The movie director Jamie Foxx thinks of as a hip-hop artist
Singer, rapper and actor Jamie Foxx has worked with a number of movie directors during his lengthy career as an actor. However, in an interview, he insisted that Quentin Tarantino’s style of directing is akin to listening to a hip-hop artist.
Foxx found out more about Tarantino when the pair worked together on the 2012 Western film Django Unchained. His experience working with Tarantino reminded him of an artist as he saw his fantastic ability to improvise while on set. To Foxx, this gave Tarantino’s filmmaking a musical quality.
In an interview following the movie’s release, Foxx told an online magazine about his interactions with Tarantino while filming Django Unchained. Opening up about their exchange, Fixx told the magazine, “Quentin Tarantino is a hip-hop artist. I told him, ‘You’re hip-hop!’ You keep seeing surprises and a clip here and there because Quentin is hip-hop.”
Drawing the comparisons to music, Foxx continued, “A hip-hop artist will drop a single, leak something over here, and drop something over there ’cause he knows it’s hot. He’s on the spot with the way he does things. The way his dialogue is, it is a musical.”
In an act of spontaneous improvisation, Foxx revealed that Tarantino rewrote the ending to Django Unchained while the pair were on set in a way that a lyricist may rewrite a verse. Recalling the moment, Foxx remembered, “On the spur of the moment, he rewrote the end of the film.”
Detailing the specific scene he changed, Foxx added, “He blew up the house and said, ‘My ending doesn’t work.’ We were like, ‘What do you wanna do?’ He said, ‘Give me a second,’ and he was walking on the rubble and then said, ‘Okay, I’ve got it!’ He went to his trailer and then came back with the end of the movie. It was dope.”
The Django Unchained soundtrack featured several well-known artists, including the likes of Rick Ross, John Legend and even posthumous 2Pac contributions. However, Foxx was the one who inspired the lyrics the hip-hop artist would use for the film.
Speaking about his curation of the soundtrack, Foxx told Collider, “I said, ‘Rick if you’re gonna write a song for it, I think you should say these words: ‘I need a hundred black coffins for a hundred bad men ‘Dig a hundred black graves so I can lay they ass in.’ That would be my contribution. What he does with it, I don’t know. But, if he does what I think he’s gonna do, it will be crazy.”
Recalling how he got Rick Ross on board, Foxx told the magazine, “I ran into Rick Ross and told him that he had to come by the set. Quentin doesn’t do original stuff, but I didn’t think it would hurt for him to come and feel it. Django is hip-hop. This is a different thing. So, Rick Ross showed up.”
You can hear Jamie Foxx created Rick Ross’ contribution below.