When Quentin Tarantino warned Jamie Foxx: “Do not fuck my film up”
Any director would consider themselves lucky to have the acting force of nature that is Jamie Foxx on their call sheet. After all, Foxx has proven his performative worth on countless brilliant occasions, always rising to the task regardless of whether he has been asked to play a comedic, dramatic or even historical role.
With an Academy Award for his portrayal of Ray Charles in 2004’s Ray to his name, plus a swathe of other impressive efforts in the likes of Ali, Jarhead, Miami Vice, Annie and Baby Driver, it’s easy to see why the Texas-born star has been called upon time and time again to offer his brilliance to movie production.
Acclaimed directors including Michael Mann, Sam Mendes, Seth Gordon and Edgar Wright have all been fortunate enough to work with Foxx, as has the inimitable Quentin Tarantino, who signed Foxx up to the lead role of Django Unchained. Interestingly, Foxx had previously spoke of the dominant directing style of Tarantino and how it, while difficult to come to terms with at first, makes all the difference in a performance.
“I was just getting to learn Quentin Tarantino, so he was, again, a tyrant,” Foxx once told Howard Stern of his first time working with the legendary director. “He was like, ‘Do not fuck my film up’. That’s what you want; you want a director who, even if you’re going off the cliff, you know that you’re going off the cliff.”
Foxx was on the receiving end of a baptism of fire when he first came to work with Tarantino. On the first day of his rehearsal for Django Unchained, Foxx sat in his trailer, reading his lines, and Tarantino suddenly came in to listen. After a moment, the director turned to his lead actor and said, “Can I stop you for a sec? Erm… what the fuck is that?”
Naturally, Foxx asked Tarantino just what the problem was, not knowing that the filmmaker was about to set off into a huge tirade about why Foxx was getting the character all wrong. “I knew I was going to have this problem,” Tarantino began. “Uh, listen… All of this shit… you have to be a fucking slave. Okay? He’s a slave; he’s not cool! He’s a fucking slave.”
Of course, Foxx being Foxx, he couldn’t help but imbue his first version of Django with an unbridled air of cool, but Tarantino thought that this would take away from the kind of portrayal he was really meant to provide. “He doesn’t know how to read,” Tarantino added. “You come in with your Louis bag and your fucking Range Rover, and you’re fucking just…you’re not Jim Brown.“
After telling Foxx that Django was meant to be “a fucking slave” another handful of times, the door to Foxx’s trailer swung open, and Tarantino left, shouting on the way out, “Lose that shit.” One might have thought that Foxx might have been offended by the way Tarantino had spoken to him, but the truth was that he admired the kind of dedication shown in the director’s words.
After all, Tarantino knows exactly what he wants from his actors, which Foxx found refreshing. When asked whether he would be interested in playing for Tarantino in a future movie, Foxx replied, “A thousand times,” showing that even though Tarantino is a “tyrant”, he’s one hell of a filmmaker.
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