Jamie Foxx Interview, The Kingdom

MoviesOnline caught up with Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx at the Los Angeles press conference for his new movie, "The Kingdom.” Foxx leads an all-star ensemble in a timely thriller that tracks a powder-keg criminal investigation shared by two cultures chasing a deadly enemy ready to strike again.

When a terrorist bomb detonates inside a Western housing compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, an international incident is ignited. While diplomats slowly debate equations of territorialism, FBI Special Agent Ronald Fleury (Foxx) quickly assembles an elite team (Oscar winner Chris Cooper and Golden Globe winners Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman) and negotiates a secret five-day trip into Saudi Arabia to locate the madman behind the bombing.

Upon landing in the desert kingdom, however, Fleury and his team discover Saudi authorities suspicious and unwelcoming of American interlopers into what they consider a local matter. Hamstrung by protocol—and with the clock ticking on their five days—the FBI agents find their expertise worthless without the trust of their Saudi counterparts, who want to locate the terrorist in their homeland on their own terms.

Fleury’s crew finds a like-minded partner in Saudi Police Captain Al-Ghazi (Ashraf Barhoum), who helps them navigate royal politics and unlock the secrets of the crime scene and the workings of an extremist cell bent on further destruction. With these unlikely allies sharing a propulsive commitment to crack the case, the team is led to the killer’s front door in a blistering do-or-die confrontation. Now in a fight for their own lives, strangers united by one mission won’t stop until justice is found in The Kingdom.

Jamie Foxx is a fabulous guy and we really appreciated his time. Arriving in style and sporting a snappy jacket, jeans and a wine-colored Royal Rock T-shirt with an attitude to match, here’s what the always impeccably dressed actor had to tell us about his new movie:

Q: Hey, Jamie. Great performance in a great film. Can you talk a little bit about what the role meant to you and how you did everything – both comedy and action?

Jamie Foxx: You know it was fun to be able to work with Michael Mann again, work with Peter Berg who I’ve always admired as an actor and as a director, so to be able to work with him with a subject matter that is pretty intense but the way Peter Berg was saying, "No, just say this line right here, I guarantee you’re going to get a laugh. Say this line right here because we have to get the entertainment also at the same time.” And so it was just a fun ride, you know.

Q: You were in Jarhead, a movie that a very few people saw.

JAMIE FOXX: [making a funny face that makes the press laugh] That movie did very well. It didn’t? I don’t know. Shit. I don’t know. It’s better than Stealth. I mean, come on, you know what I’m saying. I gotta get it right.

Q: Do you think The Kingdom has a chance to be a box office hit? Does tackling a serious subject factor into you saying yes to a movie?

JAMIE FOXX: I don’t know. When you’re working with Michael Mann and you’re working with Peter Berg, that’s not the first thing you think about is the commercial success. The first thing you think about is the work of it, the art of it. When you look at Al Pacino, we did his American Cinematheque [Tribute] where we honored him and you look at his body of work—all the body of work that he did -- they weren’t the commercial successes but they were the ones you remembered. So, not to say that I don’t want to be commercially successful so I don’t want to have to hear you say that again, but you know that you’re doing a piece that when you look back on it you know you can be happy about it I think.

Q: Can you talk about the balance this movie tries to make between politics and entertainment and how much research you did into Saudi Arabia?

JAMIE FOXX: The research started out with first of all we got a chance to go where the federal agents train for this and they show you bombs. That’s what was crazy, like seeing them blow stuff up in front of you, and to see how their approach was as opposed to mine. I was like oh my God, what are they going to do? It was just another day in the office for them, so we had to sort of match that like it’s not how we view it. We view it on this huge scale and they view it like I’ve got to get up and go to work, this may happen, this may not happen and so that was the reason for putting some of the jokes in there, making it light because that’s the way these guys are. Then it was just painting a picture.

Q: And the balance between politics and entertainment in this movie?

JAMIE FOXX: I don’t know if it was necessarily political as it was when you watched Ashraf’s character, you lock onto him and say wow, look at this dude who’s a cop in Saudi Arabia. How does he work within this and you sort of…I did…sort of follow him and watching his plight and it wasn’t political. It was just about this guy trying to go to work and do his job.

