Jamie Foxx and Ken Jeong agree to star in each other's movies, are apparently buddies now
Look out, ethnic stereotypes: Ken Jeong and Jamie Foxx are gunning for you. The L.A. Times is reporting that the somewhat unlikely double-team of Jeong and Foxx are kind of working together now, in a quid pro quo “exchange of sorts.” The exchange (of sorts) will see Jeong starring in the indie All-Star Weekend, a sports comedy written and directed by Foxx, while Foxx will take the lead role in After Prom, another buddy comedy of the jock/nerd mold that Jeong is producing.
The Times exclusive, which notes that Foxx and Jeong have "both subverted ethnic stereotypes to great comedic effect," kind of suggests there’s something equally radical or racially subversive in this tit-for-tat casting, as if it’s earth-shattering to cast Ken Jeong in a basketball buddy movie—because he’s, you know, Korean-American—or to have Jamie Foxx potentially play a former nerd. But more intriguing is the implication of Jeong and Foxx being BFFs: trading movie roles, staying up late telling each other secrets, sharing inside jokes, vacationing together, naming their children after one another—just really understanding one another—until the two actors are starring opposite each other in everything, eventually merging into one singular, indistinguishable atomic unit, the Jeoxx, that exemplifies everything funny about post-racial America, maybe culminating in some sort of Freaky Friday-style body-swap.