Issue Date: October 12, 2008
Movies: "The Soloist"
That's the new movie that superduo Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. are singly happy to discuss.
By Steve Pond
Foxx and Downey are a study in contrasts, but they click onscreen.
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It's 11 on a Saturday morning in Los Angeles, and Robert Downey Jr. is on a roll. Sitting beside Jamie Foxx, his co-star in "The Soloist," he's been talking about the pressures of working in the movie business, which has led into the pressures of life itself. That's the way it is with Downey: One thing leads to another, and before you know it, an innocent question about his movie has turned into something else entirely.
"Everything's frustrating," Downey says. "Being in a relationship. Having a kid. Wondering if you're going to be misrepresented while you're doing an interview." A slight grin, and a nod in my direction. "Having to talk to two guys who wonder if they're going to be misrepresented is frustrating."
Now his grin gets bigger, and slyer. "I know your life," announces Downey, who plays a newspaper reporter in "The Soloist." "Do you know mine?"
Well, let's see. I know that Downey, 43, is an Academy Award-nominated actor (1992's "Chaplin"), who nearly squandered his gifts on a drug habit that landed him in the slammer several times. I know Downey's back and having an amazing year ("Iron Man," "Tropic Thunder"), and that he shares the screen with Foxx, 40, himself an Oscar winner in 2004 for "Ray."
And I know that this morning, the two men are a study in contrasts. Foxx, who plays a schizophrenic, homeless musician befriended by Downey's newspaper columnist in "The Soloist," is a low-key presence who answers questions succinctly. Downey, meanwhile, fidgets with an unfiltered Camel cigarette (a "cowboy killer," as he calls it). He perches on the couch one minute, slides to the floor the next, then gets up and paces the room. "Robert is a seeker," "Soloist" director Joe Wright says. "His mind is incredibly reckless, always asking questions of the world around him, and of himself."
Over the next hour, Foxx plays second fiddle to Downey, the opposite of what happened on the set of the movie, where Downey admits his feathers were initially ruffled by Wright's suggestion that his character should "shut up and listen."
Still, he couldn't help but admire Foxx, who would do a tricky emotional scene, then slip out of character and emcee a game of movie trivia with the homeless extras, passing out $20s for correct answers. "This whole thing was a ball of emotion," says Foxx, softly. "Getting into the schizophrenia was very heavy, so I needed time on the set to just let go and be funny and hang out."
Foxx says he understands the pressures that crushed his true-life character, a former Juilliard music student, because he himself studied classical piano in college and knows the challenges of that pursuit. For Downey, though, the identification was more personal. "I can't think of anyone who doesn't relate to the metaphor of derailment and just how awful and tragic that is," he says. "I can speak from my own experience."
And when he got derailed, did he have something to cling to the way Foxx's character has music?
"Yeah, you could say it was work, or whatever," Downey says, getting typically elusive. "But I don't know what I did, or how much of it was a neuropathic hijacking." A shrug. "I'm out of the answers game with regard to [the dark] stuff in my life."
So now he goes on with his career, clean but restless.
Foxx, meanwhile, works to stay at the top, driven by what he admits is an agitation that won't go away. "We all have that," Foxx insists. "We're artists. You always want to have that good taste in your mouth, even if it's just somebody walking up to you in the airport and saying, 'Hey, man, great job.' So if I tell a joke at a party and somebody didn't laugh, I can't sleep. I'm thinking, why didn't he laugh?"
"Agitation is a good word," says Downey, nodding. "But you also have to ask, are the sparks endangering your fuel tank, or are they running your turbine?"
Downey set off a few sparks himself this summer in the role of an acclaimed Australian actor who dyes his skin black to play an African American in the hit comedy "Tropic Thunder." It must have been risky, I suggest, to appear in blackface even as the country contemplates its first black president. "I prefer not to call it blackface," Downey says, quickly. "My character had a controversial skin pigmentation."
"Blackface is different," Foxx adds. "I've seen that movie three times, and I never thought for a second about being offended. And when it comes to black issues, I used to be so sensitive."
"It wasn't my inclination to play it like that," insists Downey of his character's exaggerated slang. "But the sun was beating down, and we'd rehearsed for four hours, and then Ben [Stiller] would say, 'Make it more of a caricature,' so the next thing you know, I'm going, 'I'm gonna get me some crawfish and collard greens.' "
"Dude, that was classic," says Foxx, clapping his hands. "Classic."
Cover and cover story photos of Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. by Sam Jones for USA WEEKEND
Downey's stylist: Joleen Garnett; Foxx's stylist: Samantha McMillen, The Wall Group
Inside clothing: Downey's sweater by Bally, pants by Burberry, jacket by YSL, shirt by Dior, shoes by J Shoes, hat by Salvatore Ferragamo; Foxx's hat by Rod Keenan, suit by Yves Saint Laurent, shirt by Prada, tie and pocket square by Giorgio Armani
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