Q: He said he didn’t know who you or Jennifer Garner were.

JAMIE FOXX: He’s lying. He’s lying. He knows me. He asked me for my autograph the whole nine, he was taking pictures and all kinds of stuff and signing his chest—the whole nine. Don’t let him lie to you. He was marveling.

Q: In the last 3 years you’ve appeared in a number of dramatic movies. It seems people know now if they see you in a drama, it’s going to be good. Have you noticed a real shift in perception where before people might have been surprised that a comedian was doing drama?

JAMIE FOXX: Yeah, and I’m going to tell you what, it sometimes pulls at your comedic soul because you watch a Rush Hour or you’ll watch Sandler and Stiller and Murphy and you just go "Man!” But every comic role that I did sort of was like in the lane of someone else, so you’d get compared or if it wasn’t as good as Murphy, it was like horrible. If it wasn’t as good as Tucker, it was bad. So by having this sort of lane of not necessarily drama but just characters and doing pieces, I’m happy with that lane and then Sirius Radio gave me a chance to get my own comedy station. So if you ever want to hear how it’s going down with the jokes, hit me on Sirius 106 in the Fox Hole and we’ll give it to you good over there. Don’t write in because it gets bad sometimes.

Q: You improvised and used Terrell, Texas. How did that happen? I didn’t even know they had a newspaper.

JAMIE FOXX: Yeah, Terrell has a newspaper about 14 pages and Peter Berg says say Terrell right there. You know it’s good to tip your hat because in that town man, that town at one point seemed so like on an island because it was 12,000 people. Railroad track separated you from the north and the south side. You know, even growing up in Texas I thought it was blacks, whites and Mexicans. I had never heard Jewish. Maybe I just didn’t pay attention until I got to L.A. and all these different things so it’s good to kind of let them in on what’s going on. Your hometown, you know, they always want to know, did you forget about us. Don’t forget about us down here in Terrell.

Q: This film has got one of the great action sequences which I understand was pretty much improvised. How dangerous was that to shoot?

JAMIE FOXX: I’ll tell you the danger of it. The danger was sort of the climate. We were in Phoenix. It was 115 maybe 130 degrees on that black top so you had to pay attention to yourself. That’s why I think Jennifer Garner is the strongest person in the world. After having a child and getting back in shape and being out in those conditions and handling it. The other danger was that we had to pay attention to was there were a lot of guns going off simultaneously so you had to make sure that you weren’t in anybody’s path. Even though they were blanks, it could still cause damage and then the physicality of you know going through those hallways, blowing up stuff and just…but that’s the fun part of it. That’s what you dreamt about when you were a kid and you say like man, I want to blow stuff up and be the hero and run through and save the day. Although it was taxing, it was still fun.

Q: What about your stunt man? Did you really do it all?

JAMIE FOXX: I did it all…I’m lying. I didn’t do all the stunts but I was probably the worst. Can you get in there? But it’s fun because you get a chance to hang out with those stunt guys and the one thing about stunt people is that they have a voice too and they have a thing that they want to show us, so hats off to those guys that were trying to show you new moves, trying to show you different things because you’ve seen probably every stunt in the world. You guys have seen every movie, but to see them put their thing on there is fabulous.

Q: Were you part of the group that went to the Middle East for a week or 8 days?

JAMIE FOXX: Over in Abu Dhabi? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was beautiful over there. They treated us well over there and it was the most incredible visual you’ll ever see. It’s like the palace was 850,000 square kilometers. I was a mile away from my sister’s room and it was just incredible. Any food you want, any kind of cuisine, I mean it was…it makes the food court here look crazy. It was different worlds. They pick you up in a Phantom, you know, the Phantom Rolls Royce. It was like shooting a music video the whole time. They picked you up in a Rolls Royce, you ride in a Mercedes, and there was guns and all kinds of …

Q: Jennifer was the only girl with all these guys. If you’re one of those guys when a girl’s in the room, do you watch what you say or do you make her one of the guys?

JAMIE FOXX: I’m a southern gentleman. I don’t do the whole nasty stuff.

