"The Perception Kills Us": Jamie Foxx Works to Change Ideas of Prison with 'Just Mercy' | Actor Roundtable - video Dailymotion

Hollywood Journal

Robert De Niro, Tom Hanks, Jamie Foxx, Adam Sandler, Shia LaBeouf and Adam Driver joined for the annual Actor Roundtable.

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00:00Jamie you played a real-life character when you're playing that role how much

00:08do you have to be faithful to him the first thing that helped me was

00:11aesthetically we are part of the same tribe in a sense our cheekbones are the

00:17diamond-shaped head that haircut that he had I had that in the 80s as well so

00:22aesthetically we were we were ahead of the game I didn't have a chance to see

00:27him actually alive but I had to sort of like piece things together through what

00:31people would say and then talking to Bryan Stevenson and hearing him talk about

00:36the real life attorney the real life it was based on who you know goes and meets

00:41this this guy on death row and finds out all these incredible these horrible

00:46things that he's on death row without a trial they say killed a white woman in

00:50the city they'd never been in in like he couldn't believe that this existed but he

00:54told me how Walter was he felt like you know since I'm in this situation oh I

01:00might as well do everything I can to help so when you see in the movies talking to

01:03all the prisoners and everything like that trying to keep up their morale these

01:06guys on death row so I took that as the spirit of it and then it was a matter of

01:12the vernacular being in you know Alabama and the way they talk like that

01:18where they the way they say their things and you know and to make that not be

01:23caricature like I remember Michael B George listen I don't do that because it

01:27started sounding like something to do where we really couldn't understand me so

01:32we sort of dial that in so sometimes you have to rely on the people that are

01:35around you to say what what makes the most sense you shot in a real-life prison yeah right because

01:46those prison scenes are phenomenal they're really incredible did you think the one moment when the

01:53cuffs was being put on me and they had a guy who was part of the prison system it

01:58wasn't part of the movie yeah yeah squeeze it tighter oh yeah squeeze it tighter because he's

02:03a he's a bigger one yeah squeeze it tight you know there's a couple of times I'm like hey man

02:08don't squeeze them don't they're tight enough you know what I'm saying so he doesn't know that he's

02:14saying something that is taking me to yeah I'll come out these cuffs but that's his everyday life

02:22uh-huh we become so used to it too because we're talking to bribes brian stevens and talking about

02:27changing the perception because the perception kills us it's like the reason I don't want to go

02:31see somebody in jail is because I don't want to get used to it but so many people are just used to

02:37seeing their father their brother the who of the mothers in jail and the next thing you know we

02:41start rapping about it we should rap about being in jail because we don't have we don't have any

02:46other thing this is all we see so it's a it's a you know it was a tough it's a tough thing

02:57the movie process it's a little bit different if you know what I mean it's it's like you mean

03:04it's in theater just not even that just like when I was on uh uh any given Sunday I remember Oliver

03:10Stone when I first auditioned was like you're horrible when I auditioned and I was like what

03:17because I was a television actor so everything I did was loud yeah so you better understand this

03:23with the football in the air man and he was like he was like get the fuck out of the air man

03:29I finally get tough huh very tough no but it was but I learned from that toughness meaning like when

03:36he finally decided to you know make the decision for me to be the lead he still would grill me he

03:43said that's not it that's not it that's not it like working with Quentin Tarantino and I watched an

03:49actor struggle because the the set was like it was heavy I mean you had you had Samuel Jackson

03:56here you had Lee I mean it was some juggernauts you know and saying come on motherfuckers say that

04:00shit and the dude was trying to say come on come on get it oh yeah and the guy was trying to get his

04:06line and I watched Quentin Tarantino go to him now today everything's fine just say line right yeah

04:11and I was like damn this shit ain't gonna work out right but then you see the movie

04:14and Quentin said all I need is one sure even working with Kristoff Kristoff was watching him

04:24work I learned a little more about movie I watched him fold a paper some motherfucker wrote on a thing

04:32and was just supposed to put it in his pocket it seemed like it took him forever to do it

04:36and he had it was nothing else existed but that moment right Kristoff was process wasn't that I'm

04:52going to have all of these things memorized and do all of these things at once he would give you

04:57these and calm yourselves gentlemen I one more time calm yourself gentlemen I am but a weary traveler

05:05and we were watching it and Leo was like

05:08I said Leo you think you got it he's got

05:12just keep watching some shit is going

05:16and you see all these little bits of things and then all of a sudden in the movie boom

05:23calm yourself gentlemen I was like oh shit and then I'd like to thank the academy

05:29you

"The Perception Kills Us": Jamie Foxx Works to Change Ideas of Prison with 'Just Mercy' | Actor Roundtable

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