Jamie Foxx

Most of the supporting cast in Ali is overshadowed by the swaggering performances of ringleader Will Smith and Jon Voight as Howard Cosell. But if you look closely, you will see that the movie's most tragic and comic moments come from Jamie Foxx as Ali's corner man, Drew (Bundini) Brown.

Cocky, drug addled, desperate for redemption, Foxx's rendering of Brown is almost every bit as bold as director Michael Mann's film. Foxx, 34, studied videotapes of the champ's confidant, who died in 1987, and gathered anecdotes from those who knew him. An ace impersonator, Foxx also clowned around on the phone, as Bundini, with Ali himself. "You'd hear Muhammad laughing," recalls Foxx, "like he was talking to his old friend."

Foxx is best known as a comedian--on TV's In Living Color and The Jamie Foxx Show, and he's appeared in half a dozen mostly forgettable big-screen comedies. But he started getting serious in 1999 with a bravura performance as an ego-driven quarterback in Oliver Stone's football drama, Any Given Sunday. "Chris Tucker beat me to the slot of big comedy," he says. "Chris Rock has his own slot. Will's got his slot. So do Martin Lawrence and all those guys. I got lucky in getting the chance to do something dramatic."

Now, with his solid reviews in Ali helping cement his reputation as a Serious Actor, Foxx is dreaming large. "If I were to ever win an Oscar," he says, "I'd have a gold chain with the Oscar on my neck everywhere I went."