Foxx trots on

“There’s sort of a private thing for me,” Foxx said recently. “When I was 18,somebody slipped something in my drink. It ripped me apart. I mean,I was gone. It was the kind of trip that … you know you’re losing your mind. I kept thinking,’I can’t live like this.’ For 11 months,I had flashbacks.”

The 41-year-old is one of the biggest stars in America if you add it all up: his film success,the surprisingly potent music career,his own satellite radio channel and his persistent reputation in comedy.
On screen,Foxx rarely has looked truly vulnerable,even in his role as the ferociously talented and bitterly addicted Ray Charles in 2004’s Ray,which won him an Academy Award. But in The Soloist,there are points where an unsentimental camera lingers on his stricken face looking like a person doubting the contents of his own brainpan.

“The Jamie I got to know is completely opposite to the public perception of who Jamie Foxx is which is based on an image in comedy and music that he has created,” said British filmmaker Joe Wright who directed this film. “He is much more fragile than his alter ego.”
Foxx said Wright and costar Downey did their best to help as he tried to navigate choppy waters. But it soon became clear to Foxx that the problems he was having weren’t a secret as filming began in early 2008. Eventually,Foxx had to get psychiatric help.

In his 20s,Foxx said,the voices on the edge of his mind grew quiet and he assumed that what happened to him was both fleeting and perhaps exaggerated in his memory. One night he wandered into a San Diego comedy club and there,at a friend’s dare,he ended up on stage. The comedy led to TV,which then led to movies and,finally,his biggest passion,music. “I didn’t want to be in comedy or in movies—I wanted to be Lionel Ritchie,” he said. “That was the goal.” Foxx has three albums that have sold close to 4.5 million copies in the US alone. He has performed at the Grammys and is about to launch a 30-date tour.

The bachelor moved his mother,his stepfather and his two sisters west to live with him in his home. “I came to the realisation that family has to be the most important thing,even if it takes work,like group therapy and individual therapy,which we are doing,” said Foxx. Foxx is struggling to find a way past his resentments toward his mother. He also has been unable to connect with his father after the latter’s conversion to Islam and disdain for his son’s spiritual life.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m on such a conveyor-belt life. Actor,musician,radio show—and then something will happen. I end up dancing with these homeless people and feeling like I understand something new. What does it all mean? For me,it meant a lot. And I don’t care if that sounds crazy.”
_Geoff Boucher, LATWP