven years ago it cost $325,000; we sold it for a million.

[Q] Playboy: So it's been profitable?

[A] Foxx: I wouldn't have gotten nearly as much as I did. Your whole life changes because of the Oscar, some for the good and a little bit for the bad. Some of it is fun. Like even when you look at women. Right after they said my name, when I looked back at all the women out there in that audience, the look in their faces was like, "I see you. You have made history." So that part is nice. But then there's the flip side. A lot of people say, "Well, he's changed. He thinks he's this now. Look at him." Well, I'm telling you, I'm the same guy, the one up there at Wet Willie's working on my new jokes. From In Living Color to the Oscar and everything, this has been work. Now a certain type of work is coming my way. That is the greatest thing in the world. The Oscar provides good material, too. When Tom Cruise and Will Smith ask what it's like to have that Oscar, I tell them that when I make love to a girl now and she says, "Oh, Jamie," I have to stop and tell her, "Now say it again, 'Oh, Academy Award winner Jamie.' " Then I say, "Yeah, that's more like it." Those guys love that I can say that and not take myself too seriously.

[Q] Playboy: The Oscar is no guarantee of success. Some recent winners, such as Cuba Gooding Jr. and Halle Berry, followed their Oscar with movies that paid them small fortunes but bombed and hurt their careers. What is your strategy?

[A] Foxx: It is never to chase the money. If you do a comedy, make sure it's the best and it's the first. Don't do something Eddie Murphy or Martin Lawrence can do better. That's how I got here in the first place. I thought, Fuck it. Eddie is funny; nobody is going to catch him. Martin is hysterical. Chris Tucker, Chris Rock, Bernie Mac--as far as black comedians go, there's nothing new I could do in comedy. So let's go over here and try these movies, and maybe that will work. So now what do we do? Make sure the movie has integrity, even if it's a small budget and I'm working for a million bucks. And I can cheat because I'm a comic. If I don't find that movie, I'll go on the road and do stand-up until the right project comes along.

[Q] Playboy: But you have booked several films, mostly ensemble dramas with great directors.

[A] Foxx: Some things, like Stealth, were done before I won the Oscar. But I got to follow up Ray with a Sam Mendes film, Jarhead. It has weight, it's heavy, and it's Sam, who did American Beauty. So that's what you do. You sit back, you think, and you realize, I don't have to go for the money. Sure, I want my family and my folks to be set up nice, and that's going well. But I want to make history, man.

[Q] Playboy: As your Oscar expectations grew, you were celebrated by your hometown of Terrell, Texas. It even named a street after you. Given the racism you encountered there growing up, were you conflicted about being embraced?

[A] Foxx: I just wouldn't allow certain people to embrace me. There were white folks and black folks who helped me, who raised me, just great folks. But it's the South, and the South ain't changing. To say the whole town of Terrell is bad is not true. But there were certain aspects of racism that I couldn't deal with then and don't have to now.

[Q] Playboy: Like what?

[A] Foxx: Like going to the other side of the tracks and getting called a nigger every day. "Hey, nigger, get out of here. Get out of here, you little monkey, you little nigger." Riding my bike to school in my senior year--and I was well-known in Terrell because of football--and having a guy pull a gun out and call me nigger when I was on my way down to the high school. I'm riding my bike and they're in their truck, and they make U-turns and keep doing it. To have my friends get death threats and things like that because we were popular in school. I'm not the type to forgive that. So that was the strange part. It's like they're saying, "Maybe from this point on we can develop a relationship as grown people." Not with those memories.

[Q] Playboy: If Jamie Foxx were growing up right now in Terrell, would it be the same?

[A] Foxx: It's the same. You're dealing with the South, and it's hard to change tradition. A lot of people don't want it to change. I was glad I grew up and saw that and then came to L.A. and New York, where it isn't like that. I appreciate it. I feel good when I go to L.A. or New York. When I was a kid watching TV, I would say, "I want to go to Disneyland because this can't be all there is. This ain't life right here." So now it's just better. I'm freer and happier.

[Q] Playboy: You took the lead role in the movie version of the Broadway musical Dreamgirls, with Beyoncé and Eddie Murphy. We heard that in your first negotiation you wanted $15 million and talks broke off. Then you came back and took less. What happened?

