46 AMERICANWAY
NOVEMBER 1 2008
Let’s say you’re a movie star.
You’vemadehandfulsofhitfilms,
wonmoreawards thanyoucanfitonyourmantel, andhadyour likenesssplashed
onmillions of posters/magazine covers/actionfigures.When you eventually tire
of fame—or,more likely,when fame tires of you— youmight leaveHollywood.
Maybeyou’dbuyabigspreadup inJacksonHole,Wyoming.Maybeavineyard in
theFrenchcountryside.Maybeboth.That, though, is justanotherway to liveThe
Life.You’ve left,butyoureallyhaven’t.
What you wouldn’t do — what you
couldn’t
do, really — is go home, back to
where you’re from. Home has changed, or,
more to thepoint, youhave. Goinghome is
forspecial
EntertainmentTonight
segments
and high-concept sitcom premises, and
that’s about it. You couldn’t goback towho
youwere,where youwere, how youwere.
But Jamie Foxx could. He does, more
than you’d think — back to a little town
calledTerrell,Texas,wherehe’sstill justEric
Bishop, the former quarterbackon theTer-
rell High School football team. “I get back
there all the time,” he says. “I just sneak in.
Nobody knows. I go check on some of my
friends that I’ve had for years. It’s a great
town togrowup in.”
In away, henever really left. That home-
grownhumility is there, inhis voice on the
other end of this long-distance phone call
whenhequietly,modestlyannounces, “Hey,
it’s Jamie.” It’s inhis family life, aswell:He
lives not far from his sisters and father in
California. “Havingmy family there, it just
keepsme grounded, man,” he says.
“My sister Deidra doesn’t even call
meJamie. She still callsmeEric.”
It’s even in his films. “You ever
been toTerrell, Texas?”Foxx’s char-
acterasksaSaudi prince inanearly
scene in
The Kingdom
. “Mmm,
good chili.” It’s a throwaway line,
just a private little shout-out to the
folks back home. But it’s coming
from someonewho still remembers
what that chili tastes like, because
he’s had it recently. He’s both Jamie Foxx
and
Eric Bishop, and that dual persona
has given theperformer a sort of Southern-
fried-Zenapproach tohis career.
“From having the country upbringing,
you sort of understand that all of this is a
charmed life, and at any time, it could be
shutoff toyou,”hesays. “Soalways justkeep
yourheadon straight.”
It’s rare for an actor to have such an at-
titude. It’s even more rare for one in the
prime of his career, who’s won an Acad-
Jamie Foxx and
RobertDowney
Jr.—
TheSoloist
