LOS ANGELES – June 1, 2016 – SHOWTIME has given a pilot order to WHITE FAMOUS, a half-hour comedy executive produced by Academy Award® winner Jamie Foxx and Tom Kapinos. WHITE FAMOUS will be written by Kapinos, based on an idea by Jamie Foxx, who will guest star in a recurring role. A co-production between Lionsgate Television and SHOWTIME, the project will focus on a talented, young African-American comedian whose star is rising, forcing him to navigate the treacherous waters of maintaining his credibility as he begins to cross-over towards becoming “white famous.” WHITE FAMOUS marks a return to SHOWTIME for Kapinos who created, wrote and executive produced seven seasons of the hit series CALIFORNICATION. The announcement was made today by David Nevins, President and CEO, Showtime Networks Inc.
“I came up from standup comedy, so to be able to share that aspect of my life on screen with a project like WHITE FAMOUS is incredibly exciting,” said Foxx. “We couldn’t have found better partners than SHOWTIME, Lionsgate and Tom Kapinos to tell this story in the best possible way.”
“They say you can’t go home again, but I’m thrilled to be back at SHOWTIME, where I’m equally jazzed to be working with the brilliant Jamie Foxx on the creation of another wickedly profane TV antihero,” said Kapinos.
Academy Award and Grammy® Award-winning actor, comedian and musical artist Jamie Foxx is one of Hollywood’s rare multi-faceted performers. Foxx first rose to fame as a comedian. After spending time in the comedy circuit, he joined the landmark sketch comedy series In Living Color. In 1996, he launched his own series, The Jamie Foxx Show, which was one of the top-rated shows on the WB Network during its five-year run. Foxx not only starred on the series, but served as co-creator and executive producer, and directed several episodes.
Foxx’s portrayal of the legendary Ray Charles in the Taylor Hackford-directed biopic, Ray garnered him an Academy Award for Best Actor and proved to be one of his career’s defining performances. Foxx also single-handedly swept the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards®, BAFTA® and NAACP® Image Awards, as well as numerous other critical awards for his performance. Foxx also earned Oscar, Golden Globe®, SAG, BAFTA and Image Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Michael Mann’s thriller Collateral, opposite Tom Cruise. His big-screen break came in 1999 when Oliver Stone cast him as star quarterback Willie Beamen in Any Given Sunday with Al Pacino. His additional feature film credits include Django Unchained, Dreamgirls, The Soloist, Ali, Miami Vice, Annie, Jarhead, Horrible Bosses, Horrible Bosses 2, Rio, Rio 2, White House Down, Due Date, Valentine’s Day, Law Abiding Citizen, The Kingdom, Stealth, Bait, Booty Call, The Truth About Cats and Dogs, The Great White Hype and The Amazing Spider-Man 2. His upcoming credits include Sleepless and Edgar Wright’s highly-anticipated action thriller Baby Driver opposite Kevin Spacey and Jon Hamm.
Foxx has also achieved a thriving career in music. His fifth studio album, Hollywood: A Story of a Dozen Roses was released in May 2015. In January 2010, Foxx and T-Pain’s record breaking No. 1 song “Blame It” off of his album Intuition won Best R&B Performance by a Duo/Group with Vocals at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards®. Foxx’s album Unpredictable held the number one spot for five weeks and sold over one million units in 20 days. Foxx was nominated for eight Billboard Music Awards®, three Grammy Awards, one Soul Train Music Award, and two American Music Awards®, where he won Favorite Male Artist. The album was nominated for three Grammy Awards in 2006 – including Best R&B Album, the track “Love Changes” featuring Mary J. Blige for Best R&B Performance By a Duo or Group, and the track “Unpredictable” featuring Ludacris for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. Foxx has partnered with SIRIUS Satellite Radio since January 2006, on his own 24/7 radio station called Foxxhole. The station is a combination of comedy and music.
TOM KAPINOS began (and nearly ended) his career in television as a writer for the seminal teen drama Dawson’s Creek. Disillusioned by much of his mainstream television experience, he wrote a screenplay solely for his own amusement. It was a dark comedy about a writer who couldn’t write. His name was Hank Moody. Much to his surprise, dismay and eventual delight, the script attracted the attention of SHOWTIME and David Duchovny. CALIFORNICATION ran for seven seasons on the network, and remains the experience of a lifetime. He most recently developed and executive produced the hit series Lucifer.
