Academy Awards 2004 - Best Actor: Jamie Foxx

Rolling Stone - 11/11/2004
"Foxx's fierce, funny, deeply felt performance deserves to be legendary....Foxx rides this winner to glory."

New York Times - 10/29/2004
"[A] satisfying picture....[With] Mr. Foxx's inventive, intuitive, and supremely intelligent performance."

USA Today - 10/29/2004
"RAY could not have been made without star Jamie Foxx....His portrayal of Ray Charles is such a landmark in making the difficult look natural that you won't talk about anything else when you exit the theater."

Los Angeles Times - 10/29/2004
"One of the striking things about RAY is the way Foxx's performance gives the uncanny impression of watching the real Charles reliving his life on screen. The actor makes us believe that what's in front of our eyes really happened."

Entertainment Weekly - 11/05/2004
"Foxx feels his way into every groove and tremor of that voice -- the sheer locomotive power of it, and the shades of gravelly tenderness, too."

Movieline's Hollywood Life - 12/01/2004
[T]he musical numbers are superbly handled. The sound is extraordinary..."

Uncut - 02/01/2005
"Built around a magnetic performance by Jamie Foxx....[He] brilliantly inhabits Ray's mannerisms..."

Sight and Sound - 02/01/2005
"Foxx's performance is superb in its naturalism and meticulous in its attention to detail....The music provides the most straightforward pleasure in an enjoyable and straightforward film..."

Jamie Foxx stars in this biopic of legendary soul and R&B singer Ray Charles. Skillfully edited and with a keen eye for period detail, the narrative weaves in and out of the past in an interlocking tapestry of the man's rise to fame in the 1950s and '60s. Growing up poor, black, and blind in the rural south, Charles learns--under the tutelage of his tough-love mother (Sharon Warren)--to turn these handicaps into assets. With this training, Ray eventually plays his way into a major deal with Paramount records and earns icon status as an American legend. Along the way, the high cost of fame leads him to engage in abusive relationships, manipulative behavior, and struggles with drug and alcohol problems. This is a dynamite film for the music alone (Charles's actual recordings are used in the film), but Foxx's career-benchmark performance transcends RAY's biopic roots, turning this into a piercing, full-on character study: unflinching, sometimes harrowing, and ultimately deeply moving. The sheer joy of Charles's music comes alive in Foxx's movements, and his character matures convincingly and powerfully. A stellar supporting cast is on hand to back him up every step of the way, including Larenz Tate as producer Quincy Jones, and Kerry Washington as Ray's long-suffering wife, Regina.

African Americans | Biographical | Blues | Documentary | Gospel | Music (General) | Pianists / Pianos | R&B / Soul | Soul | Theatrical Release

Award Winners:

• Academy Awards - Best Actor

Genre:

• Drama Movies