Jamie Foxx Talks “Sleepless”, Busted Porcelain Veneers And Soulja Boy vs. Chris Brown Beef
As cop movies go, “Sleepless,” starring Jamie Foxx, Michelle Monaghan, Gabrielle Union and Tip T.I. Harris, would seem to be an 80’s style throwback to an older but not gentler look at a time honored Hollywood genre. Centered around the classic movie trope of good cops gone bad against hypnotically urban backdrops, Atlanta serves as Las Vegas in this actioner set to open in theaters nationwide on January 13th, 2017. In advance of that, AHH was able to sit down with Jamie Foxx and his costar Michelle Monaghan to discuss epic fight scenes, the beef between Soulja Boy and Chris Brown, as well as Foxx not getting the call for this year’s presidential inauguration.
AllHipHop: You both have a pretty epic mano a mano fight scene in this movie. What was that like?
Michelle Monaghan: I trained for months. I trained for at least two months three times a week three hours a day. Mixed martial arts with Jeff Imada, our stunt coordinator has done all the “Bourne” movies. Because I did it all with the exception of falling through the glass.
Jamie, how about your take on the battle royale? It looked pretty knock down drag out intense.
Jamie Foxx: Between Soulja Boy and Chris Brown?
That’s interesting too, but I was talking about the one in “Sleepless” between you and Michelle.
Jamie Foxx: Oh okay! I thought you were talking about what was going on right now. We was fighting.
Michelle Monaghan: We were.
Jamie Foxx: Getting it in. She socked me in my face.
Michelle Monaghan: I did, I did.
Jamie Foxx: She socked me right in the face.
Michelle Monaghan: He is such a gentleman. We really – Jamie knows I trained for a few months but we didn’t actually choreograph the scene until that set was ready and the set was just completed two days before it seems like – right before. So we choreographed it and I really didn’t think that I was going to nail the moves until they called action and something just always miraculously happens you know? We did it and then at some point I got a little ahead of myself and maybe the adrenaline was going a little bit too much I don’t know what it was but I was on top of Jamie and I just connected.
Jamie Foxx: Yes. Took off. They yelled action and she chipped my tooth. She really did. Yeah. Cause you know all of this (indicates his teeth) is for show. I take these off at night.
She actually chipped your tooth for real in the heat of battle?
Jamie Foxx: Yeah. I don’t know who here is into porcelain, but like, I live that porcelain life. And you can taste that little chalk you know – like mmmm.
Michelle Monaghan: I looked at my knuckle and I had split my knuckle and I looked at his tooth. I was like, ‘Oh my God!!!’ and he was looking at me and he’s like, “keep going, keep going.” I was like oh my gosh!?! He was a total pro. The next day I was feeling really bad and sheepish. We had to complete the scene or whatever it was that we were doing and I’m trying to steal a glance at his mug and they were like perfect!
Jamie Foxx: Yeah.
Michelle Monaghan: I was thinking to myself, ‘wow, that’s kind of crazy.’
Jamie Foxx: Because my best friend who lives in Atlanta where we were shooting, he’s a dentist. We grew up together. So I hit him up and I said, yo’ money, you gotta put the plaster on. Spackle.
Talk about knowing the right people in the right place at the right time. I suppose it’s good that there weren’t any mishaps with the kitchen scene. That involved not just hand to hand, but pots, pans, knives and some serious martial arts action.
Jamie Foxx: The kitchen scene was exhausting. That was an exhausting day. I remember my guy – I can’t remember his name now but the guy that I was fighting, you know he had to do a lot of things so we had to take a couple of water breaks. You know, relax.
It was Tim Connolly as per the press pages. He was the world’s number two-ranked Tae Kwon Do competitor, plus he is a regular at the U.S. Olympic Training Center when he’s not doing pictures like this. As such, I think those water breaks were warranted. With fight scenes or any of the other scenes for that matter, were there any sequences that ended up on the cutting room floor that you wish would have stayed in?
Jamie Foxx: No not the best stuff. I just think there were some things that we never got a chance to shoot. I mean you’re always – I mean this was the indie process. You’re like, ‘aw man, maybe we could have got that,” but all in all it was cool.
That’s it? Nothing more to say on that?
Jamie Foxx: There was this part where I was- naw I’m just kidding. Like we were talking about earlier about the genesis of the movie, you know…