Jamie Foxx Interview (Full Episode) | The Tim Ferriss Show (Podcast)

1. 0:00 – 2:32

   Intro

   1. TFTim Ferriss0:00

      Optimal minimal At this altitude, I can run flat-out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question? Now would be seen an appropriate time. What if I give you the opposite? I'm a cybernetic organism living tissue over a metal endoskeleton. The Tim Ferriss Show. This episode is brought to you by Trunk Club. You know I've used them, and here's why. Especially in the holiday season, last-minute gifts, crowded airports, the family, you have enough crap to worry about during the holidays without having to think about mixing and matching, picking out, buying clothing. Trunk Club has your back. Here's how it works. Trunk Club takes the hassle out of shopping by shipping you a trunk of clothes that fit perfectly, make you look amazing, and in this case, they would include custom-picked fall and winter styles. So go to trunkclub.com/tim. You answer a couple of simple questions about your style, preferences, and size, and you're assigned an expert stylist. They curate clothing from top premium brands, and you approve of what you like. All this is free. And just like that, a trunk arrives on your doorstep filled with handpicked clothing that are perfect for you. Try them on, keep what you like, easily return what you don't in their prepaid trunk. And this is not a subscription service. Super important, 'cause I don't buy clothing that often, but I do it every once in a while, and I've used Trunk Club this way. You only pay for the clothes you keep from your trunk. No hidden charges, just great clothes. It's the busiest, most hectic time of the year, so save your brain cells. You can still look fantastic without spending a lot of time on trying to do that. Get started today, and Trunk Club will style you for free, plus free shipping both ways. You only pay for the clothing that you keep. So check it out, trunkclub.com/tim. Again, that's trunkclub.com/tim. This episode is brought to you by 99designs. When your business needs a logo, website, business card, thumbnail, or any other design, I recommend checking out 99designs. I use them myself. I've used them for many years. I used them to create book cover prototypes for The 4-Hour Body, which went on to becoming number one New York Times bestseller. I've also used them for banner ads, illustrations, and much more. With 99designs, you get a variety of original designs from designers around the world. Give your feedback, and then pick your favorite. Your happiness is guaranteed. So check out some of my competitions and designs and some of your competitions and designs from fellow Tim Ferriss Show listeners at 99designs.com/tim. And right now, you can get a free $99 upgrade on your first design. So check

2. 2:32 – 6:00

   Tim frames the episode and what to expect from Jamie Foxx

   1. TFTim Ferriss2:32

      it out, 99designs.com/tim. Hello, boys and girls. This is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to a very exciting episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, at least I hope it will be, because it was for me. Of course, every episode it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers, whether they're in entertainment, military, chess, sports, or otherwise. How do they do what they do? What are their routines? What were their influences, favorite books? What do they do for exercise? What is their favorite cereal, if it comes down to that, et cetera, et cetera. And this particular episode features Jamie Foxx. Jamie Foxx is the most consummate performer and entertainer I have ever met, and I've met a lot of people. He blew my mind. Uh, we spent two and a half hours together in his studio at his home. He is an Academy Award-winning actor, Grammy Award-winning musician, and of course, he cut his teeth as a famous standup and improv comedian. He can do it all. And [laughs] in our conversation, which goes all over the place, we do cover it all, and [laughs] that includes him playing live music just off the cuff. It includes impersonations, Oprah, Mike Tyson, Kermit the Frog, Bill Cosby, Clinton, Reagan, Sammy Davis Jr., Ray Charles, and dozens more. Morgan Freeman. It goes on and on. But he also talks about his origin stories. So how did he, for instance, match a $1 million party thrown by Puff Daddy with $400 in LA? How did he go about doing that? How did he build up his fan base? What was it like to bomb in the beginning? That's B-O-M-B, not B-A-L-M, even though I said it that way. The connections initially, how did he connect with Kanye? How did he connect with Jay-Z, Pharrell, et cetera? And, uh, we get into a lot of nitty-gritty. We talk about hard times. We talk about what he learned from his grandmother, the skills he developed as a kid, what he, uh, uses as, as far as parenting style with his own kids. We go really deep and all over the place. Uh, I, I was so excited and nervous at the same time in this interview. It was one of those times, and for those of you who've done interviews, you'll know the feeling, where the stuff that's coming out is so good you compulsively check the audio equipment to make sure that you're getting it [laughs] . So, uh, I hope to provide some bonus material on top of this, and we've had that before, for instance, where Arnold Schwarzenegger has answered some of your questions after the interview. And, uh, to get any of that, you will need to sign up for the newsletter. So just go to fourhourworkweek.com/friday. That is, uh, fourhourworkweek.com, all spelled out, /friday, and that'll get you the Five Bullet Fridays, which is just a short bullet list of all the cool things that I've managed to find in a given week, and I send those out on Fridays. So sign up for that, and you might get some goodies related to this episode. So check out Jamie on Twitter, @iamjamiefoxx, F-O-X-X. And for all of the notes, all of the links, the resources and so on from this episode, as always, you can find it at fourhourworkweek.com/podcast with all the other episodes. And that all having been said, holy shit, put on your seatbelt, have a cup of coffee, and please enjoy [laughs] the incredible Jamie Foxx. Jamie, welcome to the show.

   2. JFJamie Foxx5:52

      Man, thanks, buddy.

   3. TFTim Ferriss5:53

      I'm so excited to be here. I'm, I'm, uh, admiring your setup here. This is where-

   4. JFJamie Foxx5:58

      It's crazy, right?

   5. TFTim Ferriss5:59

      This is where the magic happens.

3. 6:00 – 9:53

   Inside Jamie’s home studio: tech, feel, and keeping “real sound” alive

   1. JFJamie Foxx6:00

      To be honest with you, a lot of magic happens here. I w- w- for, for the people that are listening Uh, we are actually in my studio, uh, my home studio. Now, you know, studios, we talking about tech world. Studios, because of the tech world, uh, a lot of them displa- dissipated and closed doors because, uh, if you think about when LMFAO came around, they didn't need studios. They did all of their music on a laptop-

   2. TFTim Ferriss6:25

      Right

   3. JFJamie Foxx6:25

      ... flying from here to Germany or whatever like that and just dumped it onto, uh, and, and just pressed up the C- CD or the iTunes. So studios are b- almost becoming obsolete. But there's something very interesting about this studio. First, just for people that are listening, this studio, and I'll describe it. It's, you know, it's sort of plush. There's... The carpets is gray. We're gonna sit next to a grand piano. Uh [piano plays] you hear the grand piano, which a lot of places... [piano plays] So we keep a grand piano around just to make sure that we don't lose... You know, we don't get too techy. But what's interesting about it is it's actually electric, but it's an electric grand piano, so we still have the wood to give you that warm sound, uh, which, you know, we... I think it makes a lot of sense because as music starts to progress, uh, because of the way we record now, sometimes you lose a little bit of the heart of it. So I think within the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years it'll be, you know, this type of music, the real sound will, you know, remain.

   4. TFTim Ferriss7:31

      Right.

   5. JFJamie Foxx7:31

      If that makes sense. Now, the studio when I first got the house looked like a, a old porn set.

   6. TFTim Ferriss7:38

      [laughs]

   7. JFJamie Foxx7:39

      It had a [laughs] it had like a old basement carpet and a couch and like a Metallica, uh, Metallica poster. And I was like, "What would I do with this?" Because I needed a place to, to work and, and do music. What's interesting now, I, I got a guy to change the whole place over, and as you can see, we'll take pictures and show it f- for you, for you guys that are listening. But they did a very good job in it. But if you look over here, this is where we do the recording. There's a, there's a booth, which is normal, but also the recording on both sides, we're able to do animation. We're able to do, uh, if we wanna do ADR for movies, um-

   8. TFTim Ferriss8:13

      What is ADR?

   9. JFJamie Foxx8:14

      ADR is like when you, um... Like when we're doing a movie, but we're recording, um, the, the movie outside. There's a lot of noise.

   10. TFTim Ferriss8:20

       Oh, you're doing pickup audio.

   11. JFJamie Foxx8:21

       So we'll do pickup audio.

   12. TFTim Ferriss8:22

       Mm-hmm.

   13. JFJamie Foxx8:22

       Uh, so, uh, and so... And, and most any actor or actress will tell you ADR is the worst thing in the world to do. So to be able to have here, have it here, I could do my ADR here, I could do my animation here, and things like that. And so just the... Now, the, the studio itself, the actual brains of the studio, it's a old hard drive, and the reason I kept that old hard drive, I used to have a smaller studio in a smaller house. But when I had that small studio, I wasn't in music. I built the studio in my smaller house because I wanted to get in music, but I was from comedy and from acting and things like that. But what I would do is I would throw parties, and I would invite musical people over, uh, at, at the party. Like s- but... And when they would come over, like if I had Puff or, or Snoop or back at that time Jon B. or, or Brian McKnight, I would say, "Hey, man, you know I'm trying to get into music. Would you leave me some music at my studio?" So people would leave me like 16 bars, 24 bars, 'cause they just got-

   14. TFTim Ferriss9:20

       And then they would, they would record something while they were in the studio.

   15. JFJamie Foxx9:23

       Yeah. They would record. We'd have the party going. I'd say, "Hey, man, let's go in the back," you know, while we're drinking and whatever like that, and go in. I'd say, "Hey, man, just leave me a little something," 'cause I was trying to get into, uh, to music. And then I met this kid, uh, uh, named Breon Prescott, basketball. He w- we played basketball and all this kind of stuff, pickup basketball games. And he said, "Hey, man, why don't you ever do music?" I said, "Man, I'm trying to get into that shit, man. I just, you know, don't know how to get into it." And then one day he... I throw this big party and, uh, it was a, um, a, the party was, was crazy

4. 9:53 – 15:41

   The party playbook: beating a million-dollar vibe with $400 and a “no social media” network

   1. JFJamie Foxx9:53

      because as I di- digress a little bit, I would follow Puffy Combs around back in the day when it was just like Puff and J.Lo and, uh. And back at that time, no one could get into his parties, but the reason he would let me in, because I would carry a camera with me everywhere I'd go. But it was back in the day day, like, you know, the big Canon cameras.

   2. TFTim Ferriss10:13

      Wait, he would let you in because you carried a camera?

   3. JFJamie Foxx10:15

      Yeah, because at that time I wasn't Jamie Foxx. I was just Jamie Foxx.

