Jamie Foxx Explains the Interesting Duality of ‘Spawn’

Jamie Foxx will be the latest actor to embody the role of Spawn, and it looks like he has a pretty unique understanding of how the character works.

In a new interview with Yahoo Movies UK, Foxx chronicled a bit of his history with Al Simmons/Spawn — including personally visiting creator Todd McFarlane to campaign for the role.

“Six years ago, I flew to Phoenix and just walked in on [Spawn creator] Todd McFarlane and said, ‘I want to tell you that you’re a badass and if you ever decide to do the movie, I want to throw my hat in the ring.’ And I had something that I wrote up. He was like, ‘What?!’”

As Foxx explained, what has drawn him to Spawn is the character’s unique sort of duality, one that isn’t really seen in the larger social media space.

“I was like, ‘Man, I don’t think you understand.’” Foxx continued. “Spawn is one of the most interesting characters. Because he’s blessed by God but he’s raised by the Devil, in a sense. I said, “If you can convey that — that the superhero is blessed by God but raised by the Devil — that’s something we haven’t seen in a while. And it doesn’t take a lot of money to get it off.’”

It turns out that Foxx’s outlook on the movie pretty much hit the spot, as he and McFarlane are now working together on the low-budget feature (alongside Jeremy Renner, who will co-star as Twitch). And it sounds like McFarlane certainly appreciates the points of view of his cast and crew, especially when bringing his property to life.

“He’s got a lot of thoughts on what he wants to do and how to do it,” McFarlane previously told ComicBook.com. “He’s also very kind to go, ‘At the end of the day, Todd, it’s still your movie.’ It’s like I’m gonna be picking his brain as much as possible, and whoever else I get on the set. Not only just the actors, but also the editors and my cinematographer and everybody. Look, I’m gonna be arguably the most naïve, dumb guy on the set every day. So, as somebody who’s been a CEO for decades now, the way to sort of make things work is just surround yourself with good people and give them ownership and give them input into the project. I mean, somebody, at the end of the day, has to make the final call. That’s my position.”

Are you excited to see this latest Spawn movie come together? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

McFarlane’s Spawn movie does not yet have a release date. The film is expected to go into production by the end of the year.