Jamie Foxx breaks teeth for latest role
Actor Jamie Foxx has revealed that he had his teeth chipped for his new movie.
The Ray star put himself through the painful process so that he looked like a tramp for his role in his latest venture The Soloist.
Oscar-winning Foxx, who plays homeless man Nathaniel Ayers in the film, went to the extreme lengths of asking a dentist to sabotage his perfect smile to make certain he looked the part.
He was quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) saying: “My teeth look like a piano. If I am dressed as a homeless person and then you see these great teeth, it would be ridiculous. I had them chiselled down and they looked a little crooked. It worked and it gave more authenticity to being homeless.”
Foxx is reported to have gone even further in quest to portray this role accurately by shaving off his eyebrows and continuing to pretend be the schizophrenic musician off-camera as well as on it.
Talking to SMH Foxx said: “I didn’t want to stay in character, believe me. But I didn’t have a choice. I bumped into Steven Spielberg one day during filming and he asked me how I was doing. When I asked why, he said, ‘That role you’re playing, it can be a little touch and go’.”
The Soloist, which also stars Robert Downey Jr., is the story about a journalist from Los Angeles who befriends a homeless musician while looking for a new article for the paper. Directed by Joe Wright, whose other works include Atonement (2007) and Pride & Prejudice (2005), the film is due for release around the end of September 2009.
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