Ray

Taylor Hackford spent 15 years getting the money together rather than making the film; Philip Anschutz financed it all through Bristol Bay Productions. No studio would back it, so it was shot independently; Universal distributed it afterwards. Anschutz set one condition, a PG-13; Hackford walked away twice before Ray Charles and Ahmet Ertegun asked him to return. Charles read the script in Braille and objected to only 2 scenes, one of them his taking up the piano grudgingly. Hackford planned to shoot the playing hands with a double until he learned Jamie Foxx had a classical piano scholarship at college. Foxx played most of the film behind prosthetics that closed his eyes, and sings for Charles only on songs Charles covered early on. The story stays between 1935 and 1965; the one exception is the closing scene at the Georgia state legislature in 1979, added at Charles’s request. At the 77th Academy Awards it won 2 of 6 nominations, lead actor and sound mixing. At the 58th BAFTAs it won 2 of 4, again lead actor and sound. A good fit if it matters that the voice you hear is Charles’s own and the hands at the keyboard really play. Not for viewers who expect the addiction scenes pushed all the way; the financier’s condition held it at PG-13.