[A] Foxx: That first time, it was just me in the movie--no Eddie Murphy, no Beyoncé. Then I hear Eddie's doing it, and I'm like, "Hey, pay me a dollar." I hear Beyoncé's doing it, "Pay me a quarter." I just wanted to be part of that. You do need to be respected, though. You need to find a way to agree on things because you have some value. But at the end of the day, who cares, man? It's Eddie Murphy; he's my hero. Then I let my people do their business. I always let them know I'm an artist and I would work for whatever, and I let them handle it. If Dreamgirls works out as I think it will, it will be the greatest thing in the world, a real event. Maybe you don't get the $15 million; maybe you get $3 million, maybe $2 million. But you are also working with Bill Condon, who did Gods and Monsters and Kinsey. You are getting a lot more than a paycheck. This is another stepping stone.

[Q] Playboy: Is the movie version of Miami Vice also a stepping stone?

[A] Foxx: I'm the one who got Miami Vice started. Two or three years ago I told Michael Mann, "Why are you doing Ali, man? Why don't you do Miami Vice? That's your shit." I said, "If you did it, you'd bring integrity to it, and it's already an American pop-culture thing. It's the best of both worlds." He said, "Get out of here. You're stupid. I don't want to do that. It doesn't make sense." I said, "I'm telling you, everybody else is doing these remakes for the sake of a remake. You could actually do something with your brand." Later we were doing this Oscar thing for Collateral, me and Tom Cruise, Jada Pinkett Smith and Michael Mann, who directed both Ali and Collateral. One of the last questions was, "What are you going to do next?" And I started singing the theme to Miami Vice and said, "Ain't that right, Mike?" He's like, "Yeah, sure." He goes away and writes 90 pages, and he calls me and says, "I just wanted to let you know that all because of that bullshit you were talking, I wrote 90 pages of Miami Vice."

[Q] Playboy: Was it a given that you would play Tubbs?

[A] Foxx: I still had to sell myself because when I first read the script, I was thinking, Where is Tubbs? But I thought, Well, I'm okay if I'm not in it that much. Then, this past New Year's, we all went down to Miami, me and Michael just kicking it. And some of the things he saw when we went out here he actually put in the script. So that was the thing about Miami Vice. It is nice to do a project like that with a director who holds weight. With all these remakes that are bubble-gummed out, this will be the one to remember. It's a little bit like The Last of the Mohicans with a love story. It's a little bit Collateral with a bit of Heat. It's deep, and it will probably be R rated.

[Q] Playboy: This was a strange summer for celebrities. Michael Jackson was on trial. War of the Worlds was dominated by Tom Cruise's zeal for Scientology and Katie Holmes. Cinderella Man was overshadowed by Russell Crowe tossing a phone at a concierge, and Mr. & Mrs. Smith was colored by whether Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had an affair that broke up his marriage. What's going on with celebrities?

[A] Foxx: It's Hollywood, but it's not my Hollywood because I look to people like Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Morgan Freeman. But no matter what, you're going to want to watch the movie. Tom Cruise can do what he wants. He's the Michael Jordan of film. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are equipped to do their thing, and not everybody is. You're excited when you see Angelina and Brad, and you're thinking maybe they were hitting it between scenes. And Tom--here's a guy who has been on top so long and hasn't tumbled. So the media wants to make him tumble.

[Q] Playboy: You worked with Cruise on Collateral. Didn't it seem as if he'd lost some of his self-awareness in discussing issues like psychiatry and prescription drugs?

[A] Foxx: I think when you have passion, it can override timing. My suggestion to him was, "Be yourself. Be whatever you want to be. Just realize sometimes you can put that aside." Because he is raising serious issues, such as giving kids drugs. They weren't giving all these kids Ritalin when I was a kid. The public is aware of these things, but maybe it doesn't want to acknowledge it. And people just want Tom Cruise to be a movie star. After listening to all this stuff, watching people spray water in his face, I said, "Hey, man, you got to realize there are certain people who want to get you. You look too good." I always told him that. "You look too fucking good. We go to a club, all the women go by you. You're charismatic; you don't have a calculating bone in your body." He is just a great person. So sometimes when you mess with that media machine, that's the way the game works out for you.

[Q] Playboy: You met Cruise when you read for the Jerry Maguire role that won Cuba Gooding Jr. his Oscar. What happened?

