Jamie Foxx says he felt intimidated by Leonardo DiCaprio on ‘Django Unchained,’ so he secretly added 4 inches to his boots

Jamie Foxx wants you to know something about Leonardo DiCaprio: Even though you see him on yachts in the South of France puffing away on his vape, he does not play around when it comes to his craft.

In fact, he takes it so seriously that, when DiCaprio turned up on the set of 2012’s Southern epic “Django Unchained,” Foxx, 58, was so intimidated by the “Titanic” star’s imposing presence during rehearsals, he secretly added 4 inches to his boots.

During his appearance on “Baby, This Is Keke Palmer,” which was released Tuesday, Foxx shared stories about his time with DiCaprio, Samuel L.

Jackson, and Christoph Waltz on the set of Quentin Tarantino’s seventh feature film, including how in awe he was of both DiCaprio and Jackson.

Foxx told Palmer that for six weeks, it was just Foxx and Waltz on set — much of the film shows the two teaming up as bounty hunters.

But, eventually, DiCaprio and Jackson showed up to play plantation owner Calvin Candie and his loyal slave, Stephen, respectively.

Foxx joked that the two actors walked on set smoking their vapes and “walking in slow motion.” During their first rehearsal, if Foxx wasn’t already intimidated enough, he realized that DiCaprio was taller than him, which meant during one of their scenes, DiCaprio would be blowing smoke directly into his face. “I can’t beat him,” said Foxx, who is reportedly 5 feet 9 inches tall compared to DiCaprio’s reported 6 feet. “So I went to the wardrobe people.

I said ‘Miss Lady, I need you to put 4 inches in my boots when I do this scene.'” When she asked why, Foxx said he replied, “Don’t worry about it.

I just need 4 inches.” Foxx added that Jackson was “better than everybody” on set, which DiCaprio agreed with, calling him “amazing,” Foxx recalled.

Three years after reports emerged in April 2023 that Foxx had been hospitalized for an unspecified medical emergency, the Oscar-winning actor was able to reflect (and, of course, joke) during his appearance on Palmer’s podcast about the life-threatening situation. “I couldn’t make sense of it,” Foxx said of the stroke, which followed a brain bleed and left him with no memory of 20 days. “The parts I do remember, the rehab part, was frustrating,” he added.

Everyone around him was talking about second chances, he said, but he was still angry about his “first chance.” But one nurse told Foxx that “less than 3%” of people who experienced what he did leave alive. “We usually put them in a box,” she told him, he said.

Eventually, he turned to his trademark comedy skills to cope. “They couldn’t do wellness checks on me, because I only had comedy to lean on,” he said.

His daughter Corinne, also a guest on the podcast, said that when he was admitted to the rehab facility, her dad joked that he was Denzel Washington. “That was the only way I could find myself,” he said.