“In a blink of an eye, we’ll all be gone. 100 years compared to infinity is nothing. I talk to my sister all the time…. [I say,] ‘Girl, you better start having some fun. We’re gonna be gone in a minute. You’re gonna look back and say, “Shit, I should have been laughing, and now I’m dead.” ’ ”
Jamie Foxx (TW/IG/SC: @IAMJAMIEFOXX) is an Academy Award– winning actor, a Grammy Award–winning musician, and a world famous standup and improv comedian. He is, without a doubt, the most consummate performer and entertainer I have ever met. In the 2½ hours we spent together in his home studio, he blew my mind.
Jamie’s morning workout routine, done roughly every other day, consists of:
“I kept wondering how Tyrin [Turner], Caine in Menace II Society, was always in shape. He said: ‘Man, I’m trying to tell you, the pull-up bars are everything.’”
(This is similar in its simplicity to General Stan McChrystal’s workout, here.)
“I ended up going to this Evening at the Improv, the Improv in Santa Monica. I had never been there. I noticed that 100 guys would show up, and 5 girls would show up. The 5 girls would always get on the show because they needed to break up the monotony. [The producers would pick randomly from the list of people who showed up.] So I said, ‘Hmmm, I got something.’ I wrote down all of these unisex names on the list: Stacy Green, Tracy Brown, Jamie Foxx … and the guy chooses from the list. He says, ‘Jamie Foxx, is she here? She’ll be first.’ I said, ‘No, that’s me.’ ‘Oh, okay. All right, well, you’re going up. You’re the fresh meat.’ They were shooting Evening at the Improv, this old comedy show back in the day. He said, ‘You’ll be the guy we just throw up to see if you get a laugh or two. It’s gonna be a tough crowd.’ … People [in the crowd] are like, ‘Who’s the kid? Is he on the show? Oh, he’s fresh meat. He’s an amateur.’ So then they started yelling my name—‘Yo, Jamie! Hey, Jamie!’—but I’m not used to the name. So now they think I’m arrogant. ‘This motherfucker … he’s not even listening to us….’”
Jamie is incredibly confident. As one of his close friends described to me: “Even when things go a little south, he ALWAYS makes you feel like he has everything under control. I see a lot of people in his circle gravitate toward him for that confidence, myself included.” I asked Jamie how he teaches confidence to his children, and he said that he asks his daughters to explore their fears with the question, “What’s on the other side of fear?” His answer is always, “Nothing.”
He elaborates: “People are nervous for no reason, because no one’s gonna come out and slap you or beat you up…. When we talk about fear or a lack of being aggressive [holding someone back], it’s in your head. Not everybody is going to be super aggressive, but the one thing that you can deal with is a person’s fears. If you start early, if they are a shy person, they won’t be as shy if you keep instilling those things.”
TF: Look at whatever you’re afraid of and ask, “What is on the other side of fear, if I push through this?” The answer is generally nothing. There are few or no negative consequences, or they’re temporary. This touches upon Francis Ford Coppola’s lesson that we’ll explore later: Failure is not durable.
“When you raise your kids, you’re the bow, they’re the arrow, and you just try to aim them in the best direction that you can, and hopefully your aim isn’t too off. That’s what [my grandmother] did for me.”
Jamie did nearly a dozen impersonations during our interview. Here’s one tip: “Start with Kermit the Frog, then add some swagger, and you got Sammy Davis Jr.”
Jamie explained how disciplined Keenen Ivory Wayans was about writing jokes for In Living Color: “You were not allowed to come in and be half-assed. He’d pull you aside and say, ‘As a black comedian, you cannot be half-assed. You’re either great or you don’t exist.’ … He wrote for Eddie Murphy. He was around the greatest. He said, ‘I’m around the greatest, all the time, so that’s what we’re gonna do.’”
TF: This applies far outside of comedy or racial lines. It’s never been easier to be a “creator,” and it’s never been harder to stand out. Good isn’t good enough.
“I’m 10 years old, maybe. I think I’m in the fifth grade, 1976, President Carter. The preacher started preaching about homosexuality. I don’t know what it is. He’s saying God made Adam and Eve, God didn’t make Adam and Steve. It’s Southern, it’s Texas. My grandmother stood up and said, ‘You stop that,’ and the whole church stopped. ‘What’s that, Miss Talley?’ Now, her words, what she said next, was very interesting. ‘Let me tell you something. I’ve had this nursery school for 30 years, and I want to let all of you know that God makes sissies, too.’ The whole place went, ‘What?’ She said, ‘These little boys that I’ve watched since they could walk, they play by different music, and you stop that because you’re making it hard for them to navigate.’ Sits down.
“My grandmother raised those people at church. [She taught the whole community’s children during the school year and] then, during the summer, you’d drop the kids off at my grandmother’s house and just let her keep them. She was very powerful in that sense.”
“A young man by the name of Ed Sheeran slept on this carpet [he points at the floor, where we were recording] for like 6 weeks, trying to get his music career going. He came over from London. He heard about a live show that I do in L.A. He said, ‘I really want to do your live show, if it’s possible, because I have some music that I love.’ I’m thinking, ‘Do my live show?’ It’s mostly black, you know what I’m saying? It’s music people, really hardcore music people. They’re very finicky. People who have played for Stevie Wonder. I had Miranda Lambert one night. I had Babyface. [I said,] ‘This is the real shit you’re talking about. I don’t care about London and the accent. You gotta really come with it.’ He said, ‘I think I’ll be okay.’ … So I take him to my live night, 800 people there. People are playing, black folks sweating and just getting it … they would tear American Idol up. All of a sudden, Ed Sheeran gets up with a ukulele, walks out onto the stage, and the brother next to me says, ‘Yo, Foxx, who the fuck is this dude right here, with the red hair and shit and the fucking ukulele?’ I said, ‘Man, his name is Ed Sheeran. Let’s see what he does.’ Within 12 minutes, he got a standing ovation.”
Jamie played Ray Charles in the film Ray, for which he won an Academy Award. Before filming, the two of them played piano together:
“As we’re playing, I’m on cloud nine. Then he moves into some intricate stuff, like Thelonious Monk. I was like, ‘Oh shit, I gotta catch up’ and I hit a wrong note. He stopped because his ears are very sensitive: ‘Now, why the hell would you do that? Why you hit the note like that? That’s the wrong note, man. Shit.’ I said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Charles,’ and he said, ‘Let me tell you something, brother. The notes are right underneath your fingers, baby. You just gotta take the time out to play the right notes. That’s life.”