Jamie Foxx set the standard for portraying a star in a bio-pic with his Oscar-winning performance as Ray Charles in the 2004 hit Ray. Now Foxx has been cast to play Mike Tyson in a bio-pic that is projected to start production within a year to 18 months.
But the athlete he would really love to portray is NFL Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor. The ferocious Giants linebacker changed the game with his defensive dominance while his life off the field included drug abuse, jail and outrageous sexual encounters, one of which led to a criminal charge.
"I'm not big enough, but I think the story of Lawrence Taylor is amazing," Foxx told ThePostGame. "Lawrence Taylor was a guy who absolutely revolutionized his position. And his life -- how tragic it was. The backstory of what he was going through."
Foxx said he got to know Taylor when both were working in Oliver Stone's 1999 football movie Any Given Sunday.
"He was an amazing force, an amazing character," Foxx said of Taylor.
Foxx, who was speaking at the Harold & Carole Pump Foundation's awards banquet in Century City, California, also earned critical acclaim for his role of Drew 'Bundini' Brown, a cornerman for the heavyweight champion of the world, in the 2001 bio-pic Ali.
Taylor helped the Giants win two Super Bowls including one after the 1986 season in which he earned the NFL MVP award. No defensive player has won it since. He was also selected to the NFL's 75th Anniversary All-Time Team.
During an interview with 60 Minutes in 2003, Taylor said he tried to get an edge on opponents by sending prostitutes to their hotel rooms the night before the game.
"You know what they like, and what type of women they like, and you just call the service," he told Mike Wallace.
Among the highlights of his post-football career were his terrific work against Bam Bam Bigelow at WrestleMania XI and advancing past midseason on Dancing With The Stars in 2009.
But in 2011, Taylor was sentenced to six years probation after pleading guilty to sexual misconduct with an underage girl.