Singer/actor Jamie Foxx has been in the headlines as of late after some nasty health scares. But according to his family and even Foxx himself, he is doing much better.
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The 55-year-old, Texas-born artist is a dynamo. He is an Oscar winner thanks to his portrayal of the iconic musical figure Ray Charles. He boasts tens of millions of streams with songs like “Blame It” and “Gold Digger,” with his former collaborator Kanye West.
But with so much talent and experience to his name, one might wonder what Foxx has to say about his career, his craft, his early days, and the world around him today.
Without further ado, these are the 20 best Jamie Foxx quotes.
1. “I went to college on a classical piano scholarship. My grandmother made me practice one full hour a day. Every day. Man. I thought all she wanted was for me not to have any fun. Next thing you know, you have a career in music. Now, not everybody’s going to go on and be Mozart or Michael Jackson. But music makes you smarter.”
2. “I try to be as honest and open as I am with everything that I do because it just helps me, you know, like whether it’s stand up or singing or acting. I just try to stay true.”
3. “If I were an animal, I would be an eagle.”
4. “Connecting with my daughter is the most important thing in my life—the priority. I want to be a man who shows up for her. I want to have such a big influence on her so that she knows she can call me about anything, which she does.”
5. “The most interesting thing about acting is when you go to dark places, that’s a lot of energy. When you go to the happiest places, it’s also a lot of energy.”
6. “When I was growing up in Terrell, Texas, I felt that it was not where I was supposed to be. I knew that I was meant for a different destination. I think that the minute I was born, there was something inside telling me where I would go, it’s like energy—an intangible destiny.”
7. “I think having that comic gene kind of makes you look at things in a different way. If you take yourself so seriously, eventually you end up one of those people having a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on their lives. You see them drawing the curtains and they don’t even realize that they’ve kind of drifted off somewhere.”
8. “I really wanted to just be a musician. I didn’t want to be anything else, but I was funny and all that.”
9. “When you look at Michael Jackson, there’s nobody who loves him in that family, nobody. If they did, they’d tell him he didn’t have to do all that in order to be famous. All he has to do is keep doing his music and be himself. Michael’s been a little touched for about 20 years, but somebody needs to pull him aside and tell him they love him.”
10. “My homies that are around me never give me that ‘star pass.’ I’ve hung out with some stars who are playing basketball and everyone lets them score all the baskets. Shooting pool, they let them make all the shots. My homies don’t let me get away with that.”
11. “I never planned to win an Oscar. When I auditioned for Ray, I was just thinking about what a great project it would be.”
12. “So there is not a lot about me that you don’t know other than that I play table tennis. I’m great, I’m great at table tennis! You will look at me and go, ‘How does that dude know how to play that well?'”
13. “A lot of people may not know how competitive it is to play classical music, because when you think about it, the music that you’re playing is music that’s been here for years. And all you’re trying to do is improve upon it when you play.”
14. “We cannot turn our back and say that violence in films or anything that we do doesn’t have a sort of influence. It does.”
15. “If you look at how long the Earth has been here, we’re living in the blink of an eye. So, whatever it is you want to do, you go out and do it.”
16. “In our music, in our everyday life, there are so many negative things. Why not have something positive and stamp it with Blackness?”
17. “I’m a real person, and I’m angry. I’m trying to use this celebrity thing to get people some help. AIDS, poverty, racism—I want to be one of the hands that helps stop all that. I’ll put it on my shoulders. I’ll charge it to my account.
18. “I’d like to say I’m R&B’s savior. Whether that’s the truth or not, I’m definitely going out there with my mic and my shield to declare, ‘I am here to save R&B.’ I will have the people saying, ‘Sir, there is a man at the musical gates saying he is here to save R&B.'”
19. “If I’m in the studio, I’m completely on music. I try to go to that place and that’s the toughest thing for me to do. When I’m with other musicians, sometimes I go back to, almost like, childhood, because that’s what I always wanted to be.”
20. “I’m a southern gentleman.”
Photo by Mike Marsland/WireImage
