Jamie Foxx Coaxes Sidney Poitier Out Of Retirement For Clip
MIAMI -- Even before he signed on to star in the film adaptation of TV's "Miami Vice," Jamie Foxx had the 305 on lock. He'd become a visible celeb on the party scene, especially last year. But now Foxx says he's had to fall back some.
"Things have changed since last year," Foxx said on Saturday afternoon in Miami.
Later that night he threw one of the most talked-about parties all VMA weekend, with A-plus-list stars like Eddie Murphy and Alicia Keys attending. "I had a fight in a club the other night. I think what it is, sometimes you can't keep it real. I still come with the same thing I was doing, but [I feel] a little bit more hate. So I kinda be throwing my own parties. Get you a [hotel] suite, get your own music."
Foxx said when he first came to Miami to film the movie, he was partying nonstop. "Then you realize it's like that every day, and you kinda see the same folks, 'cause it's only 20 blocks," he explained. "So you gotta spread it out a little bit. In L.A. you can hide. I can hide at the beach, hide up in the hills. Out here everybody is looking at you. But I've been able to navigate through and have a good time."
Foxx's new song "Extravaganza," produced by Mike City and featuring Kanye West, finds the singer having too good a time. He gets down with the get down and has a one-night stand after one drink too many.
"The night of the Oscars or the night of Kanye's Grammys, what I did was partied with the Vanity Fairs and the Meg Ryans and what have you," he said. "The minute we got a chance to take them tuxes off, we jumped in our sweats and got to the real party where cats was taking my Oscar and taking pictures with it. It was fun. [The video] mirrors that.
"Sidney Poitier is guesting in there," he added of the clip. "Sidney canceled everything. He was like, 'I'm not doing nothing for anybody. I'm in retirement.' I called him humbly like, 'Will you be in this video?' He said, 'I'll do anything for you.' We're trying to do everything -- not groundbreaking, but just nifty enough to where you go, 'Oh.' But we're not trying to do this big thing."
That mentality is the exact opposite of director Michael Mann's on the set of "Miami Vice." The auteur is taking it to the extreme, according to his movie's star.
"They got the boats blowing up, they blowing up buildings," Foxx said. "They got people strapped with C-4. You got people lying in the middle of the street getting hit with Mack trucks. It's crazy."
While it might seem like Mann is trying to kill the crowds with action scenes, he's also infusing different elements, Foxx explained.
"They trying to change the game on them," Foxx smiled. "A lot of people have done movies in Miami, and movies in MIA are real bright. Movies in Miami are yellow and red and green. He's shooting a lot at night, trying to make it hot."
Speaking of hotness, the general consensus is that Foxx and Kanye West had one of the better, if not the best, performances during the 2005 VMAs (see [article id="1508513"]"Green Day Clean Up, Kelly Clarkson Gets Wet, 50 Rips Into Fat Joe At VMAs"[/article]). When you have a tag-team partner like the College Dropout, Foxx said, performing on such a grand stage is easy.
"Being comfortable is the greatest thing in the world," he said of the performance. "When you're comfortable and not trying to sell anything ... Kanye has already done the work. The dude comes with a great song. All you gotta do is relax and make sure everybody is having a great time. He has the ability, and I think I have the ability, to make you feel like you're at a big party."
