It seems to be a rite of passage for every actor at some point to play a boxer. Despite the sport becoming an afterthought in today’s world, there’s never a shortage of compelling boxing movies and of course, boxing itself is just a great visual metaphor for storytelling.
The latest actor to join the club is Jamie Foxx. The multi-talented performer has been trying to get a Mike Tyson film made for years now and it looks like things are finally coming together. Why? Well, because Foxx took to Instagram to share some shirtless selfies of his progress in bulking up to play Iron Mike, and you can check them out down below.
As Foxx mentions in his post, the movie is called Finding Mike. Little else is known about the project though, including who’ll write and direct. It’s also unknown what period in Tyson’s life will be covered. Foxx is only a year younger than Tyson is now and while he looks ten years younger, perhaps there’ll be some de-aging happening in the film.
In any case, Tyson has certainly had an interesting and tumultuous life, to say the least. Growing up poor in Brooklyn, his father abandoned the family and his mother died when he was 16. But four years later, the boxer would become the youngest heavyweight champion in history, though that success wouldn’t last. Tyson was convicted of rape in 1992 and spent three years in prison. He also filed for bankruptcy after losing more than $300 million in career earnings. And let’s not forget the face tattoo, which has actually aged quite nicely.
There’s a lot of ground to cover, then, but Foxx has more than enough experience playing real people. He won an Oscar for portraying Ray Charles and just last year, drew rave reviews in Just Mercy for his portrayal of Walter McMillian, a man wrongfully accused of murder. Jamie Foxx has done impressions of Tyson frequently as well and based on his past work, he should be able to balance performing with impersonating quite nicely.