[A] Foxx: I blew it, man. Maybe I wasn't ready. Tom was just too famous, and I was too young. I was a stand-up comedian, and I just fucked it up. I was reading all loud and stuff, and Tom was very quiet. So I read my lines, and then he paused for a long time--I thought it was a long time. So I said, "Tom, it's your line." And he looked at me and said, "I know. I got it." Then I read something else, and he kind of mumbled something. I was looking at him like, Are you going to say your line? Then I realized, Oh, you said your line. I fucked it up.

[Q] Playboy: How did you feel walking out of there?

[A] Foxx: I thought I'd better get back to L.A. and get out of these people's faces and do some work. I was so happy for Cuba Gooding, though. And the one good thing about meeting Tom was that I told great jokes that day when we had downtime. I had everybody laughing and stuff, and he remembered me.

[Q] Playboy: How different was it when you read with him years later for Collateral?

[A] Foxx: I was a lot better. I'd done the work. I'd done Ali and Ray. I'd gone away and gotten some training, and I was ready for it.

[Q] Playboy: What surprised you most about Cruise?

[A] Foxx: The one thing about him that comes through is how much enthusiasm he has on tap.

[Q] Playboy: Does that explain his jumping up and down on Oprah's couch, gushing about his love for Katie Holmes or going at it with Matt Lauer over psychiatry?

[A] Foxx: Yeah, he's just showing you who he is now. We've always seen Tom Cruise as the mysterious guy, the cool Top Gun guy. But that's the way he is. He gets excited. When he laughs, sometimes he scares me. I'll tell him a joke, he'll start laughing too hard, like this [makes exaggerated facial expression], and I'm like, "Hey, man, what the fuck?" That's just him, man. I mean, when you meet that guy, I guarantee you'll be surprised. I'm talking about when he came out for my birthday party, man. And I don't want to tell you that my birthday party was in the hood, but there was niggers at my birthday party. It was all black. Tom Cruise walked in there with this leather jacket on, and all the women started going crazy. They couldn't believe it. He basically sat down, kind of doing what he wanted to do.

[Q] Playboy: If Cruise weren't your pal, might he be in the crosshairs of Jamie Foxx the stand-up comedian?

[A] Foxx: Oh, he is anyway. We joke back and forth with each other--I jumped on the couch because I won the BET award, and he was there. Everybody understands that I'm still a comedian and I got to get you. It's no different from Jay Leno. We're all comics. We have a license. They know it's never going to be that vicious. It'll be going for laughs, the type of joke we can all laugh at together. I've had Puffy and Eddie Murphy in the crosshairs. I expect it right back. I was in some magazine that said, Jamie Foxx makes fan his gay Sex Toy. It was all a lie, but when I went to the comedy club, the guys had the magazine in their hands. Every comedian there, from Steve Harvey on down, said, "Oh yeah, you're going to get it tonight." So I sat through this whole thing where they passed the magazine to one another and took turns. That's what it's all about. You can't take yourself too seriously. But you have to understand that when you get out there and you start tampering with that big media machine, you never know what it will do. Because that's just the way we are. Even me. I wonder how long it will take. I have a record coming out. Will they be coming after me?

[Q] Playboy: Still, isn't it harder to be unsparing when these people are your friends? Someone must have gotten mad at you.

[A] Foxx: At first Puff didn't like it. I did jokes about him. But it wasn't coming from him. He and J. Lo were going through a lot of things, and Jennifer was a little more sensitive than he was. But no one's ever come and said to stop. Even as hard as I hit Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown, Bobby still hangs out. For my part, I make sure that whatever I'm saying is the truth and the best joke possible.

[Q] Playboy: Given the take-no-prisoners attitude the tabloids have toward celebrity, how is it that when someone stole nude pictures of you, they weren't disseminated nationwide like the Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson sex tapes?

[A] Foxx: Because Michael Jackson was out there, and as long as Michael Jackson is in the news, everybody else is safe. As long as Bill Clinton is getting head in the White House and he comes off unscathed, you're safe. As long as George Bush is going to war and there are no weapons of mass destruction, you're safe. The bar has risen too high. I would literally have to commit murder while having sex with someone and get it on videotape. Then, hopefully, it would be the lead story.

When the call came in about these pictures, everybody around me was nervous. I was on the phone saying, "Guys, are you watching TV right now? Michael Jackson is going into the courtroom in pajamas. We're going to be cool. Tell the guy with the pictures, 'Please, do what you've got to do.' " I said, "I'm not with any farm animals, I'm not with any guys, and I'm in shape." That Tommy Lee and Pam Anderson tape? You can't beat that. Paris Hilton? You can't beat that. I knew I'd be okay.

