Ray
Short description
Ray is a biographical drama about the American musician Ray Charles, following him from a childhood on a sharecropping plantation in northern Florida, where he lost his sight at seven, through his years of performing on the southern circuit, to the breakthrough that made him an international star. His mother's insistence that he fend for himself shapes his determination, and his mixing of gospel with country and other popular styles gives him a sound of his own. Alongside his professional rise, the film shows his struggles with drug use and his complicated relationships with women. Jamie Foxx plays Ray Charles, with Kerry Washington as Della Bea Robinson, Regina King as Margie Hendricks, Harry Lennix as Joe Adams, Clifton Powell as Jeff Brown and Bokeem Woodbine as Fathead Newman.
Taylor Hackford directed from a screenplay by James L. White, and produced with Howard Baldwin and Karen Elise Baldwin. The film sits ninth in Hackford's directing career, between Proof of Life and Love Ranch, and it was made for a budget of 40 million dollars.
Released in October 2004, Ray earned 124 million dollars worldwide, a strong return against its cost, and it holds a 7.7 rating on IMDb from 165,000 votes and a 7.5 on TMDB from 2,308 votes. A critics' rating of 7.5 from 203 reviews places it in line with those audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Jamie Foxx played the piano himself in all the musical episodes.
- At the request of Ray Charles, the script was specially printed in Braille for him.
- Cinematographer Pavel Edelmann, a big fan of Ray Charles, was the first member of the crew to join the project, a year before filming began.
- Universal Studios joined the project as a distributor only after the film was fully completed. This was partly due to the fact that one of the studio's executives was a fan of Ray Charles and once frequently hitchhiked to his concerts in Hollywood.
- To better portray a blind person, actor Jamie Foxx attended classes for the blind at the Braille Institute in Los Angeles.
- Ray Charles' wife, Della Bea (Kerry Washington), was actually his second wife. His first wife was Eileen Williams, whom he married in 1951 and divorced in 1952.
- The final shots of the film show the real Ray Charles.
- While undergoing rehabilitation, Ray meets a doctor in the hospital whose badge reads: T. Hacker, which is an allusion to the film's director, Taylor Hackford.
- The film was originally titled "Free My Heart: The Story of Ray Charles." However, after Ray Charles' death, it was decided to simply title the film "Ray."
- Jamie Foxx wore special eye prosthetics, partially made of silicone, which meant he genuinely couldn’t see during filming, and shoots lasted up to 14 hours a day. He later recounted in interviews that during the first two weeks of filming, as he adjusted to blindness, he was sometimes overcome with fear. On multiple occasions, the rest of the film crew completely forgot that he was blind and, for example, left him alone at the dining table, automatically assuming he would find his way back to the set after lunch.
- The director's cut of the film has a runtime of 178 minutes.
- The film is based on Ray Charles' autobiography, published in 1978 and titled "Brother Ray" (one of Ray Charles' nicknames).
- Taylor Hackford acquired the rights to make a film about Ray Charles back in 1987.
- For many years, Taylor Hackford was unable to find a studio willing to finance the production. Eventually, after several successful films, the director was able to realize this project as an independent film.
- According to Jamie Foxx, he had practically no time for sleep during filming. He would wake up early, spend the whole day on set, and then return home and rehearse playing the piano for several hours.
- Ray Charles died of liver failure shortly after filming concluded.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
