There was a brief time, before his massive overexposure, when I actually thought I liked Jamie Foxx. I got over that pretty quickly when his face started popping up on every awards show and Oprah special to blight the landscape of my television viewing. Now, post-Ray, Jamie Foxx is a Hollywood staple and there’s just no escaping him. Will he turn his ridiculous, completely unwarranted stardom into a challenging and many layered career as an actor, or will he give up and start repeating himself in an endless string of movies where he’s asked to impersonate famous black musicians? It’s starting to look like he’ll choose the latter.
Cinematical says that Jamie has been cast to play the pot smoking reggae legend Bob Marley in an upcoming film from Oscar nominated director Rachid Bouchareb. The idea for the movie came from Bob’s widow Rita, so you can be sure that it’ll probably be filtered through rose colored glasses. Widows rarely remember the reality of their loved ones existence, death tends to idealize people and make them seem better than they actually were.
Unlike some other recent biopics, Bouchareb’s movie won’t focus on Marley’s stardom, but instead it’ll start right from the beginning with his childhood and tell his story up through young adulthood. So though Jamie will play Bob, it’s safe to assume that he won’t be the only one playing him. Expect a cast of similar looking kids at different ages to take on Marley as he grows up.
Can Jamie play Bob Marley? Why not. He doesn’t look like him, but he didn’t really look like Ray Charles either. Will they let him sing this time, or will he simply lip synch and then later pretend he did all his singing even though he didn’t? I vote for lip synching. Jamie’s pretty overrated as a musician.
