Jamie Foxx on Bringing Cameron Diaz Out of Retirement

Jamie Foxx and Dave Franco chatted with “Extra’s” Rachel Lindsay about their Netflix movie “Day Shift,” revealing they wrote a song and star in a video for the vampire flick. Jamie also dishes on bringing Cameron Diaz out of retirement for his upcoming film “Back in Action.”

Foxx took Franco to his hometown of Dallas for the interview, which is Lindsay’s hometown, too!

Rachel of course asked Jamie about Dallas. He shared, “My parents lived in Oak Cliff for a minute… on Cripple Creek and you know what, they had a split level house… I used to brag on my mom. I thought she was so rich… You come in on the top floor, she rich.”

Lindsay wondered, “How often do you get to come back?” Jamie said, “We come back. This is home.”

Revealing where he would take Dave, Jamie said, “The Sonic Burger… Go around that thing a thousand times, trying to find love… Trying to find love and surprises.”

As far as Cameron is concerned, he said he got her on the phone with NFL legend Tom Brady, who just came out of retirement as well.

Foxx said, “I've known Cameron for some years and we did ‘Any Given Sunday’… I met her on ‘In Living Color’ when she was doing the movie [‘The Mask’] with Jim Carrey. So it was just like, we miss her so much and it was basically a plea of like, you know, ‘Give us, give us, give us something else’… Having the ability to call Tom Brady and things like that was really, I think, innovative and it was great. And she went with it and so now we'll be in the next Netflix phenom after this phenom ‘Day Shift.’”

In “Day Shift,” Foxx plays Bud Jablonski, whose job is hunting and killing vampires. He’s been ousted from the underground union, but he’s allowed back in as long as rep Seth (Franco) can join him while he works.

Jamie handpicked Dave for the role. Foxx said, “J.J. Perry from Texas, from Houston, he directed [and] put this brilliant, fun movie together. But I said, ‘Hey, I can't do the movie unless I get Dave Franco’… I'm a comic snob. And in this movie, we need comedy… Something about him intrigued me, the way he made me laugh.”

Foxx started courting him, with Dave explaining, “He started texting me pictures of myself on the red carpet.”

Jamie said, “I said, ‘How you funny and look this good?’… I love people who are able to not only do the comedy, but do the acting as well.”

Dave gushed of Jamie, “You expect certain things when you work with Jamie Foxx. He surpassed. You do your best work because you are willing to take risks… Anything I say, he turns into gold. He makes me look good.”

Jamie said, “I worked with Robin Williams… I watched Robin Williams do one line 12 times, 12 different ways, and they were all great. I watched him do the same.”

The movie marks Perry’s directorial debut, but he’s worked on everything from "F9: The Fast Saga" to "John Wick" to "Blade.” Dave said, “He’s the most experienced first-time director of all time.”

Jamie is doing stunts, including killing a vampire grandma in the trailer. He said, “When I saw the choreographed scene of me and the old lady, I said, ‘My God, how long is that gonna take?’ He says, ‘I got you, dog…’ The next thing you know, the beautiful dance between myself, my stunt guy in the choreography… It's, it's something you never seen. And then, even the practicality of it, like, when the lady regurgitates on me like that, that's just, like, that ain't CGI. That's just, like, a tube and some margarita mix, just because it was flying everywhere. And, and I thought that was just so brilliant.”

Jamie and Dave also broke the news about writing a song and making a music video. Dave said, “So there's a line I say at the end of the movie, I say, ‘Mowing down vamps with my best friend’… J..J calls ‘cut,’ this guy comes up to me, he's already recording me, says, ‘Say that line again, but say it like this…’ Little do I know. He then sends that video to his music producer within an hour, his producer has put it into a full song. He's now playing it on set through his boombox backpack. And all of a sudden, I'm a musician.”

Foxx added, “I write a song for every movie that I'm in. But sometimes it's just to have the vibe… I'm very thoughtful of people's time. I hit Dave, I said, ‘Listen, if you if you could give us an hour, come down… Here's the thing. When you do the music video, I want you to play that guy that I sent you the picture of, I want to fly his version of you.’” He added that they will drop the video after “Day Shift” premieres.