   4. TFTim Ferriss10:18

      [laughs]

   5. JFJamie Foxx10:19

      And, uh, uh, so I couldn't get into all the parties because Puff was so big. Like he'd come to LA, we couldn't even get in our own clubs.

   6. TFTim Ferriss10:25

      Right.

   7. JFJamie Foxx10:26

      But I po- I, I, I took a town car everywhere he went, jumped out of the town car one day and said, "Yo, Puff, can I record?"

   8. TFTim Ferriss10:32

      Now, at that point he didn't know you at all. Or he did?

   9. JFJamie Foxx10:33

      He knew me. He knew me, the, the kid that was on In Living Color or whatever like that.

   10. TFTim Ferriss10:36

       Right, right, right.

   11. JFJamie Foxx10:36

       But it wasn't elevated.

   12. TFTim Ferriss10:38

       Right.

   13. JFJamie Foxx10:39

       And plus he was having parties that were like huge. Like nobody's getting in. And so they was... He saw me with the camera. He's like, "Y- yo, let him through." And it was back in the day. It was like the big Canon camera with the light and I had to change the battery. It wasn't like how today you just got your-

   14. TFTim Ferriss10:51

       Your phone in your pocket

   15. JFJamie Foxx10:52

       ... your phone in your pocket and... No, I had, I had production.

   16. TFTim Ferriss10:54

       [laughs]

   17. JFJamie Foxx10:55

       But, uh, I would follow him around. And then one day we had this, this party in Philly that I, I recorded for him, and he said, "Yo, yo, Money, you know how much this party costs?" I said, "What?" Said, "It costs a million dollars for this party." I said, "You paid a million dollars for a party?" He's like, "Yeah, that's how we..." I told Puff, I challenged him. I said, "I'll throw you a party at my house in LA, which is way smaller than this situation, but I'll spend maybe $400 and it will rival this party. Not in the scale of it, but in the type of people that are there." And he was, he was a little upset. You know, Puff is a... You know, he, he always likes to win.

   18. TFTim Ferriss11:26

       He's a competitive guy.

   19. JFJamie Foxx11:27

       He's a competitive guy. Said, "Yo, P- Play, you, you must be out your motherfucking mind, Playboi. You don't understand the essence of this party." I was like, "All right, I, I get it."

   20. TFTim Ferriss11:33

       [laughs]

   21. JFJamie Foxx11:34

       And, uh, he actually came to, uh, LA a few weeks later, and it was a Saturday. He said, "Yo, Playboi, make that shit happen." So he calls me like 9:00 in the morning, right?

   22. TFTim Ferriss11:43

       For that night?

   23. JFJamie Foxx11:44

       For... No, in the morning. For... He just said-

   24. TFTim Ferriss11:46

       For the same day

   25. JFJamie Foxx11:46

       ... for the day, for the day.

   26. TFTim Ferriss11:47

       [laughs]

   27. JFJamie Foxx11:47

       I said, "No problem." So I go into my cell phones, call... I, I have a, I have a list of people, uh, that since I first came to LA, the way I got into, uh, um, um, knowing everybody. I was the first, I was the first- ... social media guy without social media.

   28. TFTim Ferriss12:07

       Mm-hmm.

   29. JFJamie Foxx12:08

       I would go do a standup comedy routine at a club. If they liked the routine, I had cue cards back in the day, and would have people sign cue cards, sign their name, did you like the set, give me your pager number, I will text you and let you know where I would be-

   30. TFTim Ferriss12:24

       You were ahead of the curve
5. 15:41 – 17:59

   Early crossroads: meeting Jay-Z, Pharrell, and discovering Kanye at Jamie’s house

   1. JFJamie Foxx15:41

      Chicken. I just put it in a nice bowl. Uh, there's cola. I just put them in pitchers." I said, "So no more than $400, but people are here," I said, "because here's the thing. A fitted baseball cap, New York, fitted, is $58 maybe retail." I said, "But Puff, on your hat, on your head, it's priceless. We just wanna be around this fly shit, right?" So we partying, Puff is partying, and there's a dude standing, uh, next, uh, uh, like on the wall. No one's talking to him. He got a little green jump jacket on. Guess who it was? It was Jay-Z. Nobody knew who he was.

   2. TFTim Ferriss16:11

      [laughs]

   3. JFJamie Foxx16:12

      Jay-Z, kid. I said, "Yeah, I know that dude." Uh, Missy Elliott has one room, Puff has the other room. Then I go to my garage to grab some other drinks, and I see this tall dude and this little dude, a- a- and they're like... The little guy goes, "Yo, B, it's like this all the time?" I said, "Yeah, what you mean?" "You know the girls and, and karaokes." I said, "Yeah, yeah, man, who are you?" "Oh, we're The Neptunes. My name is Pharrell." I said, "Yeah, man, I heard of you. Yeah, man, I like your shit." So that's how long ago this was.

   4. TFTim Ferriss16:37

      Amazing.

   5. JFJamie Foxx16:37

      So here's how I make the music play, though. So as Puff is there, I get people to leave me different bits of music or whatever, like, 'cause I'm trying to get into the music thing. So I turn that into a show, in a sense, to where I would just have different people I would toast and try to, you know, get my music on. So one day, my boy Breon brings in this kid, he has a backpack on. His jaw's a little busted. His name is Kanye West.

   6. TFTim Ferriss17:05

      [laughs]

   7. JFJamie Foxx17:06

      And I say, "Yo, yo, who's, who's that?" They say, "Yo, that's a new kid, Kanye West. He coming on." I said, "Really? What he do?" Said, "He rap." I said, "Well, shit, he gotta perform that shit," 'cause everybody that comes to this, to my house, they gotta perform. So I said, "Yo, man, they say you the shit." And he was really quiet, you know. I said, "Man, let me hear you rap. You need your beats or whatever?" He said, "I don't need no beat." Freestyle. Blew every... I mean, chopped everybody's heads off. Just amazing. I said, "Dude, I don't know where you come from, but you are going to be one of the biggest stars ever." And he says, "I actually have a song for you." I said, "Moi?"

   8. TFTim Ferriss17:40

      [laughs]

   9. JFJamie Foxx17:40

      "Me, a song? Like, what you mean?" He said, "I got this song."

   10. TFTim Ferriss17:43

       [laughs]

   11. JFJamie Foxx17:44

       He says, "I wanna record it." I said, "Well, you happen to be in luck because I got a studio in the back." So we go in the back, and my studio at that time, I called it The Porsche. It was l- uh, lot smaller than this. It was really like ni- it was like a, uh, it was like a Learjet.

   12. TFTim Ferriss17:59

       It was compact.

6. 17:59 – 19:43

   ‘Slow Jams’ session: learning simplicity, doubting the song, then seeing it explode

   1. JFJamie Foxx17:59

      It was compact. The sound was toasty. I had, uh, engineers from all over the, the, the city. Dial it in so that when real artists come, they don't think that, oh, this just comedian fucking around. Some real shit. So we go in and, and, and, and, uh, Kanye, you know, quiet. But, but at the same time, he knew what he wanted. He says, "Okay, the song goes like this. She say she wants some Marvin Gaye, some Luther Vandross, a little..." I said, "I got it." And I started going, "She say she wants some Marvin Gaye." And he said, "What the fuck are you doing?" [laughs] I said, "Well, see, young man, you don't know nothing about R&B. See, I'm a R&B motherfucker. See, I, I got to give him the shit, you know, I got to put the shit on it." And he goes really politely, he says, hits the, the button, he says, "Uh, don't do that." [laughs] I said, "But you don't know what you're talking about, brother." "Uh, that ain't how the song go. You got to sing it this way." So in my mind, I'm thinking, "You know what? I'm gonna sing the shit. This song is wack. It's not gonna make it." 'Cause I'm thinking old school R&B. But he was teaching me the simplicity of hip-hop, which I didn't know. I was like, "Well, whatever. You know, cool guy, great rapper. I don't think it's gonna happen for him." So I go off and do a bad movie, and when I come back, my boy says, "Remember that song you said was wack?" I said, "Yes." "Number one in the country. You, Kanye, and Twista. Kanye's first record." And it was actually Twista's record. I said, "Oh, shit." So I'm at a club. He says, "You don't believe me?" I said, "No." We're in Miami. He p-- They played it. Everybody ran to the dance floor. I grabbed the mic, said, "That's me. That's, that's, that's my song. I'm, I'm on that," you know? And so the music... That's how I got into the music. Now, the reason the story is significant is because the same brains that we use, that same hard drive that we use, I brought it to this studio.

   2. TFTim Ferriss19:43

      Oh, no.

7. 19:43 – 23:59

   Breaking records with hustle: ‘Blame It’ and club-by-club strategy

   1. JFJamie Foxx19:43

      So that hard drive is, is magical because we also did... Just to give you a history on the, on the music, Brion found that song, Slow Jams. It went number one. And then as we started getting into music, there was a song that Brion brought in, and he would play these... Brion would call me. Like he said, "You want to be in the music business?" It's like, you know, 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. He called me, says, "You want to be in the music business?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "Then wake your ass up." I said, "What?" He said, "I got this song you got to hear." So I drove all the way from my house in the Valley to this, to this, uh, to this, to this little studio. He says, "So you ready, motherfucker? Are you ready?" And Brion always says everything three times. "Are you ready, motherfucker? Are you ready? Are you ready?" I said, "Yeah, yeah, man, play this shit." So he plays it. And the song was, "Blame it on the Goose. Got you feeling loose. Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a." I stopped it. I said, "Listen. First of all, please tell me that's my song." He said, "Yeah, it's your song, but you got to record it right now because a lot of people are listening to this song, and they don't know if it's a hit or not." He said, "But I know it's a hit." We did Blame It on the Alcohol that night. I sung it exactly like the record, which goes way in contrast to my R&B roots, 'cause it was Auto-Tune and everything like that. But we wanted to sing it exactly like the demo so we wouldn't lose the essence of it. I didn't want to be like, "Blame it on the alcohol." You know, some corny shit.

   2. TFTim Ferriss20:59

      [laughs]

   3. JFJamie Foxx21:00

      So we did that, and then we went from every... The way we broke that record is that we went from every club. We went to the strip clubs first.

   4. TFTim Ferriss21:07

      Went to the strip clubs.