Q: Peter Berg really likes close ups of just your eyes and nose. Are you cognizant of that when he’s shooting you?

JAMIE FOXX: Yeah, and that’s a little bit of the Michael Mann school, too. If you notice that by him being Michael Mann’s protégé he likes to catch those angles and what was great about Peter is that he was grabbing everything even while he was just sitting around. Grab that, shoot that. Then him being an actor it feeds into his process of showing you the movie because he knows what he wants to see and you as an actor watching a movie you know what you want to see in that movie and he’s able to give that to you.

Q: But as an actor, are you cognizant of that?

JAMIE FOXX: Oh no, you just keep doing your thing I think.

Q: You played a father with a son. Did you draw on your relationship with your daughter to do that?

JAMIE FOXX: Yeah, anytime anybody has a kid, you know how you feel when you have a kid, you look at the world differently because your kid is in this world now. When it’s just you, whatever happens happens but now you pay more attention to political things. You pay more attention to things because your daughter or your son has to deal with these circumstances.

Q: Do you have any specific scenes you like best in the movie?

JAMIE FOXX: I just like all the action stuff towards the end. The whole way it rides out at the end and solving the situation at the end and people cheering at the end of it. I just like that whole…anytime it’s action I dig that.

Q: Will you to do a commentary for the DVD?

JAMIE FOXX: Oh yeah, you do whatever they ask you to do you know. It’s their vision and you’re still a worker. I think they know what they’re doing.

Q: How do you go about working? Do you like to rehearse or do you like to just go for it?

JAMIE FOXX: Okay, wow. It’s different like with Michael Mann you’re going to rehearse. You’re going to rehearse so much until you’re almost numb but what happens is now when you start, you’re not acting at all. You’re just that person. With Peter Berg it was different because he wanted to catch things on the fly and flash because this movie is like I said intense. So he wanted to catch things that were happening organic and quick. So it depends on who you’re working with. Oliver Stone you have to work. You have to really, really work.

Q: How do you pick the roles that you do and does having won an Oscar play a part in your decision?

JAMIE FOXX: Yeah, I mean, I want to do everything. I wanted to do the Rush Hours, I wanted to do all of the stuff, but I have a great team with the agents and my managers who said "Foxx, if you do that, you may put yourself out there and you may not be able to come back to what you’ve built” and he said "those people in this room, you’re not necessarily catering to them but you have to use something, we see how much we can get out of it and how smart, how clever and how provocative we can be, and how we can show you something different. Because your fans, you know, most of your fans are going to go and support and see what you do and say, "Oh, I liked that.” But when you think of people that are writing about you and sort of watching your career, you think along the lines of what will they say? What question will they ask you about this character since you did this character that way, so that’s the beauty of picking the pieces.

Q: You’ve done a lot of ensemble movies where you’re the leader of the group. Do you have a sense of being the leader on these projects?

JAMIE FOXX: I think what’s best for me right now is having that ensemble because until you graduate to your Will Smithness, it’s good to have people around. Yeah, you’ve got to graduate to that. That’s some big boots up in there but I like having it that way because I’m used to sort of playing with the ensemble. In the In Living Color days, it was ensemble. Even when you work with someone like Will Smith, I was able to fit in somewhere and so I like that comfortable spot where you’re not having to put everything on your shoulders. You’re working with people like Chris Cooper, you’re working with Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, so you know that you’re in good company.

Q: What else are you working on? I understand there could be another biography in the works?

JAMIE FOXX: Yeah, there’s a great one called The Soloist with Joe Wright and if you haven’t seen his films, he’s opening the Venice Film Festival with his movie Atonement. Beautiful film. The youngest director to open up the Venice Film Festival. We’re doing a story called The Soloist about a guy who lived underneath the L.A. freeway. He’s schizophrenic. A guy from the L.A. Times Steve Lopez has a wreck on his bicycle, hears this beautiful music coming from a violin only on 2 strings and he sees this guy and writes a story about him and the next thing you know they get this bond together. So beautiful. It’s one of those pieces that where you go like wow, this is one of those.

Q: How are you preparing for your role in The Soloist?

JAMIE FOXX: Learning to play the cello and the violin.

Q: Are you trying to film it before the strike?

