Eric may have all the talent, but Jamie is the sly Foxx
Jamie Foxx is a hero, an idol, an inspiration to a guy like Eric Bishop.
Foxx is the former “In Living Color” comic making his dramatic breakthrough this year with the new “Collateral,” opposite Tom Cruise, and the upcoming “Ray,” in which he steps behind the dark glasses and glorious smile of the late legend Ray Charles.
Eric Bishop is Jamie Foxx’s real name.
“Jamie Foxx is the Superman, and Eric Bishop is the Clark Kent,” the 36-year-old actor says, smiling as if he was conveying the coolest secret in the world.
Bishop was the kid from Terrell, Texas, who dreamed of being a star. It almost didn’t matter what kind of star: singer, actor, comedian, athlete. He was good at all those things.
But Jamie Foxx, the one sitting in his luxury bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, with two solid gold dog tags lined with diamonds hanging from his neck, is the one who made it happen.
The name got him noticed during an open mike night at a club in the early 1990s.
“I wrote down all these unisex names at this comedy place because they would always choose the girls to go up,” Foxx recalled. “They picked randomly from a list. So I wrote down Stacy King, Tracy Brown, Jamie Foxx … and they picked Jamie Foxx. I go up, had a great night, and that’s how the name stuck.”
Oliver Stone gave him his first dramatic role as a football star in 1999’s “Any Given Sunday.” When director Michael Mann was casting “Ali,” he took Will Smith‘s advice and cast Foxx as Bundini Brown, Muhammad Ali‘s manager.
He reteamed with Mann for “Collateral,” playing a cab driver named Max, who is forced by Cruise’s assassin to drive him around Los Angeles for a string of late-night murders.
Max is a man with failed dreams – his own high-class limo service, a vacation to a tropical isle – who talks big but never made it happen, and probably never will.
He is, in other words, the exact opposite of Jamie Foxx.
“I’m a go-getter; I’m a horse; I’m a dog,” the actor said. “My father was a coach in high school, so my whole mentality is all sports. …
“This is the big game. If I look at a roomful of comedians, (I ask) ‘How do I get to step to the front of the line?’ Gotta be funny. I’ll find the funniest person in there and know I gotta cut his head off.”
Fear of success? Foxx never feels it and has no pity for those who do.
“I run into a million people out here in California — ‘Man, I wanna be a singer,’ ” he says. “OK, let’s sing. … And then they give you some excuse. The realization of ‘I may not be able to make it to that dream’ allows you to keep dreaming.”
Which brings things back to Eric Bishop: Does he ever go back to his old self, the quiet, reserved Texas dreamer?
Not much. But sometimes.
“Eric Bishop is a little more way private, when I’m somewhere with my friends, my friends from Texas,” he says.
“They’ll say Eric Bishop, even though I’m Jamie Foxx now. The kids who were older than me or whatever, still kind of dominate a little bit — I let them at least think that.”
The birthday bunch
Producer Dino DeLaurentiis is 85. Actress Esther Williams is 83. Actor Richard Anderson (“The Six Million Dollar Man,” “The Bionic Woman”) is 78. Country singer Mel Tillis is 72. Actor Dustin Hoffman is 67. Actress Connie Stevens is 66. Actor Keith Carradine is 55. Actor Donny Most (“Happy Days”) is 51.Guitarist The Edge (U2) is 43. Rapper Kool Moe Dee is 42. Singer JC Chasez (‘N Sync) is 28. Singer Drew Lachey (98 Degrees) is 28. Actress Countess Vaughn (“The Parkers”) is 26.