   5. JFJamie Foxx21:08

      Strip club. We went on... We went with a... We did a East Coast run. Said we, we're going to break the record in the East Coast. So we went to the strip. We went to New York. Um, my man Pecos took us around. Uh, and I would go into the club and use my comedic, you know, vernacular to get the song off. I said, "Fellas, you ever been, uh, at the club, you meet a girl, you been drinking, you think she look like Halle Berry, you get her back home, she looks like Halle Scary. You know what you got to do? Blame it on the Goose. Got you feeling loose. Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a." Stopped the record. "Ladies, you ever meet a guy, you get back to the house with him and you've been drinking too much and you say, 'I usually don't do this,' but you do it anyway. You got to blame it on the a-a-a-a." So we took that and we went all the way down from New York all the way down to Miami. This is like 2008. And then the song took off. And so long story longer, Blame It on the Alcohol was done here. Slow Jams was done here. So this studio has that, that essence to it that you just... You don't throw that away. And just the building itself, Natasha Bedingfield's been here and she's cut. Kelly Rowland's been here and she's cut. The Game has been here. He's cut right here on this floor. And I'm showing the st- uh, for you guys listening, I'm sh- pointing to the floor, to the carpet. A young man by the name of Ed Sheeran slept on this carpet for like six weeks, uh, trying to get his music career going. Uh, he came from over from London. He heard about a, a live show that I do in LA. Said, "Really want to, uh, do your live show if it's possible. Uh, you know, because I have some music that I love." And here this kid with this red hair. I'm like, "Man, you do my live show?" And it's all bl- it's mostly Black. You know what I'm saying? But it's really like music people, like really hardcore music people. They're very finicky. You know, people that have played for Stevie Won- Wonder. People would come there to... I mean, I had Miranda Lambert one night. I had Stevie Wonder on stage. I had Babyface. I said, "So this is the real shit you talking about. You know, you come here. I don't care about the London and the accent."

   6. TFTim Ferriss23:07

      [laughs]

   7. JFJamie Foxx23:08

      "You got to really come with it." He said, "I, I think I'll be okay." I said, "All right." So I take him to my live night. Eight hundred people there. People's playing. Black folks sweating and just getting it. You know what I'm saying? I mean, people singing and, you know. They would, they would tear American Idol up. You know what I'm saying? These people don't nec- hasn't, haven't necessarily made it. So all of a sudden, Ed Sheeran gets up with a ukulele.

   8. TFTim Ferriss23:29

      [laughs]

   9. JFJamie Foxx23:31

      Walks by out onto the stage. [laughs] And the brother that was next to me was like, "Yo, Foxx, man, who the fuck is this dude right here, man? With the red hair and shit and the fucking ukulele." I said, "Man, his name is Ed Sheeran. Let's see what he does." Within 12 minutes, he got a standing ovation.

   10. TFTim Ferriss23:45

       Wow.

   11. JFJamie Foxx23:46

       From that crowd. And I said, "Bro, you're on your way." So this studio has a, a, like I said, a lot of history, and it has that magic to it as well.

   12. TFTim Ferriss23:56

       The mojo.

   13. JFJamie Foxx23:57

       Yeah.

8. 23:59 – 34:01

   Music first: childhood piano, ‘across the tracks,’ and using music to navigate race

   1. TFTim Ferriss23:59

      Now, you, uh, you mentioned getting into music, but it seems like from what I've read of you that- Music in some ways came first.

   2. JFJamie Foxx24:08

      Music did. Music did. My, uh, when I was a kid, my grandmother, uh, made sure that I took piano lessons. And you know, that's tough for a little boy in Texas, you know, playing Fur Elise and Chopin and Mozart and-

   3. TFTim Ferriss24:22

      And we're not talking about Houston or-

   4. JFJamie Foxx24:25

      No, we're talking Terrell, Texas. And I love my city. My city was dope because it was only 12,000 people, so it was like literally like 12 or 15 families. So we all knew each other. But you know, for a little boy playing at that time, you know, the kids didn't understand. "Yo man, why you doing that?" "Man, my grandma want me to do this," you know. And so I would sometimes I would be belligerent and be like, "Why you want me to do this?" She says, "The reason I want you to learn classical piano is because I want you to be able to go across the tracks and play your music." For people listening, across the tracks or on the other side of the tracks for a Southern city was the tracks in a Southern city separates the city. One side is Black, the other side is white. So in our city, the south side, the south side of town was where all the Black folk lived. The north side of town was where the white folks lived. So she says, "I want you to be able to go on the white side of town and play ca- classical music." So she taught me how to play classical piano, um, a lady by the name of Lenita Hodge taught me how to play classical piano. And I literally would go on the other side of the tracks and, you know, and, and start playing for like wine and cheese parties and things like that. But my grandmother took it a step further too, 'cause she was able to see the future. Uh, here's a lady with a eighth grade education. She had her own business for 30 years. She had her own, uh, nursery school business. She says, "When I say across the tracks, I don't just mean in Terrell and those people over there, I mean the metaphoric. Like across the track, like meaning everywhere in the world." So you... She said, "Because c- music connects you to the, to, to the whole world." So in doing that, I would connect with people on the other side of the tracks who, you know, in a Southern city, in Terrell, you know, we were little, we were a little behind the curve when it came to race relations. Let's just say it that way without, you know... I don't wanna demonize my, my, my hometown, but there was, there was that, "Who's the little Black kid?" And my grandmother would be like, "Don't... You know, play."

   5. TFTim Ferriss26:21

      Do your thing.

   6. JFJamie Foxx26:22

      And when I would play, you know, a lot of that broke up, broke o, you know, broke up. I remember even like being armed with just my music in sort of that racial setting or some- sometimes. Like there was a, a time when there was a Christmas party.

   7. TFTim Ferriss26:36

      Were these paid gigs or just-

   8. JFJamie Foxx26:37

      Yeah, I made like, man, I'd get like $10, $15. You know what I'm saying? At that time it was a lot of money, and I played for the church. So playing for the church, I would make like, uh, $75 a week. So if you count that up, that's like 300 a month, you know?

   9. TFTim Ferriss26:49

      That's real money.

   10. JFJamie Foxx26:50

       That's real money at 13, 14. My grandmother would take the money though and say, "Put it, you know, give me this money." I said, "Grandma, what you doing with my money?" "Shit, you ain't giving, you ain't paying no rent. You better give me this money."

   11. TFTim Ferriss26:58

       [laughs]

   12. JFJamie Foxx27:00

       So, but I remember at that time being armed with just my music and, uh, there was a Christmas party that I was supposed to play for, myself and my best friend who was 17. I was 16 at the time. And so here's a little bit of the, the racial misunderstanding, shall we say. I went to play for the guy. It's Christmastime, maybe it's like December 17th. And we show up, it's two little Black kids on the white side of town. And, uh, when he opens his door and he sees these two little Black [laughs] kids on, he says, "What's going on here?" I said, "Well, I'm, I'm here to play, uh, for your Christmas party, sir." "Then why are two of you here at the same time?" I said, "Well, [clears throat] I don't have a license." He, you know, he drove me. Uh, "Is there a problem?" "Yeah, there's a problem. I can't have two niggers in my house at the same time." And I was like, "Ah, well, you know..." And I've been sort of used to the racial misunderstandings and I said, "Well, i- is there any way he could wait outside or wait in the-" "He can't wait on the street. It starts at 6:30. Now you gotta make your, make your mind up, man." So [laughs] I said, I told my boy, I said, "Let's just come get me at 8:30," which was l- pretty late, you know, for kids at that time, you know. Uh, so I go in. He says, "Where's your tuxedo?" I said, "Well, he didn't tell me to have a tuxedo." So we go into this room, which looks like a bedroom, and I'm looking like, "Why the fuck does he have clothes hanging up in his bedroom?" But it was a walk-in closet.

   13. TFTim Ferriss28:16

       [laughs]

   14. JFJamie Foxx28:17

       I'd never seen no shit like that. I was like, "Oh, man. We can make a split-level condo out of this shit." So he gives me a Brooks Brothers jacket that had the patches on the elbows. I'm like, "Oh, shit. Highfalutin." So now I'm really playing, you know, I'm getting... But as I'm playing, uh, they were doing, uh, the grownups there were doing, uh, racially misunderstanding jokes. I'll say it like that. [laughs] And my grandmother taught me something at that time. She said, uh, "When you're in a setting like that, uh, there's a word I want you to remember. It's called furniture." I said, "What's that?" She said, "You're part of the furniture. So you don't comment on what's being said. You play. That's what you're there for, and you let these people enjoy their..." And the lady of the house felt bad. She said, "I just wanna apologize to you for what they're saying." I said, "No, no problem." She said, "Can you sing something for us?" And I was like, "Sure, I can sing something for us." And this was the song that I sung. [singing] Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Jack Frost nipping at your nose. Yuletide carols being sung by a choir. And folks dressed up like Eskimos.

   15. TFTim Ferriss29:43

       [laughs]

   16. JFJamie Foxx29:45

       Everybody... Anyway, so as I'm singing, I remember watching those white guys, old men, some of them faculty at my school, that had just said something, you know, probably not... I don't think it was that they meant harm, harm, but it was-

   17. TFTim Ferriss30:02

       They'd have to re- they'd have to resign today.

   18. JFJamie Foxx30:04

       Yeah. And they look and they go, they, they immediately change. They say, "Wow, man, that's good. You know any other songs?" And I sat and I did about maybe like a six-song set And I saw what my grandmother talked about. That music cracked them in half. They saw a different me. And then afterwards, he gave me a hundred bucks, and I'm like, "Shit, call me nigga every day."

   19. TFTim Ferriss30:23

       [laughs]

   20. JFJamie Foxx30:24

       I got a hundred dollars. I'm rich.

