The offbeat new thriller Sleepless stars Jamie Foxx as a shady cop searching for his kidnapped son. A remake of the 2012 French thriller Sleepless Night, it costars Michelle Monaghan, Scoot McNairy and Gabrielle Union. But it wasn't always so much fun on set.

Jamie Foxx stars in SleeplessJamie Foxx stars in Sleepless

"When you're working in this business," Foxx says, "and you get the chance to work with people that are real cool and whom you respect, it's great. Like Michelle, we get a chance to do this tango, and then that fight scene was so much fun. Pulling that off was great!"

Monaghan famously chipped Foxx's tooth at one point during their on-screen tussle. "Yeah," Foxx laughs. "Because things were sort of running together. And so when we got a chance to do our thing, and Michelle can really really swing, she hit me in the mouth. And the cameras, they were running, but there wasn't time for me to move my head. She kicked my ass! It didn't hurt our relationship, but it took a minute."

Watch the trailer for 'Sleepless' here:


 

Foxx enjoyed the way the film plays with the genre. "We've seen this kind of movie before, but we put our imprint on it," he adds. "We're not trying to reinvent the wheel, we just put some new spokes on it."

To give things a twist, director Baran bo Odar gave Foxx one word to connect to his character. "Yes, right in my ear: 'Sexy!' Then, I would go and take off," Foxx says. "That's all I needed to get my engine going: sexy cops and robbers! And I think there are greys in the characters, layers of being good and being bad. It's always more interesting to watch."

With three more films in pre-production at the moment, Foxx doesn't plan to slow down. He turns 50 at the end of this year, and laughs about his family's reaction to his hyperactive personality. "My daughter is like, 'Dad, will you please catch up to your age?' Me and all my friends, we just act the same like we've always acted years ago, but I think it's a different time," he says. "It's funny, I go to DJ clubs and the average age is 21, 22. They see me hanging out with Drake and Kanye and think I'm young like them.When I told a girl how old I am, you would have thought I told her I had a terminal disease. She said, 'Oh my God, 49! Can't you die from that?' I think it's the way you live your life. I live young and I keep the weight off of me."