Jamie Foxx is all set to make his comeback after facing a health scare earlier this year. He’s returning to our screens in October with the movie, The Burial.
Foxx has assumed the role of Willie Gary, who finds himself in the midst of an interesting legal face-off, as a funeral home owner takes on a corporate behemoth to save his family business. The charismatic Southern character’s partnership with Tommy Lee Jones’ Jeremiah O’Keefe is one of the main attractions of the movie, allowing fans to enjoy yet another side of Foxx’s versatile acting talents.
The trailer suggests Willie has the potential to be the Oscar-winning actor’s most entertaining role to date. But when it comes to his best and most challenging work, not many fans would see past Ray.
What Jamie Foxx Had to Go Through for His Oscar-Winning Performance in Ray
Jamie Foxx portrayed legendary soul musician Ray Charles in the 2004 biographical musical drama, which followed the challenges Young Ray – who lost his sight at the age of seven – faced in his inspiring journey that eventually led to incredible stardom during the 1950s and 1960s, and forever redefined soul music in the process.
Foxx won an Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for his display which demanded a lot of work behind the scenes from the actor.
The Any Given Sunday actor had to wear prosthetics on his eyes to look blind, which meant he couldn’t see a thing for up to 14 hours a day. Giving an insight into the whole process, Foxx once said [via Black Film]:
“First we glued my eyelids closed and that was crazy. You gotta get me soap, this is not gonna work! I hyperventilated the first few times and then they finally got it right and got the method down from five hours to maybe like an hour to get them done and made it easier.”
Despite undergoing such an agonizing process, Foxx doesn’t think filming Ray was his toughest career challenge.
Jamie Foxx Thinks Working in Quentin Tarantino Movie Was More Challenging Than Ray
In order to immerse himself in the character, Foxx not only put his eyes through literal torture but also had to pick up Ray’s accent and study his mannerisms while performing. He also lost quite a lot of weight to mimic the musician’s frame.
Regardless, Foxx thinks the filming of Quentin Tarantino‘s Django Unchained was more challenging. He explained [via Black Film]:
“Yeah. Ray was a challenge, but we were having fun and it was music. This film was the constant thought, and I hope this sounds right for the majority, and people are going to take it no matter what because that’s the just the way it is, especially dealing with that subject matter, but that was the challenge. It was the things that you couldn’t put into words.”
Tarantino’s Django Unchained focuses on the subject of slavery through the story of Django (Foxx), a slave, who joins hands with a bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) to rescue his enslaved wife from a plantation owner.
The film was a critical success, and Waltz won an Academy Award for his impressive supporting role.
Source: Black Film
