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Jamie Foxx was born Eric Bishop on December 13, 1967 in the tiny town of Terrell, Texas. As a kid he liked being a boy scout, playing football and singing in the church choir. In 1989, his life changed forever after he decided to try stand-up comedy on a dare.

Early success at that endeavor led to bit roles on a variety of TV sitcoms which he, in turn, parlayed into his very own show. Soon, he also started appearing regularly in feature films like Booty Call, The Players Club, Held Up, Any Given Sunday, and Bait. But it was only after his sterling work as cornerman Drew 'Bundini' Brown in Ali that critics noticed that Jamie could really act.

In Collateral, he stars opposite Tom Cruise, playing a taxi driver who has been cab-jacked by a heartless hit man. Though cast against type in an understated role, Jamie delivers the best performance of his career, one which might not be forgotten at Oscar season.

KW: What interested you in this project?

JF: "Here's the thing. Michael Mann [director] calls me, and says, 'I want you to do a movie with Tom Cruise. You wanna do it?' I said, 'Are you crazy? I don't care if we're singing show tunes or reciting our ABCs, I want to do it.' Then he says, 'Well, can you play a cab driver?' I said, 'Mike, come on, you saw me in Ali, I do my thing!' He said, 'Can you not do your thing this time?' I asked him what he meant and he said, 'Can you just be simple? Can you be a common man? Can you be indecisive? Can you not be the hero? Can you be an audience member?' And that's who Max is."

KW: So your character, Max, is sort of an observer.

JF: "When you watch it, Max is uncomfortable. He really doesn't want to do anything heroic. He really would rather have this guy [Cruise's character] just leave, and he wouldn't even say anything about all these people that he killed. He just wants his life to go back to the way it was. And it's not until you see a few things happen that you see Max's emotions peek out."

KW: What was it like shooting so many scenes all over Los Angeles inside a cab?

JF: "Michael Mann has all the juice in the world, so he can stop L.A. completely. He even took over the FBI building for a minute. There was this one incident shooting a scene where I'm driving real fast that was frightening. It was 6:30 A.M. and we thought they had blocked off all the streets downtown. We almost didn't make it through an intersection because there was a race car driver controlling my car behind me in the back seat who couldn't see that somebody'd failed to lock up one side of a street. We were flying through this red light, and a car passes. It was really like how they say that your life slows down. I could see every person's face in that car. We were that close."

KW: Did you feel helpless?

JF: "Luckily, I had a braking device, and a little bit of control in the steering wheel. It was funny afterwards, but we missed them by inches. Another time, we were coming down a hill, driving at 65 or 70 miles an hour, and they forgot to lock the hood, and the whole thing comes up and you can't see anything. So, there were some exciting and adventurous moments, even when the camera was off."

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