1989–2003: Standup, sitcom, and acting debut In 1989, Foxx began attending a local comedy club's open mic night, after a girlfriend's dare. He found that female comedians were often called first to perform, so he chose the stage name of Jamie Foxx, which was ambiguous enough to disallow any biases, and his stage surname in deference to popular Black, 1970s comedian
Redd Foxx. Foxx went on to star in his own sitcom
The Jamie Foxx Show, from 1996 to 2001, which he also co-created and produced through his company Foxx Hole Productions and was aired on the
WB network. He portrayed Jamie King and uncredited performances of reporter Tyrone Koppel. Foxx made his film debut in the 1992 comedy
Toys. In 1994, Foxx released an album (on the
Fox record label) entitled
Peep This, which was not commercially successful. His first dramatic role came in
Oliver Stone's 1999 film
Any Given Sunday, where he was cast as a hard-partying quarterback, In 2001, Foxx starred opposite
Will Smith in
Michael Mann's biographical drama
Ali. Three years later, Foxx played taxi driver Max Durocher in the Mann
film noir Collateral alongside
Tom Cruise, for which he received outstanding reviews. Critic
Roger Ebert praised Foxx's performance, stating that, "Jamie Foxx's work is a revelation. I've thought of him in terms of comedy ("
Booty Call", "
Breakin' all the Rules"), but here he steps into a dramatic lead and is always convincing and involving". He received an
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. nomination. Foxx released his second studio album,
Unpredictable, in December 2005. It debuted at No. 2, selling 598,000 copies in its first week, rising to No. 1 the following week and selling an additional 200,000 copies. To date, the album has sold 1.98 million copies in the United States, and was certified double
Platinum by the
RIAA. The album also charted on the
UK Albums Chart, where it peaked at No. 9. Foxx became the fourth artist to have both won an Academy Award for an acting role and to have achieved a No. 1 album in the U.S., joining
Frank Sinatra,
Bing Crosby and
Barbra Streisand. Foxx's first single from the album, the title track "
Unpredictable" (featuring
Ludacris), peaked in the
Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 singles and also made the UK Top 20 singles chart; the track samples "
Wildflower" by
New Birth. The second U.S. single from the album was "DJ Play a Love Song", which reunited Foxx with
Twista. In the UK, the second single was "
Extravaganza", which saw Foxx once again collaborate with
Kanye West, although Foxx did not feature in the song's music video. '' in July 2005 At the
2006 BET Awards, Foxx won Best Duet/Collaboration with
Kanye West for "Gold Digger" and tied with
Mary J. Blige's "Be Without You" for Video of the Year. On December 8, 2006, Foxx received four Grammy Award nominations, which included
Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for
Love Changes featuring
Mary J. Blige,
Best R&B Album for
Unpredictable,
Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for
Georgia by
Ludacris &
Field Mob featuring Jamie Foxx, and
Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for
Unpredictable featuring Ludacris. Following on from these successes, Foxx went on to appear in the box-office hits
Jarhead,
Miami Vice, and
Dreamgirls, which lifted his profile even higher as a bankable star in Hollywood.
