"Anybody got any shades?" asks Jamie Foxx. He borrows a pair, and suddenly the built 36-year-old is transformed into a scrawny 70-year-old Ray Charles, complete with a trembling, stammering voice and feeble body language.
"The voice ... it's in the shades," Foxx said.
These shades transform Foxx into Ray Charles -- the same way a cape transforms Clark Kent into the Man of Steel.
Ray Charles was a different kind of blind man, and playing him was not easy. He had no cane or Seeing Eye dog, and he needed no one's help.
"He lives his life regular. He's old school. Ray was very charmed as a young kid ... very smart. [He] knew how to manipulate, knew how to move, knew how to get women," said Foxx, in an interview in the Ritz Carlton in Georgetown. "When I played him blind we got a prosthetic to put on my eyes. I couldn't see for 12 to 14 hours a day. I couldn't cheat. Even during lunch I would eat lunch blind, which was tough."
Foxx lost all of his inhibitions after a month, but the beginning wasn't easy. He found himself constantly hyperventilating and panicking without his sight. Everything else with the character - his 30-pound weight loss, the hair and the glasses - came easily in comparison.
And the result is that Foxx is doing more than just an impression of Ray Charles. He captures the man completely.
"What you have to do is go beyond the impersonation," Foxx explained. "Get to the nuances. How does he talk to his kids? How does he talk to his women? How does he get mad?"
Foxx said one thing Americans don't understand about Charles is the depth of his celebrity. When Foxx was doing press in Europe for "Collateral," 40 percent of the questions were about the Charles film instead.
"Less than 15 percent of Americans have passports," Foxx said. "They don't even know anything outside. They say Venice and you think Venice Beach, California. So when you go to these other places, they talk about Ray Charles like he's a god. Over there it's more intense."
Foxx cites the pressure of being an African-American actor as incentive to be a better actor. White actors have a myriad of nationalities to play, but, according to Foxx, "When it's black, it's just black. So you gotta be tight."
However, Foxx said when he makes a bad movie, like "Breakin' All the Rules," he hears about it.
"You gonna see 'em in the street," Foxx said. "Especially when you come in through the airport and the dude is checking your luggage saying, 'Foxx, what happened? Dude, you owe me $7.50 for this.'"
After "Ray," Foxx said he's almost done with biopics.
"[I] gotta play Mike Tyson," Foxx admitted. "Mike Tyson personifies what America is about. He personifies 'I made it."