[Q] Playboy: So you didn't try to stop the guy with the pictures?

[A] Foxx: Stop it? Man, I'm a comic. Jaime King, my manager, was very worried because this was around the time of the Oscars. I said, "Jaime, I don't want to thumb my nose at the Oscars or be disrespectful, but do you realize how much new material I could have if those pictures came out? I would have an hour and a half. I will rent a tour bus and get out there." She and my lawyer were on the phone, and Marcus, my other manager, said, "He's got a point."

[Q] Playboy: If you were okay with them, why weren't the pictures widely seen?

[A] Foxx: Well, they were nudes, so they couldn't be shown in many places. They could show them overseas. But I mean, these were pictures of my penis. Where are you going to show them? If you blur that out, it doesn't have the same effect. So this guy was trying to make money, and then he tried to say I was a gangster and sent guys to beat him up. It doesn't matter.

[Q] Playboy: Given the embarrassing tapes and photos that have gotten out in recent years, it's amazing a celebrity would take pictures or videos in private moments.

[A] Foxx: Well, remember, this was almost 12 years ago. I was young. This was a mistake, but they broke into my house and got them out of a safe. The guy went through my house, broke the doors down. I had them in a locked room. I mean, shit, I was what, 22, 23? I'm 37 now. I had a high-top fade. Cameo and Bobby Brown were big then, I guess.

[Q] Playboy: Your new film, Jarhead, is about grunts who fought in the first Gulf war. Before you got a classical-piano scholarship, you considered enlisting in the military. What appealed to you about being a soldier?

[A] Foxx: Nothing appealed to me about being a soldier other than the grant that would give me the opportunity to go to school. My dreams were limited back then. It was like, You're never going to get out of this town. So I thought I might as well go into the Army.

[Q] Playboy: What happened?

[A] Foxx: I took the test. I happened to be playing the piano nearby, and this guy, a recruiter, walked in. He listened and said, "Don't sign up."

I asked why, and he said, "The minute you sign up, we own you, and there's no getting out." So he was cool. I can't remember his name, but he tore up my enlistment papers.

[Q] Playboy: Do you think you would have been a good soldier?

[A] Foxx: I could have done it. I had the work ethic. When you play football in Texas, it's like the military. You love being at war every Friday or Saturday. I'm sure if I had gotten into it, I would have been a staff sergeant, master sergeant, whatever. But when I look at it now with grown eyes, I see a lot of guys who didn't have anywhere to go. Some might have ended up in prison. Others would say, "If I don't do this, what else am I going to do?" I see that, and it's sad. But at the same time, that's life. One thing I got out of doing Jarhead was that I quit talking about Republicans and Democrats, things that don't mean anything as far as those guys out there fighting are concerned. It wasn't that they were fighting for their country as much as fighting to stay alive. I've always done things for the military--I performed at Okinawa for the GIs and stuff. I see these guys, and my heart goes out to them because these are guys who were just like me.

[Q] Playboy: Did Jarhead color your feelings at all about what's going on in Iraq?

[A] Foxx: I don't like war at all. War is stupid to me. The world is so big, it seems like everybody should be able to get along. Greed is what fuels war. There have been some wars that were necessary, but most are unnecessary. There are greedy people at the top who want to make money, and they don't care.

[Q] Playboy: You mean in Iraq?

[A] Foxx: Yeah, in Iraq. That's just the way I am. Even when you look at what we're doing now. You say we're fighting terrorism, but I think that was just a way to get us to go into it. As for going to war and putting our guys' lives on the line and telling them they're liberating somebody, I don't believe that.

[Q] Playboy: You started as a musician who became a comedian, then a comedic star and then a dramatic star. How much of that was planned?

[A] Foxx: Being a comedian was well planned. I thought I was going to be the next Eddie Murphy. Then I saw Chris Tucker and thought, Shit, I think I better find something else to try to do. This dude, if he really wanted to turn it on and do it all, he could kill everybody. I saw him in a club. I was like, Who the fuck is this kid? I'd gone onstage and done the Jamie Foxx set. This was after In Living Color, so I had a little money. I was saying stuff like "Hey, anybody got a Range Rover?" I'm riffing, thinking the audience was stiff, and then up went Chris Tucker, who had this little bitty skinny fucking tank top on and looked like he weighed about 80 pounds. And he was just murdering these people. I said, "That's how I used to be." So I worked on getting my jokes back up. It was tough getting back, but I did--even though it wasn't on that level, because Chris just had it.

