Jamie Foxx

Foxx was born Eric Marlon Bishop and was adopted by his maternal grandparents before he was a year old. He began playing piano at about age five, sang in a church choir, and played quarterback and basketball at Terrell High School. He became the first quarterback in the school's history to pass for more than 1,000 yards, then attended United States International University on a scholarship to study classical piano, music theory, and composition.

While performing at local open-mic comedy nights, Bishop adopted the name Jamie Foxx. He chose Jamie because it was gender-neutral and could help him avoid lineup preferences that favored female comedians, while Foxx honored comedian Redd Foxx. In 1991, his impersonations and drag character Wanda earned him a regular role on In Living Color, created by Keenen Ivory Wayans. He also had a recurring role on Roc.

Foxx made his film debut in Toys in 1992 and later appeared in Booty Call, The Truth About Cats & Dogs, and The Players Club. His first major dramatic performance came in Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday, where his high-school football experience helped him portray a talented but anxious quarterback. He followed that role by playing Drew "Bundini" Brown opposite Will Smith in Michael Mann's Ali.

In 1996, Foxx began starring in The Jamie Foxx Show, a sitcom he co-created and produced that ran for five seasons. His dramatic work reached a new level in 2004, when he played a taxi driver forced to transport a hitman portrayed by Tom Cruise in Mann's Collateral. Foxx received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for the performance.

Foxx then portrayed Ray Charles in Ray. He studied Charles's mannerisms, lost 30 pounds for the role, and used prosthetic eyelids that simulated blindness. His performance won the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Actor, as well as the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy. He became the third male performer to receive two acting Oscar nominations in the same year for different films, after Barry Fitzgerald and Al Pacino.

Following Ray, Foxx appeared in Jarhead, Miami Vice, and Dreamgirls. In Dreamgirls, he played a record executive who turns a group of backup singers into a successful act, sharing the cast with Eddie Murphy, Jennifer Hudson, and Beyoncé. The ensemble won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

Foxx played the title character in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, portraying a formerly enslaved man who joins a bounty hunter, played by Christoph Waltz, to rescue his wife from a plantation owner played by Leonardo DiCaprio. The film also featured Kerry Washington and Samuel L. Jackson. Foxx later played President James Sawyer opposite Channing Tatum in White House Down, and portrayed Electro in The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

Foxx continued working across film, television, and animation. His later credits include The Kingdom, The Soloist, Law Abiding Citizen, Valentine's Day, Horrible Bosses, Rio, Baby Driver, Robin Hood, Just Mercy, and Project Power. He voiced Joe Gardner, a jazz musician and music teacher, in Pixar's Soul and later returned as Electro in Spider-Man: No Way Home.

He hosted and executive produced the music game show Beat Shazam, which began in 2017, with his daughter Corinne Foxx joining as co-host in the show's second season. He co-created, wrote, and starred in the Netflix sitcom Dad Stop Embarrassing Me! in 2021. Foxx also appeared in The Burial, Strays, They Cloned Tyrone, God Is a Bullet, Not Another Church Movie, and Back in Action with Cameron Diaz.

In April 2023, Foxx was hospitalized after a medical emergency. In his 2024 Netflix special, Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was..., he revealed that he had suffered a brain bleed that led to a stroke, followed by emergency surgery, a coma, and a difficult period of limited mobility. The special marked his return to stand-up comedy.

Foxx released his debut album, Peep This, in 1994. His second album, Unpredictable, reached number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 in 2005. He also appeared on Twista's "Slow Jamz" and Kanye West's "Gold Digger", both of which reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

His later albums included Intuition in 2008, Best Night of My Life in 2010, and Hollywood: A Story of a Dozen Roses in 2015. "Blame It", from Intuition and featuring T-Pain, reached number one on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. Foxx published the memoir Act Like You Got Some Sense: And Other Things My Daughters Taught Me in 2021.