JAMIE FOXX: We’ll have plenty of time to film it before the strike. We went downtown to where he lives and this guy he’s still posh even within his situation so wherever he’s sleeping he cleans as far as he can see. He cleans that area before he sleeps. He pays attention to detail like you wouldn’t believe. Not to give the whole thing away but when he plays, that’s what drowns out the voices in his head. You have a voice in your head right now, right that tells you I’ve got to get home and clean up this thing. Oh, I left this on the…imagine having 12 voices going on in your head at the same time. So he’s an incredible person.

Q: Who’s playing the reporter?

JAMIE FOXX: I don’t want to say right now because I don’t know if the deal is done.

Q: Do you resemble him physically at all?

JAMIE FOXX: Yeah, he’s African-American [laughter]. He’s a black dude.

Q: As an African-American, did you use a different type of leadership style?

JAMIE FOXX: Yes, most definitely. Whenever you do a piece, you always ask is there anyone who’s African-American who’s doing his job. Even when we were doing the Marines, they had me meet with Marines that were Caucasian. I said I want to find and I went out on my own and found a brother who was in the Marines. He said first of all when doing say like this job, it’s colorless and he said with the black folks that were in the Marines, he was on them tougher. He said don’t come in here acting like we’re all cool. You’re going to have to work harder because I had to work. And then he switched and said but when he would march…because he asked me to do my march…this was during Jarhead and I did my march and he no, no, no. Here’s the difference. You gotta roll your feet. They know what’s going on and he made sure my shoes would shine just a little extra because he said in life, as an African-American, we have to work a little harder, hold ourselves to a different standard. So you take that and you put that within the movie--the same way with the federal agent and everything like that. You say ok, you gotta work a little harder because you know you have to make sure that they really respect you and you have to do things differently because, you know, that is the real world. So that’s what you do.

Q: Was the FBI culture totally different that way? It seemed to be so entrenched as white, male guys for so long.

JAMIE FOXX: Well, like I said, you still have to work a little harder and you still have to hold—I say within myself, ok you’ve got to come in and do it a little different. Saying put more professionalism on it, don’t make that joke right now, stay right here right now because they are watching you a little different. And I think that’s what helps the character, you know?

Q: Do you want go back to your pure comedy roots and do a comedy movie?

JAMIE FOXX: It’s got to be smart though. It’s got to be smart. If it’s not smart, I can’t do it.

Q: You just finished a six month tour. Did that help you re-energize?

JAMIE FOXX: It helped me get it out because we write 10 jokes a day. I hang out with nothing but comedians and so we sit and write all these jokes. They said well, they wanted me to go out and do a music tour and they wanted me to sing first, but the album wasn’t hot anymore. The album was hot at one time. You know, if you don’t get out there while the album’s hot, there ain’t nobody trying to hear it. So I said I gotta do comedy first and get my jones and then come back and do my music within the same show, and they fought me on it, but when we finally went to San Diego and we did the comedy first, people got the chance--people who’ve been coming to see you perform for years got a chance—oh, he ain’t changed. You go to Detroit and there’s 12,000 mostly black folks that’s wearing mustard suits and hats and drinking dark liquor and sitting it on the stage and "Hollar at me Foxx!” They don’t want you to come over and say "I won the Oscar” and ….they don’t want to hear all that. Most of them don’t even know. But man, I love that Grammy you got. Talk about the Grammy, Foxx! So you know it was a chance for me to really get back and get away from—I don’t ever want to get behind those gates and the dogs and whatever it is and kind of lose that thing, you know?

Q: Is there going to be an album from the tour? Is there a night that you recorded that will be…?

JAMIE FOXX: Oh, we’ve got DVD’s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ve got DVD’s.

Q: Is it out yet?

JAMIE FOXX: Not yet but we’re going to get it cranking.

Q: For the little girls at Nickelodeon who have a fantasy issue coming up, if you could take a magic carpet ride, where would you take it to?

JAMIE FOXX: Oh man, to the moon!

Q: What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Perfect happiness? Man, the pool is about 92 degrees, the Jacuzzi is about 102 and an avocado farm.

"The Kingdom” opens in theaters on September 28^th.