[Q] Playboy: You joined In Living Color when it was a hit show. It must have been intimidating trying to get noticed alongside Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans and the others. How did you make that work?

[A] Foxx: Well, I was quiet. The first thing I did was just listen. Every once in a while I'd do a joke, a tag on somebody else's line. You had to prove yourself in the room before you even went before the camera. So I'd hit them, just say a little something. I stroked them, too, not because I was trying to get on their good side but to let them know I admired them and had something to offer. I could help them with a joke. And everyone was like, Where is that kid coming up with some stuff? That got me in every sketch. When it came time for me to swing the bat on film, that's when I let it all go. The cast knew I wasn't this kid trying to jump in front of them and be disrespectful. It was their show. I learned early to be smart. Don't ever be the king.

[Q] Playboy: Damon Wayans, Carrey and Lopez went on to have big careers. Who did you think would break out?

[A] Foxx: I knew Jim Carrey would. We went to some club, and he brought me to his house, saying, "I want to show you this movie I made called Pet Detective." I said, "Yeah, let me see that shit." I was laughing so hard, and when I stopped I looked at him and said, "Let me shake your hand now because it's not going to be the same for you ever again." He said, "Oh no, no." I said, "You watch." At the premiere of the movie, executives were doubled over laughing. When he came out I was standing against the wall in the back of the theater, and I watched him get swept away.

[Q] Playboy: Did you have any idea that Fly Girl Jennifer Lopez would pop?

[A] Foxx: When I first saw her I remember thinking, This is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life. But I wasn't going to hit on her, because we had both just been hired and I was so happy to be on the show. But wow, she was gorgeous. And some of the other girls picked at her because she had a little meat on her, which I liked. But she could outdance everybody. Anytime somebody came to the show they'd always say, "Who's that girl?" She always had that. Now she's flawless as far as looks are concerned. When you make money you can get skin treatments and stuff. She definitely has that star quality.

[Q] Playboy: Carrey's success in comedy has made it hard for him to be accepted as a serious actor. Your comedies weren't very successful. Did that help the audience accept you in drama?

[A] Foxx: I think so. I think it helped me because they didn't have a reference for Jamie Foxx. Those Academy Award voters knew me only from a couple of films and didn't have a record of Jamie Foxx being this outrageously funny guy. That worked in my favor because nothing that came out had been funny enough to define me. While it was happening, it was frustrating, but looking back I realize it's better if they can't see you coming.

[Q] Playboy: One of your early comedies was Booty Call, about a couple of guys looking to get laid. Bill Cosby criticized you for perpetuating negative racial stereotypes. How did that make you feel?

[A] Foxx: Oh, it makes you feel bad. But what can you say against Bill Cosby?

[Q] Playboy: Was he a touchstone comic for you when you were young?

[A] Foxx: No. He was Bill Cosby, and I thought he was funny but like your dad is funny. Richard Pryor, Redd Foxx--they were like your crazy uncles or your big brother who had the drug problem. I looked at Cosby as the guy who could do Carson, and you looked forward to seeing him there. I loved his TV show, too.

[Q] Playboy: He has been very outspoken recently, scolding black fathers for leaving their kids and kids for not doing more to educate themselves.

[A] Foxx: That's easy when you're a billionaire. I think he means well. How come he didn't say it 30 or 50 years ago when it was really needed? Maybe then he was having a martini up in a house in the hills where the closest black person to him was the guy cooking the food. I've always felt I want to do something, but I don't want to bang you over the head with messages. I'm still an entertainer. I want to entertain and have a good time.

[Q] Playboy: Your big break as a dramatic actor came with Any Given Sunday. How hard was it for a TV star to impress Oliver Stone and get that role?

[A] Foxx: First thing he said was, "Jamie Foxx, slave to television." He wrote it down, made fun of me. He said, "Slave to television, fuck that. He's too loud." Because the way you speak in television is like [loudly overemphasizing each syllable], "Hey, man, so where you going today? I don't know. What about you?" I was reading my lines like that, and Oliver winced and said, "What are you doing?" I said, "What do you mean, what am I doing? I'm trying to read this, Any Given Sunday." So I had to learn real quick. All the while Oliver was saying, "I fucking took this chance on you, and you're fucking it up." He'd say, "Don't read that shit. You've got to be that shit. What are you doing?" I'd say, "I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm trying as hard as I can." He said, "Don't. Don't try as hard as you can. Just let it happen." So this incredible journey comes down to catching the right breaks and keeping the mentality of a comedian and not taking it too seriously. So I don't show up with a scarf and an ascot, smoking a cigarette out of a holder, things like that.

