Jamie Foxx recalls how his reliance on humor while recovering from a medical emergency confused people.
The actor was filming Back in action along with Cameron Diaz when he suffered a brain bleed that led to a stroke in April 2023. In his Netflix special that premiered last month, he admitted that he lost days of memory due to the medical incident.
“I was really sick, but now I’m back, I feel good,” Foxx, 57, said in a new appearance on The Graham Norton Show. “It makes you realize that you need people who care about you and love you to get through it.”
While taping the BBC show, which airs on Friday, January 17, Foxx admitted he thought he was being “knackered” when he was told it had been 20 days he couldn’t remember, and that he felt “more than madness”.
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Jamie Foxx on The Graham Norton Show January 17, 2025
PA images/INSTARimages
What happened to Jamie Foxx? The details of the actor’s life-threatening stroke — and why he doesn’t remember the 20 days of recovery
“I knew I had to come back and I realized the way to do that was to be funny,” Foxx continued. “I told so many jokes that people thought I was mad, and then I would act like someone else – I was Denzel Washington for three whole days.”
The recognition comes six-and-a-half years after Foxx made a hilarious impersonation Equalizer actor while interviewing him for Gray Goose’s OUT OF SCRIPT YouTube series.
Washington, 70, was left hysterical as Foxx mocked him for saying, “Get your fucking hands off me” in multiple movies, calling the line Washington’s “calling card.”
Foxx then recreated the facial expressions of his fellow Oscar winner, before continuing the comedic conversation.
After being transferred to a Chicago rehabilitation facility following a near-fatal stroke, Foxx spent weeks learning to walk again. In August 2023, he shared an update on Instagram revealing that he was finally starting to feel like himself again.
The actor waited until January 2024 to resume filming Back in action with Diaz, and discovered on The Graham Norton Show Friday that when there was an action comedy to be made, he was happy to have someone pretend to be him while doing his stunts to “make me look good.”
Diaz, 52, also credited Foxx for bringing her back to movies after a decade-long hiatus, and said she had “a lot of fun” doing her stunts for the film.
“For 10 years I didn’t pay attention to anything – I didn’t accept anything – and then I got this script and I thought maybe it was time,” she added..
Back in action now streaming on Netflix.
The Graham Norton Show airs on the BBC on Friday 17 January at 16:40 ET/22:40 GMT.
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Source: HIS Education