Oscars 2004: If We Picked the Winners (Best Actor)

3. Jaime Foxx - Ray After initial viewing, I was as impressed as anyone with Jaime Foxx's performance as early rock n' roll pioneer Ray Charles in the Taylor Hackford film Ray. As time went on though, questions started to pop into the my head about how much of Foxx's performance was simple mimicry and how much was true-to-life acting. Critics of the performance started to point out, with some legitimacy, that Foxx's uncanny vocal and physical impersonation of rock god Ray Charles was not much more than a parlor trick, as the performance failed to give the audience any real insight to the man's motivation or emotional inspiration. What we get from Ray (as illustrated in the parody film Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story) is a laundry list of achievements and scandals of the life of a stereo-typical rock star, without ever getting to know Ray Charles the artist, or Ray Charles the human being. How much of this though falls on Jaime Foxx? Clearly it is first and foremost the responsibility of the writers to portray the characters of a film as fully-developed individuals, but ultimately, actors must take some responsibility for the roles they play and the choices they make. What's the final verdict then on Mr. Foxx's Oscar-winning role? Despite the fact that he leans heavily on imitation, I can't help but be impressed with the turn. The movie itself has many flaws, and while Jaime Foxx shares some of the blame for this, in this case, I believe that the stereo-typical "rock star biopic" format that the film follows is the sole responsibility of the film's co-writer and director, Taylor Hackford (whose name may be not be coincidental). Nine years later, some of the luster to Foxx's performance has been worn away, but despite the naysayers and their cogent arguments, I can't help but thinking fondly of Jaime Foxx's Oscar-winning performance.