Hollywood has gone a bit crazy lately. Jamie Foxx might make it worse.
Sure, after a lifetime of watching fad religions, inexplicable diets, weird fashion trends and pretty much anything relating to Angelina Jolie, a casual observer might think that Tinseltown was already in the grips of irretrievable lunacy. But no casual observer could have predicted the sheer madness of dramatic and comedic actors switching sides these days on the silver screen.
Foxx has emerged as the newest and most startling of these occurrences. Foxx rose to fame by working his way up from the standup comedy circuit to TV's \In Living Color,"" then through a slew of comedies that ranged from the forgettable ""Breakin' All the Rules"" to ""Booty Call,"" which audiences can only wish to forget. But now, after testing the dramatic waters in ""Any Given Sunday"" and ""Ali"" with supporting roles, Foxx took the full plunge this year with ""Collateral,"" in which he ably stood toe to toe with an A-game Tom Cruise.
More recently came ""Ray,"" in which Foxx raised eyebrows with his astonishing portrayal of legendary soul singer Ray Charles, and quite possibly sealed himself as an Oscar-winning dramatic-actor moving forward. Reports even have him leading in ""American Beauty"" director Sam Mendes' next film. This stunning move from comedy to drama puts Foxx in very exclusive company, topping even the best recent dramatic plunges of comics, like Adam Sandler in ""Punch-Drunk Love"" and Jim Carrey in ""Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.""
It's no rarity for actors to switch back and forth between drama and comedy. Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant did it all the time. Tom Hanks and Reese Witherspoon do it now. Heck, Will Smith even made the move from comedy to drama to recently working exclusively with robots, talking animals and aliens-at least, as long as you count the illegal aliens in ""Bad Boys 2""-and will soon be moving back to straight comedy with ""Hitch.""
But while Foxx, Carrey and Sandler dabble with successful dramatic turns, some major careers have taken bizarre detours into comedy lately. Robert DeNiro, among the most storied of dramatic American actors, has dived almost completely into comedy in the last few years. He now has two ""Analyze This"" movies under his belt, as well as two ""Meet the Parents"" movies as of this December, and three movies in which he co-starred with a cartoon fish, a CGI moose and Eddie Murphy, respectively.
Or how about Dustin Hoffman? After years playing clownish dramatic roles, he has switched to playing dramatically more clownish roles, appearing in ""Meet the Fokkers"" with DeNiro after handling the artsy comedy ""i TM Huckabees.""
But now things have gotten truly out of control with one woman-Nicole Kidman. After huge critical success at the beginning of the decade, Kidman has gone nuts. She appeared in the wacky summer flop ""The Stepford Wives"" and now is set to appear in the action thriller ""The Interpreter,"" followed by adaptations of TV's ""Bewitched"" and Mel Brooks' ""The Producers,"" followed by ""Eucalyptus,"" a comedy with Russell Crowe. Huh? How does that work? She already starred in the creepy, nonsensical ""Birth,"" which falls squarely into the category of bad idea. But how does someone go from Oscar-winning portrayal of Virginia Woolf to two movies co-starring Matthew Broderick?
The genre experimentation fad has gone too far. Foxx might have a bright future ahead of him in drama, but other actors should look at the failures-Ashton Kutcher trying drama in ""The Butterfly Effect"" leaps to mind-before attempting the big switch. Otherwise, what will come next? Jack Black in a weepy melodrama? Al Pacino doing slapstick? We need people like Will Ferrell, who know what their strengths are. Kidman needs to mark the end of the trend before it gets out of control.
Otherwise, awkward genre-hopping might get bigger than the Atkins Diet, Capri pants, Scientology and Angelina Jolie combined.