   21. TFTim Ferriss30:27

       [laughs]

   22. JFJamie Foxx30:29

       And what was interesting was I went to give him the jacket back. He's like, "No, I don't-- I, I can't wear the jacket." So it was still a little bit of residue left over. But I saw what the music did, and I remember when my, [lip smacks] when my boys showed back up, I said, "Listen, it was a cool gig. We got paid." I said, "But I gotta get out of here." I said, "Because I'm too smart for this. Uh, I need to go elsewhere." And I did. I changed my major. Well, I changed the college that I was gonna go to. I was gonna go to another college in Texas and study music. Instead, I came to California, San Diego, to study music, uh, at International University, and what was interesting about that was is that being in Texas, it was Black, whites, and Mexicans. When I got to International University, it was eighty-one different countries represented at that school, all connected by music and other things, music and sports. Uh, and the music, the music arena at that time was high-end, strict child prodigies from Japan, child prodigies from China. I had a Russian, uh, uh, music teacher, and I had a Yugoslavian music theory teacher, so it was, it was really across the tracks. But, uh, because of that and because of Estelle Talley and Mark Talley, you know, picking me up every, uh, weekend to go play music, um, man, I wa-- it, it set me on a, like I said, a, a crazy, wonderful journey. And, uh, uh, so the music was first, you know. And, um, my college was interesting. Th-- I didn't know anything about Jewish, Palestinian. I had no idea. Uh, uh, I was at the student center, and there was this argument going on, you know. I said, "What are, what are they arguing about?" "Oh, my brother, my brother, my friend, they're talking about the Gaza Strip." I said, "The fuck is that?" [laughs]

   23. TFTim Ferriss32:18

       [laughs]

   24. JFJamie Foxx32:19

       And they said, "No, the Jewish occupation," the this, the that, and I had a-- I l-- I got a quick, I got a quick, uh, history lesson on, on that. I got a quick history lesson on people from Argentina. Or I would see a person who looked Black, and I'd be like, "Hey, what's up, brother? Uh, bonjour," blah, blah. And they'd be like, "Oh, shit, where you from?" You know. I'd say, "I'm from Paris." I was like, "What the fuck? They got Black peo-"

   25. TFTim Ferriss32:39

       [laughs]

   26. JFJamie Foxx32:39

       So that music gave me not only an opportunity to share but an opportunity to be educated about other people because we studied Texas history. And in studying Texas history, it's interesting. Like if you study Texas history, if it didn't happen in Texas, it didn't happen.

   27. TFTim Ferriss32:55

       [laughs]

   28. JFJamie Foxx32:56

       So when you look at-- Like, like this is just a sidebar. But when you think about politics and what people know and don't know in politics and what they know about across the sea or what they know about even on the next block or what they know about what's different in Texas from New York, the reason that politics is so interesting is because the people don't necessarily have educations of other people, which is why I think that once we start opening up a little more and traveling a little more because what is it? Less than how many percent? Less than, less than five percent of Americans have passports and things like that.

   29. TFTim Ferriss33:32

       It's a small number, yeah.

   30. JFJamie Foxx33:32

       So, [lip smacks] so anyway, that music, like I said, took me, took me everywhere.
9. 34:01 – 41:55

   Grandmother as blueprint: confidence, faith, and protecting family

   1. JFJamie Foxx34:01

      My grandmother taught me confidence as well. My grandmother was a very confident person and, uh, very smart. Uh, just how, how would you say? Just naturally intelligent. She was a, a, a, a, a Taurus. You know what I'm saying? Natural. It's like it wasn't something that was super educated or anything like that.

   2. TFTim Ferriss34:19

      Second innate.

   3. JFJamie Foxx34:19

      But she just had a na-- Well, I, I'll give you, I'll give you, I'll give you a, uh, a hint of my grandmother. I'm ten years old maybe. I think I'm in the fifth grade, '76, uh, President Carter. The preacher [laughs] started preaching about homosexuality. Now, I don't know what it is. I'm, you know, ten or eight or whatever. So he's saying, "God made Adam and Eve. God didn't make Adam and Steve."

   4. TFTim Ferriss34:43

      [laughs]

   5. JFJamie Foxx34:44

      Right? So people was like, you know, it's Southern, it's Texas. "Amen." My grandmother stood up and said, "You stop that." And the whole church stopped. "What's that, Miss Taylor?" "You stop that." Now her words, what she said next was very interesting. "Let me tell you something. I've had this nursery school for thirty years, and I wanna let all y'all know that God makes sissies too." And the whole place went, "What?" She said, "These little boys that I've watched s- since they could walk, they, they play by d- they play by different music, and you stop that because you're making it hard for them to navigate." Sits down. He goes to another subject. Eventually, he leaves the church. But I found that very interesting. But at that time, I didn't know what that meant until I got to be about eighteen. I was like, "Granny, what, you know, what was you talking about?" She says, "Yeah, it's true." She says, "You know, I, I've had this nursery school. I, I see the difference in the kids, and so therefore I would have these kids come to me after they graduated from high school, gone to college, or tried to have a family, although they had-- they were living with this." So she was the type of woman who had natural intelligence. I said, "Well, Granny, well, what does it say about religion? Doesn't it say that it's, that it's wrong?" You know, being a, you know, kid from Texas, it's natural question. She says, "You know, when I think about it," she said, "you have to open up the umbrella of religion." I said, "What do you mean?" She said, "If you only open up the umbrella halfway, only a few people can stand under it." She said, "You have to open the umbrella all the way through so God's children can stand under it because no one here did not get made by anybody else or anything else but God." So that was my grandmother, you know?

   6. TFTim Ferriss36:31

      S- it seems very, uh, th- the move in church, man, that's a very bold move, very courageous move.

   7. JFJamie Foxx36:35

      Very bold. Very bold. But my grandmother raised those people in church. See, I was adopted, you know, at seven months, so she was much older. So all of the kids that were there, whether-- And it was on-- Like I said, it was only a few families that lived in Terrell. So all of the kids that grew up or all of the grown-ups that were there, she-

   8. TFTim Ferriss36:53

      She was the matriarch

   9. JFJamie Foxx36:53

      ... she, she ra- Because during, during the year, it was a s- it was a, uh, it was a, uh, it was a school. You know what I'm saying? But then during the summer, you drop your kids off at my, at my grandmother's house and just let them keep them. So she was very, uh, powerful in that sense. And then when I did finally make it, it was wonderful to tell my grandmother, "Come live with me." So my grandmother was living with me. So we go to the clubs. You know, my grandmother was like [inhales] she had to be eighty-three at the time. She-- We go to the clubs, we hang out, you know what I'm saying? She said-

   10. TFTim Ferriss37:24

       This is in LA.

   11. JFJamie Foxx37:24

       This is in LA. Uh, I had a little apartment, split-level condo. Remember when that was hype? The split-level condo. So I had a loft. Oh yeah, Ricardo, he's only nineteen. He doesn't know what I'm talking [laughs] about. But I had a loft, and we were living in that loft, and then we eventually rented a house, and me and my grand-- And I, and I didn't know I was a mama's boy. Like, we go to the parties, come back, we have an afterparty at the crib, and then one of my homies came and said, "Yo, uh, yo Foxx, uh, there's an older lady out here, uh, in the, in the front room." I said, "Yeah, that's my grandma. What's up?" "Uh, yeah, is it cool?" I said, "Yeah." And then you hear a bottle of champagne pop. [imitates champagne popping] "What we doing?"

   12. TFTim Ferriss37:58

       [laughs]

   13. JFJamie Foxx37:59

       "We getting it or what?" You know? So, uh [laughs] she was, uh, she was amazing, man. And so, you know, my grandmother, you know, we party, hang, have a good time. She was eighty-three years old. And then the big thing was, I was like, "Granny, you know, it's Christmastime. Why don't we do something we ain't never done? You know, y- your son making a little money. Why don't we go to Hawaii for Christmas? 'Cause I got some friends from Hawaii." "Well, what? Yeah. Well, let's get it going. Gas up the plane." Right? So we, uh, fly to Hawaii one year, and I-- It was just amazing to be able to show my grandmother another side of the world. It even made the papers in Terrell, Texas. Estelle Talley, uh, on her way to Hawaii, you know. And I remember [laughs] and, you know, just a fun, just a fun time. I remember, um, we're having a good time. We're going everywhere, and she had a boyfriend at the same time, who was eighty-three too. And he was on the, you know, he was on the land side. And so, so it was like December twenty-third, and we, uh, we called her boyfriend just so they could talk. So she's on the phone. "Mm-hmm. Yeah, having a good time. Mm-hmm. Oh yeah, man, weather's nice. Mm-hmm, sunny. Oh, food is good. I got my own seasonings though. Mm-hmm. Real nice. Well, I tell you what. Look, I'm gonna go, but let me tell you something. Don't let me come back there and, uh, catch you with no young girls."

   14. TFTim Ferriss39:20

       [laughs]

   15. JFJamie Foxx39:20

       "You understand? 'Cause I don't play that. Don't let me catch you with no young girls. You hear me?" [laughs] So she hangs up. You know, it's like three or four families there. We're having like a little Christmas party, and we all go, "Granny, what? When you said the young girls, what are you talking about?" "You know, sixty, sixty-five."

   16. TFTim Ferriss39:32

       [laughs]

   17. JFJamie Foxx39:32

       "You know I don't wanna mess with no sixty-five." She said, "Shit, I'm eighty-three. You know, so I can't handle no sixty-five-year-old woman all in my shit."

   18. TFTim Ferriss39:38

       [laughs]

   19. JFJamie Foxx39:40

       So she was just a great person, tough girl. Uh, I remember there was some situations where I did make it, and some people in my family felt like I should give them all of, all of my money.

   20. TFTim Ferriss39:52

       Hmm.

   21. JFJamie Foxx39:53

       This lady walks in, and we're at my apartment. She comes in and says, "My rich cousin." I didn't even recognize her 'cause I, you know, I hadn't... I had only seen her maybe once or twice growing up. So anyway, it gets around to it. She says, "I need ten thousand dollars for a kidney." I was like, "Uh, w- well, whose kidney?" [clicks tongue] "Well, I need kidney surgery," or something like that. "So if you give me the cash, I could take it and get the k-" I said, "Well, why don't you, if it's a situation of medical, I, I know some doctors. Maybe they can help you out." "Oh, I would prefer the ten thousand dollars." [laughs] I said, "Well, yeah, okay. I'll hit you." And I didn't call her back. I was like... So that became a problem for her, and she called me one day and left on the answering machine. Young fella, it's the last time you seen an answering machine. So I'm checking my answering machine, and she leaves this scathing message of, "Well, you know what? I didn't get the money from you, and that's fine 'cause you're not part of this family anyway. You was adopted. Nobody wanted you anyway." This is what this lady is saying to me.

   22. TFTim Ferriss40:51

       Brutal.

   23. JFJamie Foxx40:53

       I said, "What the hell?"

   24. TFTim Ferriss40:54

       Yeah.

