In metro Atlanta to shoot a movie, Jamie Foxx was looking for a gym where he could work without attracting notice. With a connection to former Georgia Tech football player Osahon Tongo, Foxx made use of Tech’s weight room Wednesday to get in a workout.
Foxx’s visit to Tech made waves on social media after coach Geoff Collins tweeted out a video of Foxx throwing a pass into the end zone at Bobby Dodd Stadium. (Foxx’s toss deserves some mention. The 53-year-old Foxx, who played the role of quarterback Willie Beamen in the 1999 football movie “Any Given Sunday,” lobbed a high-arcing spiral from about the 47-yard line into the end zone. Not bad.) Perhaps best known for his Oscar-winning portrayal of Ray Charles in the 2004 biopic “Ray,” Foxx was connected to Tech through Tongo, who played linebacker for the Yellow Jackets from 2006-09.
Now a filmmaker in the Los Angeles area, Tongo worked with Foxx on “They Cloned Tyrone,” a yet-to-be-released science-fiction comedy movie for Netflix that also was recently shot in metro Atlanta. Foxx is in Atlanta shooting another Netflix film, “Day Shift,” a vampire-hunting comedy.
A description of the movie from Netflix: “Foxx stars as a hard-working, blue-collar dad who just wants to provide a good life for his quick-witted 8-year-old daughter, but his mundane San Fernando Valley pool-cleaning job is a front for his real source of income, hunting and killing vampires.”
Foxx is not the first celebrity to make use of Tech’s training facilities, a product of the number of famous people coming through Atlanta, Tech’s Midtown location and the athletic department’s willingness to accommodate them (and perhaps benefit from the association). Safety Juanyeh Thomas and defensive line coach Larry Knight were among those who had pictures taken with Foxx.
WWE stars John Cena and Roman Reigns have gotten lifts in at Tech’s weight room – Reigns, of course, was known as Joe Anoa’i when he was the captain of the Jackets football team in 2006. On his monthly podcast released Thursday, athletic director Todd Stansbury revealed that part-time Atlanta resident Elton John plays tennis at the Ken Byers Tennis Complex “on a somewhat regular basis.”