2007–2009: Intuition 2007 brought him the lead role in the action thriller film
The Kingdom opposite
Chris Cooper,
Jason Bateman,
Jennifer Garner and
Ashraf Barhom. In September 2007, Foxx was awarded a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame: "[it was] one of the most amazing days of my life," said Foxx. In April 2009, Foxx played the lead role in the dramatic film
The Soloist. A few months later in October 2009, he played a starring role alongside
Gerard Butler in the thriller
Law Abiding Citizen. In 2007, his company FoxxKing Entertainment signed deals with
MTV and
VH1. Foxx released his third album titled
Intuition in 2008, featuring
Kanye West,
T.I.,
Ne-Yo,
Lil' Kim and
T-Pain. The album's first single, "
Just Like Me" featuring T.I., was promoted by a video directed by
Brett Ratner which featured an appearance by actress
Taraji P. Henson. The second single "
Blame It" featured T-Pain and became a top 5 single on the
Billboard Hot 100 and a number-one single on the Billboard
Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. The song received many accolades for Foxx, including a
Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals at the
52nd Annual Grammy Awards. The "Blame It" music video, directed by
Hype Williams, features cameo appearances by
Forest Whitaker,
Samuel L. Jackson,
Ron Howard,
Quincy Jones and his
Jarhead co-star
Jake Gyllenhaal, amongst others. Foxx's musical career has also included a number of collaborations. In 2007, he recorded the song "She Goes All the Way" with country superstars
Rascal Flatts for their
Still Feels Good album. He featured alongside
The-Dream on
Plies' "
Please Excuse My Hands". He also appeared alongside
Fabolous on the remix of
Ne-Yo's "
Miss Independent". Foxx collaborated with rapper
The Game on the track "Around the World". Foxx also featured on T.I.'s single "
Live in the Sky" from the album
King. On January 22, 2007, Foxx launched
The Foxxhole, a channel on
Sirius Satellite Radio featuring talk-radio programs, stand-up comedy albums and music primarily by African-American performers, as well as much of Foxx's own material. Foxx's own talk-radio variety program
The Jamie Foxx Show airs Friday evenings on The Foxxhole with guests including musicians, actors and fellow comedians; co-hosts have included Johnny Mack, Speedy,
Claudia Jordan,
The Poetess, Lewis Dix,
Yvette Wilson, T.D.P and
Tyrin Turner. On the April 17, 2009, episode of
The Jamie Foxx Show, Foxx and his co-hosts made several sexually suggestive and disparaging jokes regarding the teenage singer
Miley Cyrus. Several days later Foxx issued a public apology on
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in response to growing public outcry and televised criticism by Cyrus's father, country singer
Billy Ray Cyrus. On April 6, 2009, Foxx, a longtime fan of
country music, performed the
George Strait song "
You Look So Good in Love" at the George Strait Artist of the Decade All-Star Concert. Jamie Foxx hosted the
2009 BET Awards ceremony on June 28, 2009, which featured several tributes to pop star
Michael Jackson, who had died three days prior to the show. As well as performing "
Blame It" with
T-Pain and "
She Got Her Own" with
Ne-Yo and
Fabolous, Foxx opened the show with a rendition of Jackson's "
Beat It" dance routine and closed the show with a cover of
the Jackson 5's "
I'll Be There" with Ne-Yo. "We want to celebrate this black man. He belongs to us and we shared him with everybody else.", said Foxx during the ceremony.
2010–2012: Career progression In April 2011, Foxx voiced the canary Nico in the animated film
Rio. During the summer of 2011, Foxx was involved as a producer of
In the Flow with Affion Crockett on
Fox. Foxx released his fourth album,
Best Night of My Life, on December 21, 2010, featuring the singles "
Winner" (featuring
Justin Timberlake and
T.I.), "Living Better Now" (featuring rapper
Rick Ross) and "
Fall for Your Type" (featuring rapper
Drake). In 2011, Jamie Foxx also featured on the rapper Pitbull's album
Planet Pit, in the song "Where Do We Go". In 2012, Foxx starred in the title role of the
Quentin Tarantino written and directed
Django Unchained. Foxx starred alongside his
Ray co-star
Kerry Washington, as well as
Christoph Waltz,
Leonardo DiCaprio and
Samuel L. Jackson. In an interview about
Django Unchained, Foxx told
Vibe magazine: "As a black person it's always racial. ... when I get home my other homies are like how was your day? Well, I only had to be white for at least eight hours today, [or] I only had to be white for four hours." The filming was emotional as Foxx said, "It's tough shooting when you're in plantation row and that's where your ancestors were persecuted and killed." On November 25, 2012, at BET's
Soul Train Awards, Foxx joked: "It's like church in here. First of all, giving honor to God and our lord and savior
Barack Obama." The joke led to condemnation from some Christians, to which Foxx responded: "I'm a comic [and] sometimes I think people get a little too tight." While hosting
Saturday Night Live on December 8, 2012, to promote
Django Unchained, Foxx joked about being excited "to kill all the white people in the movie". Appearing at the 2013
NAACP Image Awards, Foxx praised the achievements of black people, saying that "black people are the most talented people in the world".