   25. JFJamie Foxx40:54

       So I let my grandmother hear it. "Let me run that back." [imitates fast forwarding] Played it. "Mm-hmm. What's that number?" And she called [laughs] and I, I remember listening. Now I'm grown. You know, I'm, I'm twenty-two, so I'm grown, and I hear how she stuck up for me. She says, "Let me explain something to you, boy." And I could hear her. "I got that boy when he was seven months old." I said, "And everybody wanted him. I wanted him. Uh, everybody, you know." I said, "And he may not be blood, but he's our family." That-- It just, it was this incredible, incredible thing. My grandmother was absolutely amazing. I think you need people like that, and when you talk about that bow, that's what-- that's my reference to, to raising kids, and I got my own kids now, is that when you raise your kids, you are the bow and arrow. You're the bow. They're the arrow, and you just try to aim them in the best direction that you can, and hopefully, uh, your aim isn't too off. And, uh, that's what she did for me. And then, uh, you know, she watched my whole career, uh, all the way up until getting

10. 41:55 – 50:32

    Ray Charles preparation and performance lessons: ‘the notes are under your fingers’

    1. JFJamie Foxx41:55

       nominated for an Oscar, where all of the things that she taught me came into play. When we did, uh, uh, Ray Charles, that was an opportunity to play the piano, to be funny, to do an impersonation, and all these things is what my grandmother championed. So when we, when we embarked upon that film, I was like, oh man Granny was right. This is taking me on the other side of the tracks. And when we got in-- Even when I got a chance to meet Ray Charles, which, you know, that's my grandmother's era, you know? Uh, and she didn't get a chance to meet him because at the time she was, you know, she couldn't move, b-bedridden a little bit. But, uh, being around older people, you know, I understood that muscle too, because I was always the young kid with the old parents. So meeting Ray Charles was like seeing my grandfather or seeing one of my uncles. And when I met Ray and we were trying to do Ray Charles: The Movie, and Taylor Hackford, who was the director, and he says, "You know, I've, I've been wanting to do this movie for twenty-five years. I'm glad you came along because it's the right time." And I remember meeting Ray Charles, walking down to his studio, you know, clean, you know. He looked like, almost like he could see, you know. And I said, "Mr. Charles, you know, just trying to do the best I can to, you know, to do, uh, to do your m-movie, your bio." He said, "You know what? Uh, it... Look, i-if you could play the blues, man, shit, you could do anything, man." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Can you play the blues? Shit, that's what I'm asking you." I said, [chuckles] "I guess so." "Then come on." And we go and we sit down, and all of the hard work that my grandmother put in, all of the days my grandfather drove me to piano lessons, here I am sitting with a legend, and we were like [playing piano] And I was, like, playing the blues with Ray Charles. And as we're playing, I'm like, I'm on cloud nine. Then he moved into this, some intricate stuff like Thelonious Monk. [scat singing] And I was like, "Oh, shit, I gotta catch up." And I hit a wrong note, and he stopped because his ears are very sensitive. "Now, now why the hell would you do that?" I said, "What was that?" "Why you hit the note like that? That's a wrong note, man. Shit." I said, "Well, I, I, I, I'm sorry, Mr., m-uh, M-Mr. Charles. I just-" He said, "Let, uh, let me tell you something, buddy. Uh, the notes are right underneath your fingers, baby. You just gotta take the time out to play the right notes. That's life." So that was a lesson, that the notes are right underneath your fingers, so metaphorically. So now you gotta cross the tracks that someone like Estelle Talley teaches you. Then you got Ray Charles explaining, now that you're across the tracks, what notes are you gonna play? And so now we go on and we, we, we, we do that movie, [lip smacks] which we didn't know what we were doing. We didn't know that it was gonna be like that. It wasn't a studio film. Uh, it was independent. And, uh, you know, doing the, doing the process of the movie was interesting of my, you know, background being from Terrell, knowing how to mimic. But I needed to know how to do Ray Ch- do Ray Charles like the young Ray Charles. So I got in touch with, uh, Quincy Jones. And for all of you young ones out there, uh, listening, make sure you Google Chris- Quincy Jones and Ray Charles. And the reason why you should do that is because they were the building blocks of our music today, which started in Seattle, Washington, which was interesting. Seattle at that time was, was a big hub for jazz music, jazz musicians, and that's where Ray Charles migrated to running into a young Quincy Jones. Ray Charles actually taught Quincy Jones everything he knows about music. Who is Quincy Jones for you young ones listening? Quincy Jones was the one who did-- I mean, he played, he was a band director for Frank Sinatra, all of those guys, the Rat Pack, all of those guys. He was the band leader. Uh, if you-- And when I met Quincy Jones, he talks about that, "Yeah, man. Shit, man. Music, man. These young cats don't know music anymore, man. Shit, they wouldn't-- They'd play in the key of Q if they would, man. Shit, man, when I played Baby Frankie, baby." I said, "Mr. Jones, who's Frankie?" "Man, shit, Frank Sinatra, man. Shit, I was young, man. The band leader-- We were playing in Monaco, man. We didn't even have time to rehearse, baby. We were just there playing, waiting on fucking Frank to come in." I said, "What do you mean?" He says, "We, we had to play this show in Monaco. Frank had never met me, knew that I was this young kid who was great with the music. I become the band leader. We don't get a chance to p- rehearse. Monaco, where it's billionaires and millionaires in the audience waiting on this incredible show." And he says, "We're just vamping, man. Shit, and Frank doesn't even come out on the stage. He comes through the audience, man. Shit, talking and shit." I'm like, "Man, I'm nervous as hell." And then Frank got up. He said he sung. The band was tight. And Frank Sinatra knighted him, like gave him a ring that was like, you know, pretty significant, if you know what I mean. And if you guys, uh, Google Frank Sinatra, you'll understand what I mean about the La Cosa Nostra. [chuckles] And, uh, uh, so here I am now talking to Quincy Jones, and he's telling me about Ray Charles. He says, "Yeah, man, Ray taught me everything, man. Shit, man, he taught me how to dress. We were wearing zoot suits and shit, man. He had nice suits, tailor-made." And I said, "Why did he have nice suits?" "Shit, man, he was always around women, man, and women would tell him, man, those zoot suits are ugly," because he couldn't see, so the women was telling him how to, how to dress. And I said, "Well, Mr. Jones, I'm trying to figure out how to do Ray Charles, but I need the young Ray Charles, right?" And he says, "Well, man, shit, let me look." And he gives me a cassette tape. To you young ones out there, a cassette tape back in the day was a way for us to-- I'm just messing with her-- to, uh, to share music. And I said, "Okay, I got the cassette tape." I had to go rent a truck from rent a, from a Hertz Rent-A-Car because there was no cassette players in the cars. So I popped the cassette tape in, and, uh, uh, on the tape was, [imitating Dinah Shore] "Hi, this is Dinah Shore from The Dinah Shore Show. We have two very wonderful musicians here today in Mr. Kenny Rogers and Mr. Ray Charles." And you hear the young Ray, "You know what, Dinah? I'm just so happy to be here. Uh, so happy to h- that you know my music. I mean, this is just grand." And it was the young Ray, like, you know. Uh, because when I was talking to the older Ray, I didn't wanna grab those bad old habits. I wanted to play him young. So I hear Ray talking young on the tape, and then all of a sudden he's in charge of the, uh, of the interview, and this is, you know, he was just doing his thing. And then all of a sudden she says, "Talk about the drugs, Ray." And then he started to stutter. [clears throat] "Well, you know what? [clears throat] " So I used that as DNA to play the iconic character, Ray Charles, that when he's talking about his music, he's fully in control. When he's confronted with real-life things, "Why are you doing drugs? Why don't you take care of your family? Why are you cheating on your wife?" He would stutter. And I say this long story to say this: after the success of Ray Charles, after being nominated for, uh, an Oscar, uh, my grandmother got a chance to witness all of that. She got a chance to see the bearing of the fruits of, you know, of, of her labor for her young kid coming from that racially misunderstood town, which I love and wouldn't change anything in the world when it comes to Terrell, Texas. Her saying, "Get across the tracks." We've now gone across the tracks. We've gone all over the world, and now here we are. And think about, think about what's the, what's the odds of a kid f- who lives in a town, population 12,240 people, from Terrell to go all the way to Los Angeles, California, meet Puff, meet all these different people, and then actually have an opportunity to win an Oscar, and your grandmother gets a chance to see that. Now, October 23rd, 2004, she passed away, which if you know, the actual awards was, uh, 2005, uh, in February. But she got a chance to hang in there and, and, you know, and feel it, you know? So, uh, it's, uh, uh, it, you know, my grandmother was just like, you know, the, the blueprint.

11. 50:32 – 1:03:04

    Parenting, fear, and the craft of impersonation

    1. TFTim Ferriss50:32

       How do you think of teaching confidence with your own kids? Because you're, you're clearly a very confident guy.

    2. JFJamie Foxx50:38

       Yeah.

    3. TFTim Ferriss50:38

       Uh, grandmother was very bold, very strong woman. How do you try to teach that to your kids?

    4. JFJamie Foxx50:44

       Well, what you do with your kids is, like, wh- when my daughter is like-- There's a g- the phrase that when you see Annalise, I-- my, my, my daughter and my oldest daughter, Corrine, I would always ask them, "What's on the other side of fear?" And they'd be like, "Huh?" I said, "What's on the other side of it?" Meaning like if I stood in the middle of this floor right there and just yelled, "Ahhh!" What's on the other side of that? Or if I stood on the, in the middle of the floor and went, "Huh," what's on the other side of it? Meaning like either you do or you don't, but there's no penalty. There's no reward. It's just you just be yourself. So I taught them, what's on the other side of fear? Nothing. People are nervous for no reason because there's nothing. No one's gonna come out and slap you or beat you up or anything. You're just nervous. So why even have that? And so that's a building block that they can use not just about the entertainment business, because that's the other thing. You don't have to be an entertainer. But whatever you go into, whether you be a lawyer or school teacher or tech guy or whatever, or girl, whatever it is, there's nothing on the other side of it.

    5. TFTim Ferriss51:48

       What's on the other side of fear?

    6. JFJamie Foxx51:49

       Nothing.

    7. TFTim Ferriss51:50

       I like it.

    8. JFJamie Foxx51:50

       So it's like, so why are you-- Why-- When people say, "Ooh, I'm so nervous," what are you nervous about?

