By Wilson Morales —April 29, 2014
Coming out this week in the States — after making its debut overseas — is Marc Webb’s "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," starring Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, Colm Feore, Felicity Jones, Paul Giamatti, Sally Field, Embeth Davidtz, Campbell Scott, and Marton Csokas.
It’s great to be Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield). For Peter Parker, there’s no feeling quite like swinging between skyscrapers, embracing being the hero, and spending time with Gwen (Emma Stone). But being Spider-Man comes at a price: only Spider-Man can protect his fellow New Yorkers from the formidable villains that threaten the city. With the emergence of Electro (Jamie Foxx), Peter must confront a foe far more powerful than he. And as his old friend, Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan), returns, Peter comes to realize that all of his enemies have one thing in common: OsCorp.
For Foxx, playing the role of Max Dillon wasn’t an easy call for the studio. But, having starring in Quentin Tarantino’s acclaimed "Django Unchained," and seeing his status rise internationally, helped propel execs to give him this opportunity.
How much did you want to go all out as the villain? Was everything on the script or did you throw some flavor to the character?
Jamie Foxx: Of course, there were things that were cut out. As an actor, you have to leave room for everyone else and for other different reasons, you have to keep it kid-friendly. I’m excited about the opportunity or the chance that when they bring Sinister Six back, and Electro being part of that, you can see him in his full villain mode, because this film is really the genesis. He’s only been bad for a few minutes. I want to see when he’s perfected his energy and perfected his craft.
When you signed on for the role, were you aware you may come back in Sinister Six?
JF: We’ll still not aware, but it’s in the air right now. Like any person who is smart in this business, you make sure you campaign for yourself. So, when they do say that they want to turn this on and that you will part of the band, you’re ready to go.
How long did it take to get into make-up?
JF: About four and a half hours at first, and then once I got the rubber suit, it was about an hour and a half. It was all well worth it. When you see the finished product and how you look and everything, and some of the pictures that are out, are really rock star status. When you see the way Electro looks on some of these posters, it’s crazy.
From Any Given Sunday, to Ray, and other films, how physically demanding was this film?
JF: It’s the same thing. When you know you have to be able to get into that suit, you have stay away from the buffet table a couple of times and stay limber. I had a different way of training. It was more stretching and playing basketball as opposed to the heavy weights I had for "Any Given Sunday" or in "Django" [Unchained]. That’s always good in our business to have to be in shape for a film because it gets you in shape.
Prior to taking on the role, how much did know about the character Electro?
JF: What’s interesting is that we knew about Electro because of the Max character. I knew before getting the call that Max was the key ingredient to Electro. Max is in his 40s and used to be married, but they didn’t want to show that in that film. I brought that in and said, “You know he’s married,” but they said they didn’t have enough time. His father left and he lived with his mom. They took the mom part out of the film, which I thought would have been more key to see where he comes from because the relationship between Max and his mom was really important. Here is someone mom says she loves but really doesn’t and in the way we had it in the script was that it was his birthday and his mom doesn’t remember it. In the script, when he’s turning into Electro, he goes back to his mom to explain and she doesn’t want to hear it. He hugs her and electrocutes her, which is more comic book style but they felt that for the kids, it wasn’t the right thing to do. We weren’t comic book fanatics like some of the guys at Comic Con but we definitely followed our favorite superheroes like Spider-Man, or in my case, when Robert Downey Jr. took over as Iron Man. I was like, “Wow! That’s the perfect Tony Stark.” It’s always good to some knowledge when you go into it so you understand that when they are telling you certain things that you can and can’t do, it has to do with the fans.
Did your recent exposure help for you to get the role?
JF: The success of "Django" dictated a lot overseas and when it did well, it was the highest grossing film in Germany and the biggest pirated film in China of all-time. When asked, Sony exec Amy Pascal saw that it made sense for me to play the role. There’s the question of “Do African Americans sell internationally?” It’s no secret in our business that’s the question being asked. It was even asked before I did "Annie." There’s a computer and you can look where your international meter is at. Because of "Django" and because of my music like ‘Blame It On The Alcohol’ and ‘Gold Digger’ and things like that, the meter is up. When ‘Django’ came out, I told Quentin Taratino that he turns stars into legends, and the Django character is a legendary character. I walked the streets of Rome, Paris, and Singapore and people are screaming the Django name and their ages range from 9 to 90. I still tip my hat to Quentin for putting me in that role.
This is the tenth anniversary since you did "Ray" and won the Oscar. Have you thought about where you need to be at this point?
JF: Here’s the tricky about winning the Oscar. Oscars can hurt you. Oscars can hurt the way you perceive yourself. I would constantly tell my people, “Hey, I know I won the Oscar, but I don’t want to go speaking in an English accent and wearing an ascot.” I think it hurts you in the sense of what you are going to do with your career. Everything is not going to be an Oscar. Everyone is not going to win an Oscar. People just don’t win two or three Oscars. They just give them out like that. What I didn’t want to do was kill myself trying to win one. There were certain things that I wouldn’t do and I did the music or I would go and do stand-up, anything from just being known as “The Oscar winner.” Although it’s the most incredible feeling and the most incredible feat in the world because you walk through a small door that not a lot of people go through. There’s Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Forest Whitaker and myself.
It is so amazing but sometimes when you wait for that script with the Oscar, you could die on the vine. So my thing was to go out and tell jokes right now. After I won the Oscar, I went out and told jokes. I want to do a comedy and a musical and be a bad guy and a western. I was lucky in these ten years by not blowing way up with the big commercial films. What I see now is that sometimes when you’re known for that big commercial film, you do lose a little bit because if people are used to seeing you that way, then you can’t go back to do movies that have that heart and soul that could probably get you nominated. I’m sort of glad that it went like this. There were some good and there were some bad. But the one thing that we did keep intact was the integrity of what the performance was. It’s almost like hitting the reset button.
What do we expect to see from Motherfucker Jones in "Horrible Bosses 2"?
JF: "Horrible Bosses 2" is funny. They want to do a Motherfucker Jones the movie now and I’m like, “I’m with it.” It became a cult hit with college kids so it should be fun.
Then’s there "Annie"
JF: There’s certain people that a knack in this business that you don’t know how they do it, but they know how to do it. Will Smith, James Lassiter, Caleb Pinkett and Jay-Z. No one could get the rights to ‘Annie’ for years. Jay-Z gets the rights. Will Smith gets the rights. They are going to do their version of it and all of a sudden here comes Quvenzhané Wallis, who did a fantastic job in a movie and got nominated for an Oscar at the age of 8. Now the stars are lined up. Here’s Annie who we all know and here’s Quvenzhané, who can really personify our day. Will Gluck the director did something smart. He did a movie that happens to be a musical as opposed to doing a musical. When you see Quvenzhané, she’s able to hit you somewhere by the way she acts and then the music takes you to another place.