2013–present: Established actor In 2013, Foxx was cast as President James Sawyer in
White House Down alongside
Channing Tatum. The following year, Foxx appeared in
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 as the villain
Electro, and co-starred with
Quvenzhané Wallis in
Annie,
Sony's
Will Smith and
Jay-Z produced update of the comic strip-turned-musical. In 2017, Foxx starred as Bats, a trigger-happy gang member, in
Edgar Wright's action film
Baby Driver. Foxx's October 2014 Deja Vu duet with Dionne Warwick appears on the
Feels So Good album released by Warwick. He released his fifth studio album,
Hollywood: A Story of a Dozen Roses, on May 18, 2015. It debuted atop the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts and at No. 10 on the
Billboard 200. In 2015, Foxx's voice was featured in the chorus on the
Ariana Grande song, "
Focus". Since its debut in 2017, Foxx has been the host and executive producer of the
Fox game show
Beat Shazam, whose premise is similar to the once-popular game show format
Name That Tune. On the show, three sets of two partners try to beat the software application
Shazam in correctly identifying the titles of popular songs for increasingly higher amounts of money, with one team eventually vying for a potential prize of $1 million. Foxx's daughter
Corinne began co-hosting the show in its second season in 2018, replacing DJ October Gonzalez. The show has aired four seasons so far. Foxx co-executive produced the 2017
Showtime sitcom
White Famous, which starred
Jay Pharoah as a young aspiring African-American comic, and was based on Foxx's own early career. Foxx also occasionally appeared on the show as himself.
White Famous got middling reviews and ratings, and was cancelled after one season. On May 22, 2019, Foxx appeared as
George Jefferson in ''
Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear's All in the Family and The Jeffersons on ABC. That year, he played wrongly convicted death row prisoner Walter McMillian in the drama film Just Mercy'', for which he received significant critical acclaim. Foxx starred in
Project Power, directed by
Ariel Schulman and
Henry Joost, opposite
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and
Dominique Fishback, which was released on August 14, 2020, by
Netflix. That September, Foxx signed an overall deal with
Sony Pictures Entertainment. Foxx then voiced the main character, jazz pianist and music teacher Joe Gardner, in the
Pixar animated film
Soul (2020). Due to the
COVID-19 pandemic,
Soul was released
direct-to-streaming on
Disney+ in most countries, including the United States, though it did get a theatrical release in some countries.
USA Today Brian Truitt commended Foxx's performance, saying he brought "warmth, humor and an occasional touch of exasperation" to the role. Foxx co-created, executive produced and starred in the 2021 Netflix sitcom
Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!, in which he played the single father of two teenage girls. The series marked Foxx's return to the sitcom format after
The Jamie Foxx Show ended in 2001. The entire eight-episode series premiered April 14, 2021, on Netflix. It was cancelled after one season. He reprised his role as Electro in
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), set in the
Marvel Cinematic Universe. In 2021, Foxx released the memoir
Act Like You Got Some Sense: And Other Things My Daughters Taught Me, which focused on his family life, both as a child and as an adult.
Upcoming projects On May 29, 2018, Foxx was cast as
Al Simmons in
King Spawn, to be directed by
Todd McFarlane. In 2015, Foxx became attached to portray former boxer
Mike Tyson in a biographical drama film
Finding Mike; in 2020, he began to exercise in order to gain muscle for the role. In 2021, the project turned into a miniseries, to be directed by
Antoine Fuqua. ==Personal life==