    9. TFTim Ferriss51:54

       [chuckles] Reminds me of this quote that I, I sort of re-recite to myself, and I'm gonna paraphrase it because I have it written down, but it's from Mark Twain. It says, uh, "I'm an old man who's known a great many troubles, most of which never happened."

    10. JFJamie Foxx52:06

        Yeah.

    11. TFTim Ferriss52:07

        [laughs]

    12. JFJamie Foxx52:07

        Exactly. Because all of it is in our head.

    13. TFTim Ferriss52:09

        Yeah.

    14. JFJamie Foxx52:09

        When we talk about fear or lack of, uh, being aggressive or whatever, it's just, it's, it's, it's, it's in your head. So not everybody's gonna be super aggressive, but the one thing that you can deal with is a, a person's fears. So if you start early, if they are a shy person, they just won't be as shy if you keep instilling those things so.

    15. TFTim Ferriss52:30

        The mimicry, the impersonation-

    16. JFJamie Foxx52:32

        Yeah

    17. TFTim Ferriss52:33

        ... how early did that start? Because I read-

    18. JFJamie Foxx52:34

        As a kid

    19. TFTim Ferriss52:35

        ... and, and maybe you can tell me if this is off or not, because you never know with the internet, uh, that your second grade teacher-

    20. JFJamie Foxx52:44

        Yeah

    21. TFTim Ferriss52:44

        ... used to reward the class if they behaved by letting you tell jokes.

    22. JFJamie Foxx52:47

        Yeah. They would let, they would let me tell jokes 'cause I would get in trouble. Ms. Reeves, my-- I think it was my third grade teacher, Ms. Reeves. 'Cause I would like talk, but I was very smart. My grandmother had a school. I was-- I lived in a school, so I, I'd already knew the, the, the, the-- From like first to eighth grade, I already knew all of the lesson plan. So, you know, a kid like me sitting there with nothing to do, I'm gonna get in trouble.

    23. TFTim Ferriss53:08

        [laughs]

    24. JFJamie Foxx53:08

        So she would, uh, let me do standup comedy on Fridays for the kids, and all I would do is my grandmother would watch Johnny Carson, and the only room that had the television was my room. So I had to watch Johnny Carson too as a kid. So nine years old, seven, eight, nine years old, I would just take the jokes that were being told by, uh, David Brenner and Steve Allen and a young, uh, David Letterman. Uh, uh, who else would be on there? Franklin Ajaye. Uh, you guys, when you, when you're hearing this, y- go Google these guys. Uh, a young Jay Leno. Uh, uh, these were like sort of like, uh, you know, Richard Pryor, what... So I would take those jokes and tell them at school 'cause those kids wouldn't laugh.

    25. TFTim Ferriss53:54

        [chuckles] Please tell me you used Richard Pryor on Fridays. Well, I guess it was on prime time, so it wasn't Richard Pryor, Richard Pryor.

    26. JFJamie Foxx53:58

        Well, when you, when, when you hear that Richard Pryor on prime time, you couldn't, you couldn't-

    27. TFTim Ferriss54:00

        He managed clean

    28. JFJamie Foxx54:00

        ... he couldn't really say anything on prime time.

    29. TFTim Ferriss54:02

        That's right. Right.

    30. JFJamie Foxx54:02

        He was clean. But like, uh, uh, uh, uh, Rich Little. And Google Rich Little because Rich Little was the first person that I saw do impersonations. So there was a-- There-- This was-- This had to be, this had to be like '76, 1976, so it was like fifth grade for me. The joke was, uh, Jimmy Carter, which was the president at the time, singing You Light Up My Life And at that time, his brother, uh, was getting caught drunk all the time, like B- uh, Billy. [chuckles] Uh, so it was, uh, Jimmy Carter goes, "Uh, so many nights, uh, me and my brother Billy, uh, would sit by the window waiting for somebody to bring some peanuts and beer." And so that was my first attempt at an im- an impersonation. And then it went on from there to do Richard Nixon, "I am not a crook." So, you know. Uh, who else would I do?
12. 1:03:04 – 1:28:19

    Becoming ‘Jamie Foxx,’ learning to bomb, and building universal comedy material

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:03:04

       What, uh, what is your birth name?

    2. JFJamie Foxx1:03:07

       Eric Marlon Bishop.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:03:09

       And how did Eric Marlon Bishop become Jamie Foxx?

    4. JFJamie Foxx1:03:13

       Man, I was Eric Marlon Bishop, graduated high school in '86. I get out to California, and I start doing... You know, I'm, I'm in college and, and, uh, um, doing the music. But I would go up on these open mic nights for comedy. So I go, I do really well. D- I g- get like standing ovations. And then I, I came to LA, got a standing ovation, and then when I came back every week, I wouldn't get called up. I was like, "Man, what... Why can't... What's going on?" But what I noticed was-

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:03:46

       And, and is the... How does the open mic work? I don't-

    6. JFJamie Foxx1:03:48

       Well, here's how it is. What you do is you put your name on a list, put your name on a list, and they pick from the list, and they say, "Okay, these are the people that are going up." [smacks lips] So I went up, I had a great set. Then for the next three, four weeks, I didn't... They never called my name. I said, "Yo, man, did you see my name?" "Yeah, yeah, you weren't on the list. You were on the list, but w- we, we got other people." But I found out that the comedians were actually running the list. So the comedians that had been here for a while was like, "Man, we don't want him on here 'cause he's showing us up." So I was like, "Fuck." So I ended up going to this evening at The Improv, The Improv, like in Santa Monica. And so I had never been there, so I would notice that 100 guys would show up, five girls would show up. The five girls would always get on the, on the show because they needed to break up the monotony. So I said, "Hmm, I got something." So I wrote down on the list all of these unisex names: Stacy Green, Tracy Brown, Jamie Foxx. And now the guy chooses from the list. He says, "Uh, is, uh, Jamie Foxx, is she here? She'll be first." I was like, "No, man, that, that's, that's me." "Oh. Oh, okay. All right. Well, you, you're going up. You're the fresh meat." I said, "What's that?" They were shooting Evening at The Improv, this old sh- old comedy show back in the day. Said, "You'll be the guy that we'll just throw up to see if you get a laugh or two. You know, it's gonna be a tough crowd."

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:05:09

       Fresh meat.

    8. JFJamie Foxx1:05:10

       Fresh meat. I said, "Cool." So I go up in between two other guys, get a standing ovation. People are like, "Who's the kid? Is he on the show?" They said, "Oh, he's fresh meat. He's amateur." So then they started yelling my name, "Yo, Jamie. Yo, Jamie. Hey, Jamie." But I'm not used to the name.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:05:27

       [laughs]

    10. JFJamie Foxx1:05:28

        So now they think I'm arrogant. "This motherfucker thinks he's the shit, not even listening to us."

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:05:32

        [laughs]

    12. JFJamie Foxx1:05:32

        So I, I, I took that name and it stuck, and then I started building everything out off of it. Uh, back in the day, people used to wear jackets and put names on the jacket, so I had, "Sly as a dot dot dot," uh, "Come to the foxhole, foxhole," you know, things like that. I'm gonna grab a little something to eat.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:05:51

        Yeah, sure thing. Okay, we are back after a little food break.

    14. JFJamie Foxx1:05:55

        Yeah.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:05:56

        And, uh, we talked about some of your comedy, starting in third grade, maybe earlier. We talked about, uh, grandmother. And what I'd like to talk about a little bit more is fear. So you mentioned On the Other Side of Fear.

    16. JFJamie Foxx1:06:11

        Yeah.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:06:11

        By the time you got to doing the open mics, getting up on stage, were you nervous? Were you afraid, or were you over it? Because you-

    18. JFJamie Foxx1:06:18

        Nah, you... Because f- first I looked at it first. Like I, I went to a open mic night and saw the guys. I was like, "Man, these dudes is terrible."

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:06:25

        [laughs]

    20. JFJamie Foxx1:06:28

        And, uh, so when you go on stage and your whole life is not, "I wanna be a comedian," I went on stage like, "Yo, I'ma just fuck around." So if I hit, cool. If I miss, I wasn't trying to be that-

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:06:42

        Compared

    22. JFJamie Foxx1:06:43

        ... anyway. You know, I wanted to do more music, but, but when I went on stage, it was just like, it was, it was just natural. It was a, a, you know, I belong here. So I think that's the thing, too, when it comes to entertainment. Uh, there's a certain like, oh, I belong here. This is what I'm supposed to do. How successful I will be or won't be, that's something out of my hands, but I do know that this is where I belong. And that's with anything and anybody. Like, when you can, when you can sort of listen to that voice in your head or what's in your heart, and you get a chance to do something that you really feel like you're supposed to do, that alleviates a lot of the fear. Now, if it was a surgeon or a lawyer or something, you know, so, like, you know, if something that I'm not, you know, versed in or something like that, then maybe there would be more fear. But with this, you don't have... Or, or I don't have those types of fears. And, and as I've gotten older in the business, I've sort of simplified things. Like, now I just execute. I have to ask people like Ricardo, Justine, Justin, "What should I es- execute?" So the fear of a celebrity or, or, or an artist now is, how do I get my art off in a world where it's, uh, uh, the, the s- the social media driven sort of, uh, uh, ridicule and critic- criticism. Like I always say it like this, like a person like Prince or a person like Michael Jackson could have never survived in today's world because in the, in the day of the internet and where everybody has a voice, most of the voices are hateful voices or not understanding. Like, like if you saw Prince with uh, um, a guitar and a bandana and the way he dressed, you know, people would meme the shit out of it, you know? So now it's a, a, it's, it's not a fear, but it's just a, a question that I have to always ask them. Like, "Yo, is this, is this the cool shit to do or not the cool shit to do?" And so what I learned is when it's just executing something, when it's either executing a song or executing a joke or executing things within, within, uh, entertainment, it's cool. But then you have to wonder like how do you get it off? Like, how do you... Like even now, when you talk about the Bill Cosby joke, back in the day we'd just tell the joke. Now you gotta be like, "Okay, I gotta tell the joke [chuckles] in a way that is still funny, it still keeps the bite on it, but, you know... So those are the different like for me as a, a entertainer where there's not fear, it's just like, you know, questions. Does that make sense?

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:09:28

        Makes sense. No, that does make sense. The considerations. When you, when you, uh... Have you bombed on stage before?

    24. JFJamie Foxx1:09:34

        Oh, yeah.