[Q] Playboy: You were adopted by your grandmother, but your biological dad didn't live far from where you grew up. You've expressed disappointment that he wasn't there for you, even to show up and watch when you were a star high school quarterback. After the Oscar, did he come around?

[A] Foxx: Yeah, he did a little bit. And I think his last message was, "So you just shut me out completely?" I just can't deal with him right now. I have so much other stuff I have to do. I have my two sisters--one has Down syndrome. I have my stepfather living with me, so I'm trying to make that work. The people who put in the effort, those are the people you should be with. I think eventually I'll get to him, but right now, in times like these, I don't want to bring on too much. I have to be light and free, even with my dad. It's like, I wanted to hear from you for the past 37 years, and what's your excuse for that? That's a lot to get past. You know how tough it is when you don't come home until five o'clock in the morning and then spend four hours trying to cover up with an excuse to explain to your girl where you've been all night? Imagine explaining 37 years.

[Q] Playboy: Is whatever validation from your father that you were looking for as a kid still important to you?

[A] Foxx: No, not really. I never experienced him as a father. It's just, here's this guy, that dude who looks like you a little bit. It's just a bit weird.

[Q] Playboy: You had a nontraditional upbringing, being raised by your grandmother, who had adopted your biological mother, who was more like your sister than anything else. How has that shaped you?

[A] Foxx: It made me pay more attention to my daughter, to make sure I was there for whatever she needed regardless of whatever I was doing. There were times I felt disappointed as a kid when that lady--my mother was so pretty, still is--was supposed to come on Christmas. Where's that lady? And she didn't show up because she was busy doing other things. I never wanted my daughter to see anything like that. But me? I'm a cactus. I didn't need a lot of water as a kid growing up. I was more like my daughter is, trying to make everybody else feel comfortable and happy.

[Q] Playboy: Could that be a reason you haven't married?

[A] Foxx: I haven't gotten married because I don't want to be married during this time. I like being single. Everybody I know, when they make that big jump and get married, they become miserable, like, "Man, what did I do?" I have a lot of friends in the industry who get married, and man, they fuck it up. I think marriage may come for me, but if it happens at all it'll be years down the road. Because I look at how miserable these people are, and I don't want that.

[Q] Playboy: If a woman looks at you differently since you won an Oscar, how do you know she's there because of you? If she's gorgeous enough, does it matter?

[A] Foxx: It doesn't matter one bit. A lot of this is for my own experience. I don't take it too seriously. There were some women--very famous and very married--who said, "If you are ready, I want to go right now." And I was like, "You know what, I'll pass and just enjoy this moment." At first I thought, This is what I want. These girls are gorgeous. But my agent, Kim Hodgert, was very smart about it. She said, 'Jamie, if you do that, it will be a press thing, something you'll have to deal with. And a lot of these women are crazy." I was like, "But I really want to hit that!" But she was right. Don't do it for the sake of one night. Those women wanted to do it for the sake of the night.

[Q] Playboy: You've played second banana to two major stars, Will Smith in Ali and Tom Cruise in Collateral. What are the differences between them?

[A] Foxx: Will is so competitive. He ain't no punk. That was one thing about both him and Cruise I tripped out on. I thought they were just these two guys, but they will try to beat you in anything. Pool, basketball, anything. I think that's what gives them the edge. They don't want to lose.

[Q] Playboy: Were you able to beat Smith at anything?

[A] Foxx: No. He beat me at chess, and I was really playing, too. Some people say, "Don't beat the king." Well, I was trying. Chess, basketball--this dude ain't going to lose

[Q] Playboy: What about Cruise?

[A] Foxx: Same thing. Ain't going to lose. I play Cruise in pool, and he turns into that guy from The Color of Money. He really snoots. You can tell if these guys have mojo when things like that happen. If we're in a room and women show up, they up the ante a little bit, even though they don't act on it. It's like, "I just want to let you know I'm the big dog." Let you know they got it.

[Q] Playboy: What do you have?

