Rather than feel sorry for himself, Jamie Foxx is determined to make the best of whatever difficult situations life throws at him. In 2019’s “Just Mercy,” the actor depicted Walter McMillian, a man wrongfully convicted of murder in the ’80s. Foxx received critical acclaim for his powerful performance, for which he drew inspiration from his dad’s personal experience in prison. “Me having my father, he was put away for 25 dollars worth of illegal substance for seven years,” he confessed to ET. “My father taught me how to play tennis, he taught me how to swim, and to have him taken away from me, I could easily sort of tap into what this story was about.”
The horrendous working conditions that his grandparents, Estelle and Mark Talley, faced while working for rich white families also pushed him to aspire to great success. “My grandmother had to take a lot of disrespect,’ he recounted to The Sunday Times. “They’d call her at all hours and say, ‘Get over here!’ It used to burn me up. They’d call my grandfather, when he was 79, at five in the morning and say, ‘We need you here!’ I hated that. I decided that won’t be me. No, not that. Not me.'”
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One Oscar, one Grammy, a long list of movie credits, and millions of dollars later, it’s safe to say that Foxx has since put this motivation to good use.