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:09:35

        Okay. What's, what's... Two things. What do you s- When you are bombing-

    26. JFJamie Foxx1:09:39

        Yeah

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:09:40

        ... what is your internal dialogue or response?

    28. JFJamie Foxx1:09:43

        Oh, my-

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:09:43

        And then secondly-

    30. JFJamie Foxx1:09:43

        My internal dialogue is, "Boy, you stink."
13. 1:28:19 – 1:34:57

    In Living Color: discipline, audition strategy, and watching stars being built

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:28:19

       W- if you look back at, uh, In Living Color, and I, I watched the show, and it just... If, in retrospect, it seems like such a, such a magical combination of people. So how did that group get assembled? A-and, uh, I mean, what made that team so special? Because, I mean, you look at the list, right? I mean, you've got Chris Rock, you've got Jim Carrey, you've got the Wayans. You've got... It just goes, uh... Jennifer Lopez. You've got, like you go down the line, it's just, it's an all-star roster.

    2. JFJamie Foxx1:28:51

       Well, at that time, Keenen Ivory Wayans was the... He, he put it all together. And he was able to grab all of these incredibly talented people and make them get along and figure out how to squeeze all of this talent into 22 minutes of programming.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:29:10

       Sure.

    4. JFJamie Foxx1:29:10

       'Cause it was only... It was a 30-minute show, so it was 22 minutes. But he was very disciplined in how we make jokes. You were not allowed to come in and be half-assed. He'd pull you to the side and say, "As a Black comedian, you cannot be half-assed. You're either great or you don't exist." So... And he says, "Don't take the racial part of that any kind of way. That's just the way it is." Because he wrote for Eddie Murphy. He was around the greatest. He says, "I'm around the greatest all the time, so that's what we gonna do." So when you see Damon Wayans come in, and I had just got hired, like, they had already been doing the show for, like, a year or two years. So when I saw Damon walk in and Jim walk in, it was like, it was like fucking Jurassic Park.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:29:59

       [laughs]

    6. JFJamie Foxx1:30:00

       Like fucking, ah, brr. It was like fucking T-Rex and fucking... You know what I'm saying? And the way I got on the show was, was crazy, too, because it went from the auditioning process, it was 100 comedians, down to 50, down to 25, down to 10, down to five. I was part of the five, but I was losing. I wasn't doing well within the, uh, improv of it because I just wasn't catching, catching the right shit. And then Keenen says something incredible. He says, "Well, I dig this, but I wanna see y'all on stage doing standup, 'cause I wanna have stand-up comedians." I was like, "Oh, shit, that's my shit. That's my shit." And the other four people didn't do standup. It was only one other girl that did standup, God bless her, Yvette Wilson, but the other three didn't do standup. So I was like, "Oh, man." So that night, everybody's going to the Laugh Factory, which was just starting. 'Cause at the, at that time, The Comedy Store was dominating. Laugh Factory was just... And, and they begged, "Can we please have the audition in the Laugh Factory?" So I show up late on purpose Because I wanted to be last.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:31:01

       Ah, smart.

    8. JFJamie Foxx1:31:02

       So I show up late, and Tamara Rawit, uh, who was the producer on that, "What are you doing? You're late. Oh my God."

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:31:08

       Uh-huh.

    10. JFJamie Foxx1:31:09

        "Why aren't you here? We're supposed to go on up early. You're supposed to be first, Jamie. Oh my God, you're gonna kill me."

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:31:15

        [chuckles]

    12. JFJamie Foxx1:31:16

        I said, "Oh, damn. Well, where can, can I g- can I just go up last?" "Yes, you have to 'cause we've already started. Get in here, you..." Whatever. So go ahead. Now this was interesting for me because I was in white world. I was, like, on the mainstream. I did all my jokes in the hood at that time. You know what I'm saying? I was the hood guy. So I was like, "Oh, shit," you know? We uptown, you know what I'm saying? It's like everything's clean and shit, you know? Ain't no weed in the air or nothing. You know what I'm saying?

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:31:44

        [laughs]

    14. JFJamie Foxx1:31:44

        Ain't nobody snuck no drinks in and shit, and it's an audition thing. So I'm watching the, the guys and, you know, God bless them. They, they just had never done standup before. So I had my cassette tape, and I knew what I was coming up to. I'm coming up to Heavy D's "In Effect with More Bounce to the Ounce." So I give the dude my tape. He's like, "What's this?" "That's my tape." Uh, you know, I go on with music. You know, up there they didn't go on with music. They just went up with hand claps. I said, "Nah, man, I gotta, I gotta come in with Heavy D's 'In Effect with More Bounce to the Bounce.' I need the crowd going." He said, "Okay, sure." So he's standing there with the tape.

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:32:15

        [laughs]

    16. JFJamie Foxx1:32:16

        And then Sean Wayans gave me a great tip. He, he walked up, he said, "Yo, Jamie, just go up and do your act, man. Just, um, stop worrying about... Don't, don't worry about the characters. Just do your act. Yo, Marlon, Marlon, come here. Tell Jamie, 'Just do your act.'" I said, "Oh, really? Just do my act? Do my act like I do in the hood?" "Yeah, do your act like you do in the hood." I said, "Straight. Cool." So I go up. They don't play the music.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:32:35

        [laughs]

    18. JFJamie Foxx1:32:37

        I'm waiting on it. I'm like, "Yo, you got my music?" The dude is over there like... [laughs] I said, "Well, I was supposed to have some music." [laughs]

    19. TFTim Ferriss1:32:44

        [laughs]

    20. JFJamie Foxx1:32:44

        And I said, "If sh- if this shit goes wrong, you will actually see me working across the street at the gas station."

    21. TFTim Ferriss1:32:49

        [laughs]

    22. JFJamie Foxx1:32:50

        And I went into a character. Man, I was in there with Keenan and all them, dog, and it just... And so I did this little character, then I went into my act, and, uh, I got a standing ovation that night. And I remember seeing Jim Carrey and Keenan, Fly Girl was, like, on their feet. Like, I said, "Oh, man, this is great." And that's how I got on the show. And during that show, [clears throat] I did this character called Wanda.

    23. TFTim Ferriss1:33:14

        [laughs] Yeah.

    24. JFJamie Foxx1:33:15

        Where I said, "All the good-looking ladies, clap your hands," and everybody's like... [clapping] I said, "Now all the ugly ladies, let me see you make some noise." It was quiet. I said, "Ain't that a bitch?" And then all the ugly ladies out there like, "Hey, for real, though, he ain't talking about me." [smacks lips] So we did this character. Keenan was like, "I want you to do that character on the show 'cause I think that's where you'll, you'll, uh, you'll really, uh, flourish." And when we did that sh- when I did that character, that's when everything sort of changed because I was trying to find my bearings on the show because we got on the show, but we were there for a trial basis. But when I did that character, it was like, it was like, it was like playing football, and I was, like, the punt returner, and I was the rookie, and I ran it all the way back the first day. Uh, so nobody really knew who I was, but they knew that this character was, was, was, was slamming. And so that sort of gave me, like, my stripes because, uh, these guys were juggernauts. I watched, I watched Keenan. I said, "Keenan, these jokes ain't funny that the writes- that the, that the writers wrote." He says, "Get on your feet. Everybody get up. Let's do this." So he was like, "There's never a joke that's not funny. You just gotta work and find it." So he taught us the formula of finding the jokes, and he was right every single time. And so, uh, like I said, to be there watching Jim Carrey, like, create Pet Detective on set. He's writing Pet Detective as we're... I said, "What's that you're writing?" "Hey, man, just, uh, you know, working on some stuff, you know, just got some stuff I'm working on."

    25. TFTim Ferriss1:34:39

        [laughs]

    26. JFJamie Foxx1:34:40

        "So what is that?" "Man, it's just a little thing called Pet Detective." I said, "Okay. Sound funny."

    27. TFTim Ferriss1:34:44

        And was he developing it for the show at that time or for-

    28. JFJamie Foxx1:34:46

        No, he was developing it for-

    29. TFTim Ferriss1:34:46

        ... for much later?

    30. JFJamie Foxx1:34:47

        He was developing it for his own shit. I gotta make one phone call.
14. 1:34:57 – 1:54:34

    Media narratives, social division, and bridging gaps through human connection

    1. JFJamie Foxx1:34:57

       We were talking about how nowadays is that you don't get a chance to control your own narrative. Like, we were talking about is there's two different people. Some people think that the tech world and the, and social media and things on the internet is taking us to a great place, and then there's people who think that it's a horrible place. I had... I spoke with a, um, a young lady who had been burned bad, bad by the press, bad to where she lost her job. And what was interesting about her job was that what they were scolding her about was... Like, me knowing her, I was like, "You're not like that at all." She says, "I can't. There's nothing I can do. Everybody thinks so." And they took something, like they went through emails and through her personal emails and all this other kind of s- what it was, but it was just like, "You're not like that at all." So when I was on the phone talking about it, she was like, "They're saying this and..." I said, "Ah, don't worry about it. You're, you're cool. Like, you're not like that. I don't give a fuck." But I hadn't... I'm bowling. I'm like, "I don't, I don't even, I don't even need to read it. What could they possibly say?" And when I looked, it was a national story. I went, "What the fuck?" She lost her job.

    2. TFTim Ferriss1:36:04

       Yeah.

    3. JFJamie Foxx1:36:04

       And so, like, even, like, you'll do something where you think that it's either you're making fun or you're having fun, you know? But they'll take whatever it is that you say and make it what they want it to say.

    4. TFTim Ferriss1:36:19

       Yeah.

    5. JFJamie Foxx1:36:19

       Or craft it where... Like, if you do a joke, it's not about doing a joke anymore. "Jamie Foxx slams Caitlyn Jenner. Jamie Foxx trounces..." You're like, "Nah, I'm a comedian. We do, do..." But everything is something that they control. And, and it, it, it's tough because when I say Justin Bieber, what do you think? What's the first thing that comes to mind? Be honest.

    6. TFTim Ferriss1:36:44

       Hair that I'm jealous of.

    7. JFJamie Foxx1:36:45

       Yeah, but what do you think? But what do you think? Something about a kid who's-

    8. TFTim Ferriss1:36:48

       Yeah

    9. JFJamie Foxx1:36:48

       ... can't get it together.

    10. TFTim Ferriss1:36:49

        Right.