[A] Foxx: I'm the ultimate Ed McMahon.

[Q] Playboy: What does that mean?

[A] Foxx: See, I think it's tough being Johnny Carson. Tom Cruise and Will Smith, they are like Johnny Carson. For me, being Ed McMahon to Will or Tom, that's enough. The focus is not that much on me, and I like it that way. I just want to do my thing.

[Q] Playboy: You did an album in 1994 and struggled to get airplay. What did you learn that's helping you this time around?

[A] Foxx: To do real music and play to your strengths. I did a song with Kanye West and it got to number one. Why not go back to Kanye West twice? So we have two songs coming out. Hopefully, we'll have a successful album.

[Q] Playboy: How much ambition do you have as a musician now?

[A] Foxx: A lot, but it has changed. I hate the music business. They fight over nothing--like a little bit of money, what things cost. But now I've got the help of Clive Davis, who says, 'Just let the kid do what he wants, and let's get this album out."

[Q] Playboy: What gives you the biggest energy jolt: singing, telling jokes onstage or making a movie?

[A] Foxx: There's nothing like telling a joke onstage. Nothing like it. It is hard to make people laugh. You can sit and listen to a person sing, but whether you clap or don't clap, it's still just music. But when you get somebody doubled over in pain from laughing, that's an accomplishment.

[Q] Playboy: Why does everybody want to be Bono and not Richard Pryor?

[A] Foxx: Maybe it's the women, the party aspect that surrounds singing. But there ain't nothing like making beautiful women laugh. When the woman is sitting there and it's all tight and it's all hanging, and she just starts laughing and that titty pops out because she's laughing so hard, you can't beat that.

[Q] Playboy: You are known as a consummate party host. What's the key to giving a great party?

[A] Foxx: You don't want people to feel pressure, even trying to get in. I got this song on my album, "Everybody at My Party Is a VIP," and that's how I run my parties. Everybody has a drink in their hand, just going with the spirit of the party. At a lot of parties it's tough to get in, and by the time you do, you're tired from waiting at the door, and then you feel like it's too crowded. But if you just make everybody feel they can let their hair down, great things happen. I'll never forget when I put on a party and Puffy walked in. Puffy don't get on the stage for nobody. We got Puffy onstage. He actually performed some of his stuff, and people went crazy.

[Q] Playboy: You once said you didn't want to hold the A-list party as much as the afterparty. Has that changed?

[A] Foxx: No. It's still the afterparty for me, man. It's better. There's no pressure. Everyone's more relaxed. My best parties were karaoke parties I threw in L.A. I had Bobby and Whitney sing at one. There was one in Toronto where I had Kevin Spacey onstage with me, and it was kind of like joining the spirits of Bobby Darin and Ray Charles.

[Q] Playboy: Tell us the wildest thing that's ever happened at one of your parties.

[A] Foxx: I don't know if I can tell you the wildest shit ever, but here's a pretty good one. One of the wildest times ever, I invited Ray Lewis over to my house for a party. It was a very snooty crowd at first. There was one beautiful girl, just gorgeous, a mix between Mariah Carey and J. Lo. I told her Ray Lewis was coming, and she said, "How long do I have to wait, Jamie?" I asked, "For Ray?" "No, to keep my clothes on." I said, "What do you mean?" "I don't want to have clothes on all night." Sometimes you see girls and they seem a little trashy, but this one was amazing, like she rolled right off the red carpet. We had come from some kind of formal event, and she had a pager. So I said, "If you can take all your clothes off and keep your pager on, I'll let you do it, all right?" She took all her clothes off. Her body was phenomenal. Then she took the pager and clicked it to the top of her shoe and walked around. Some of the girls left, like, "Okay, we're out of here. We've heard about this kind of thing at your parties." When Ray walked into my house, he walked up to me and said, "Hi, what's happening?" Then he turned and saw this naked girl and said, "Oh my God." And he fell over a cushion. I said, "What's wrong?" like I hadn't noticed her. He's like, "What ... who ... what ...?" Anyway, I ain't going to tell you the rest, man, but it was wild.

Tom Cruise gets excited. When he laughs, sometimes he scares me. But that's the way he is.

You can't take yourself too seriously. But you have to understand that when you start tampering with that media machine, you never know what it will do.

I like being single. Everybody I know, when they make that big jump and get married, they become miserable, like, "Man, what did I do?" I don't want that.