Jamie Foxx To Play The President In Roland Emmerich's White House Down

If you're like us, you're probably still losing your mind over the first trailer for Django Unchained,
the new film from Quentin Tarantino that stars Jamie Foxx as an escaped
slave on a search for vengeance. The Western-inspired revenge saga
looks gorgeous, and even better, it seems to feature the kind of
performance from Jamie Foxx that's more like what we expected to see
after his Oscar-winning turn in Ray. Foxx is clearly an actor with a ton of range, and while the lead role in Django
will probably give him plenty of chances to show it off, it probably
won't hurt either to take on a role that's completely and totally
different for his next effort.



And though Roland Emmerich's White House Down may be the opposite
of the genre-bending, hyper-intelligent work Quentin Tarantino does,
we're sure Foxx will fit in just fine there too. Deadline
reports that Foxx is currently in talks to play the President in the
new Emmerich film, which stars Channing Tatum as a Secret Service agent
who single-handedly has to protect the President after an attack on the
White House. Yes, not only is this essentially Die Hard at the
White House, but there's a very similar project in the works with Gerard
Butler attached-- though the more excellent cast that White House Down gets on board, the more I become convinced it will be the only one to actually go into production.



To play the title character in a Quentin Tarantino film, the President and a gangster named Motherfucker Jones (in last year's Horrible Bosses)
is a pretty crazy accomplishment for any actor, but we're especially
excited to see it happen for Foxx, who hasn't really lacked for work in
the decade since he won his Oscar, but who hasn't done work nearly as
fascinating since. Django may still be the more challenging role, but if
playing the President in a Roland Emmerich isn't a bucket list item for
Foxx, he's clearly been planning his acting career wrong.