Jamie Foxx

Posted on by Tony CrawleyCategories:Actors

  1. Cuba Gooding Jr, Jerry Maguire, 1996.
    Show who the money? “I blew it, man,” Foxx recalled. “Maybe I wasn’t ready. Tom [Cruise] was just too famous, and I was too young.   I was a stand-up and I just fucked it up. I was reading all loud and stuff, and Tom was very quiet.” “As good as Jamie and those other guys were who came in… they were all shadowboxing with this performance that Cuba had already given,” auteur Cameron Crowe told Mike Fleming Jr at Deadline Hollywood’s 20 years later in January 2017. Gooding first read with his future What Dreams May Come co-star Robin Williams and thought he was to be Jerry. But Cruise was occupied and Wlliams was filling in as a favour. “Nobody had the pure intoxicating exuberance of Cuba. He careened into the first reading, like something that dropped out of the sky. He infused every reading with this explosive optimism, the character’s dedication to his marriage and to… fun. He loved pushing Tom Cruise around – he’s actually pushing him out of frame in a couple scenes. Cuba just dared to be comical and yet full of nobility, and we were hungry for that. And he basically played Tidwell from the first moment at that first read-through, through the Oscars.” But it wasn’t all bad for Foxx. “I told great jokes that day… had everybody laughing and stuff, and Tom remembered me.”… for Collateral, 2004.   And Foxx was nominated for a support Oscar for his cab-driver but won instead Best Actor that night, February 27, 2005, for Ray.

  2. Richard T Jones, The Wood, 1999.    He ran from Slim when Oliver Stone made him Willie  in Any Given Sunday. 
  3. Bernie Mac, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. 2002.  Murray was not a happy camper on the first film in 2000. Director McG said the actor attacked him in-set – denied by Murray. But he certainly had a blazing row with co-star Lisa Liu that halted shooting for a day!  Allegedly, Murray told her: “What the hell are you doing here? You can’t act!” He refused to reprise Charlie’s right-hand man, Bosley, in the sequel… allowing the character to become, suddenly, black. Inevitably, Foxx and Will Smith were considered – but pricey. Enter: burly Mac. Film flopped, so no 3 or 4. Indeed no more Angels until actress-turned-auteur Elizabeth Banks’ lukewarm 2019 reboot. With Bosley as a woman. Banks, in fact.  Next time, Peter Dinklage?
  4. Eric Dane, Burlesque, 2009.     Considered by New York writer-director Steve Antin for Marcus in – surprise! surprise! – Cher’s first musical.So were Casey Affleck, Patrick Dempsey, Sam Worthington. 
  5. Anthony Mackie, The Gangster Squad,  2012.     Mackie signed while Foxx dithered over the  40s/50s LAPD v Mafia drama, Because… he was Quentin Tarantino’s hamburger  Western, Django Unchained, 2012.

  6. Tom Cruise, Jack Reacher, 2012.    
    Some of the names – and heights – up for Lee Child’s craggy ex-military cop-cum-Sherlock-homeless  were absurd.  Jim Carrey, for example. Jim Carrey!  Some 25 others  were Nicolas Cage, Russell Crowe, Johnny Depp, Cary Elwes,  Colin Farrell, Harrison Ford, Jamie Foxx, Mel Gibson, Hugh Wolverine Jackman, Dwayne Johnson (“I look back in gratitude that I didn’t get Jack Reacher”),  Avatar’s Stephen Lang, Dolph Lundgren, Edward Norton, Ron (Hellboy) Perlman, Brad Pitt, Keanu Reeves (he became John Wick x 5),  Kurt Russell, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Will Smith, Sylvester Stallone, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Vince Vaughn, Denzel Washington and the battle-fatigued  Bruce Willis.  Any of them would have been more acceptable than Tom Cruise  – with the exception of Carrey, Depp, Elwes, Reeves and, obviously the Euros. Pitt was best of the pack (remember Fight Club?)… although no one even thought of the obvious choice –   Liam Neeson!  Reacher fans were livid about  the 5ft 5ins Cruise daring to be  the  6ft 5ins  action hero. Reminiscent of Anne Rice’s capitulation over  tiny Tom as her “very tall” Lestat in  Interview With The Vampire, in 1994, author Lee Child declared: “Reacher’s size is a metaphor for an unstoppable force – which Cruise portrays in his own way.” Ah! But then in 2018, after the sequel, Child changed his tune about his child. (They share the same birthday, October 29).  ”Ultimately, the readers are right. The size of Reacher is really, really important and it’s a big component of who he is… So what I’ve decided to do is – there won’t be any more movies with Tom Cruise… We’re re–booting,  we’re going to try and find the perfect guy.” And they did with 6ft. 2ins Alan Richtson – Aquaman in Smallville and Hawk in Supergirl and Titans – for the Amazon series.

  7. Samuel L Jackson, The Hateful Eight, 2014.  Change of bounty-hunter Major Marquis Warren amid definite echoes of Quentin Tarantino’s first Western, Django Unchained – second if you count Reservoir Dogs.  (PoorTim Roth was shot in the stomach in both). Which is why one of the Eight  was going to be a reprised  Dango in White Hell, the first of QT’s plan to pen several book sequels.
  8. Samuel L Jackson, The Legend of Tarzan, 2015.   The disapointing re-boot was delayed, postponed, well nigh cancelledf, then delayed anew…losing Jackson as US Civil War veteran George Washington Williams.   Foxx was making ready to sub when production stalled yet again and the revised schedule clashed with his diary… by which time Jackson was available againto be opposite Tarzan. Whoever played him – Tom Hardy, Charlie Hunnam or the US Olympic swimming champ, Michael Phelps (23 gold medals during 2000-2016).. Or, as it turned out, the Swedish Alexander Skarsgård.
  9. Kevin Hart, The Upside, 2017.   Idris Elba, Jamie Foxx and the two Chrises, Rock and Tucker,  were all in  the frame for quadriplegic Bryan Cranston’s helper In a typically hollow-wooden-hash of a gigantic French hit, Untouchables, 2011. The abundantly charismatic Paris star, Omar Sy, won several Hollywood films as a result of his Cesar-winning performance.  Coming nowhere close, Hart simply lacked heart.

 

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