    11. JFJamie Foxx1:36:49

        When I say Chris Brown, what do you think? It's something negative. When I say Jennifer Aniston, what do you think? What do you think?

    12. TFTim Ferriss1:36:55

        [laughs] I think of cover of Rolling Stone photograph, black and white.

    13. JFJamie Foxx1:36:56

        You think of Brad Pitt.

    14. TFTim Ferriss1:36:58

        [laughs]

    15. JFJamie Foxx1:36:58

        You say what?

    16. TFTim Ferriss1:36:59

        Cover of Rolling Stone magazine, black and white, naked, laying on a bed.

    17. JFJamie Foxx1:37:02

        Oh, that's hilarious.

    18. TFTim Ferriss1:37:02

        [laughs]

    19. JFJamie Foxx1:37:03

        What the average person-

    20. TFTim Ferriss1:37:05

        Right

    21. JFJamie Foxx1:37:05

        ... would think of not what they do-

    22. TFTim Ferriss1:37:08

        Right. But the impression

    23. JFJamie Foxx1:37:09

        ... but what the headline is.

    24. TFTim Ferriss1:37:09

        Right, the subliminal image they got-

    25. JFJamie Foxx1:37:11

        Yeah, it's, no, it, it-

    26. TFTim Ferriss1:37:11

        ... at the checkout counter

    27. JFJamie Foxx1:37:12

        ... yeah, it's not, it's, it's the headline. If I say, if I say Jennifer Aniston, you automatically... Because nowadays they control-- We don't control our own narrative to where it's like the, they, they talked about this thing with, with, uh, Quentin Tarantino, which I thought was sad because usually when you see a, a, a, a, a story about Black Lives Matter or anything Black, it's usually the, the same Black folks with the kufi who's trying to be heard. And they're absolutely right. They're absolutely... It's so much wrong going in the Black world. There's Black-on-Black crime. Then there's the, the, the divide that is, because of social media, is be- uh, that is going on between the police officers and Black folk. Police officers are, on the whole, are great folk. I know them. I got, I... Shit, I know a gang of police officers. But the one or two that have been caught on social media makes it look, paint the picture that it's all of them. Now, granted, we've known for a long time that Blacks and police officers have always had a divide. We've done mus- we've done movies about it. We've done books about it. It just is the way it is. Now, my take on it is because I call it residue. It's slave residue, meaning that slavery for 300 years, you saw a person of, of color a certain way for 300 years. You've always saw them as a slave or the criminal or what, something that you didn't value. So therefore, coming out of that, of course there's gonna be a divide when it comes to police and when it comes to Blacks and when it come... That's always been that way. So take that off the table.

    28. TFTim Ferriss1:38:55

        Right.

    29. JFJamie Foxx1:38:57

        But in today's world of how do we bridge that gap? I've gone to Quantico in Virginia, saw what a, what a police officer sees. I've talked to police officers said, "How can we bridge the gap?" I've suggested that you go get a white police officer who you think might not like Black folk. You know what I'm saying? Get that person to go into the hood and throw a picnic for a kid that's eight, nine, 10 years old who's African American, so that he can see another-

    30. TFTim Ferriss1:39:27

        Another side
15. 1:54:34 – 2:28:33

    Questions on success, history, routines, and what’s next (music, comedy, Mike Tyson film)

    1. TFTim Ferriss1:54:34

       When you think of the word successful, who is the first person that comes to mind, and why?

    2. JFJamie Foxx1:54:39

       On the bigger picture, because I witnessed this in 2008, to see President Obama become president to me, 2008, not talking about after he became president, because everyone will have their views on, on that. I know what it meant to me. To see him stand up there, put his hand on that Bible and say, you know, and become the President of the United States That is success in so many different ways. And it also, it jars you. For every person that says, "Oh man, just 'cause I'm Black, I'm su-" Maybe you can't use that all the time 'cause this man now shows you. And whatever side you end up on, 'cause it's not a political thing, to see that. And the reason that it means so much to me to see an African American man, like, do that. Like, and literally when, uh, when, when, when he was... This was interesting. This is how we connected. When he was 30 points down for the nomination, 30 points down, no one knew who he was. I get a call from Oprah Winfrey. "Hi, Jamie Foxx. It's Oprah. Hi, Jamie." I was like, "What, what's going on?" "There's this guy named Senator Obama. I think he's gonna be the next president." Then I got a call from Norman Lear. "Jamie, it's Norman Lear. The senator's on fire." I said, "Who is he?" He says, "It's Senator Obama." But he's 30 points down, so what-- no one knows. The reason they're calling me is because we have a radio show that was reaching everybody, especially the, the huge urban market. So I go on my show and I say, "Uh, I'm voting for this guy named Senator Obama because he's Black," and I go to commercial.

    3. TFTim Ferriss1:56:22

       [laughs]

    4. JFJamie Foxx1:56:24

       When I go to commercial, my phone lines light up with all Black people saying that we will not vote for this guy just because he's Black. Don't treat us that way. So we ended up educating everybody about him. He gets the nomination and he goes on and he wins. And to me, it was all odds against him and I thought that, that, that type of success, regardless of where you come from, like I said, whatever side you stand on, to me that was something monumental. When we talk about where this country has come from, when you talk about the greatness of America evolving and evolving to that type of freedom and him taking advantage of being in America and becoming, um, uh, a president, to me that's just success that, that, uh, he redefined what it is.

    5. TFTim Ferriss1:57:13

       What historical figure do you most identify with?

    6. JFJamie Foxx1:57:15

       [inhales deeply] Who do I identify with historically? Uh, when it comes to entertainment, Sammy Davis Jr. is a person that I look at all the time who I go on the internet and watch him play the drums or watch him sing or watch him dance or watch him, uh, do jokes or watch him do a movie or watch him spin guns. To me, he was just the ultimate, uh, enter-entertainer.

    7. TFTim Ferriss1:57:38

       He was a, yeah, full stack entertainer, as one engineer said. That's what he, that's what he called you.

    8. JFJamie Foxx1:57:43

       Yo, man.

    9. TFTim Ferriss1:57:43

       Meaning he kinda-- he had all the tools in the toolkit.

    10. JFJamie Foxx1:57:45

        Oh man, that's great. And then there's, there's other s-sides of me too. So like the, the sports side, like I was a Magic Johnson. Like, you know, the person who was... who loved being competitive, but also wanted to get everybody else involved in, you know, the way he played basketball. When it comes to social consciousness-

    11. TFTim Ferriss1:58:06

        May I interject for a second?

    12. JFJamie Foxx1:58:07

        Yeah.

    13. TFTim Ferriss1:58:07

        So this might seem like a funny question, but do you feel like you identify more with Magic Johnson than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar?

    14. JFJamie Foxx1:58:14

        Yeah. The reason I feel more than Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is because Magic smiled and it was fun. He was happy. You know, not to say that Kareem wasn't, but Kareem was more a serious guy, you know?

    15. TFTim Ferriss1:58:24

        Very serious.

    16. JFJamie Foxx1:58:25

        If you ever met him, he's completely serious.

    17. TFTim Ferriss1:58:28

        Serious.

    18. JFJamie Foxx1:58:28

        You know? And I'm more the fun dude. Let's have a good time. And, you know. When it comes to social consciousness and social issues, that's where I, I, I draw from a lot of different people. I think going-- I, I think watching Martin Luther King and going to Atlanta and seeing what he did and how he did it when he did it. When I look at the bravery of him, it's beyond. 'Cause I, I, I look at social issues today, how we're so afraid to step out on anything. Like, oh, oh my, my cars and my, my wealth and my money. Oh, I... And, and not to say that I've thought this way all my life. Like literally, like it just happened not too long ago where I was like, "We gotta s- sp- we gotta s- step up more, more socially. We gotta be more social con-" Even if it-- even if some of the people say, "Oh fuck it, I ain't going to your, to your movie." It's okay, fine. You weren't gonna go anyway. But we had to step up a little bit more social, social-wise. And when I went to see where Martin Luther King came from and what he did and how his house was. He actually came from middle class, big, nice house, but it's right across the street from poor- from poverty and it sort of taught him how to deal with other cultures, taught him how to deal with other, uh, uh, financial groups. He says, "I don't wanna see people hurting." He says, "I want everybody." You know? So I, I, I think like that. I've always thought like, uh, [clears throat] even when we talked about earlier the Jews and the Palestinians in the, uh, in the student center. You know, the rest of the story was I befriended both of them and we all became friends because I called myself spackle, which is the stuff that goes in between the bricks.

    19. TFTim Ferriss2:00:02

        Shoves between the cracks. [chuckles]

    20. JFJamie Foxx2:00:03

        Yeah. I'm, I'm spackle. I get along with all religions, get along with all people, and try to bring them all together. And so that was the-- So when I think about it socially, it is the Martin Luther King thing because I think sometimes we overlook that the world is big enough for all of us to live on it. It's big enough for all of us to, to, to get along. And, uh, sometimes I, I, I question why is it so tough to get along, you know? Which is what Martin Luther King questions. He says, "I just don't, I don't get it and I, and I won't stand by." So a little... And like I said, I've only thought about it like that, you know, here in the past few years after watching Harry Belafonte go on stage before I was supposed to get a lifetime achievement award and he goes on and says something so prolific. He says, uh, they were talking about violence and he said the, "The violence that's happening in America is mostly Black violence and you Black entertainers sit here mute and we laid all of this groundwork down for you guys and you guys are disrespecting it and not picking up." So, you know, uh, that's the one reason I said I think more socially.

    21. TFTim Ferriss2:01:08

        S- I mentioned Kareem Abdul-Jabbar because I saw just by chance a fantastic documentary, uh, called Minority of One.

    22. JFJamie Foxx2:01:14

        Yeah.

    23. TFTim Ferriss2:01:15

        Uh-

    24. JFJamie Foxx2:01:15

        Yeah

    25. TFTim Ferriss2:01:15

        ... and it's so good.

    26. JFJamie Foxx2:01:17

        Yeah.

    27. TFTim Ferriss2:01:17

        And it detailed in particular, and I'm not- I'm not at all well-versed with basketball, so it was also a glimpse into that world for me.

    28. JFJamie Foxx2:01:23

        Yeah. Mm-hmm.

    29. TFTim Ferriss2:01:23

        But his relationship with Magic Johnson-

    30. JFJamie Foxx2:01:25

        Yeah

Episode duration: 2:31:51