Foxx: Daughter's Words Mean Most

Fresh off being named Best Actor for his work in "Ray," Jamie Foxx says it's not money or fame that he finds the most rewarding aspect of stardom.

He tells The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith it's the continuing support and backing of his daughter or, as he put it, of his "own seed."

Foxx quoted her while picking up his statuette, saying to the crowd, " I want to thank my daughter for telling me just before I got up here, 'If you don't win, dad, you're still good,' " a line that sparked loud applause.

"In this business, what's really worth it?" Foxx asked. "We do things to make money and to get a gate and get behind it and get the house, and then we look through the magazine -- 'Who's got more money?'

"But what's really worth it? It's those moments when your own seed says something.

"And she's been doing that a lot. She doesn't even know it. Even when my grandmother passed (away), she was there, holding me up. I would fall apart and she'd pick me back up. And to have someone who came from you keep enriching your life, is beautiful."

So, he says, is realizing you've arrived.

"The great part about it is…being in the (Oscars) room where all of the people that you've ever loved in a movie or commercial, anything, are right next to you. So as opposed to nervousness, you look around and, 'Wow! There's Clint Eastwood sitting next to me, or Quincy Jones right behind me. And there's Oprah Winfrey and Lou Gossett Jr.' So your mind begins to go back and think about the certain lines they said in the movies. It's just great. Great to be there.

"It absolutely gives you the keys to a different door. When I was in Venice, Italy, and this was before the Oscar thing started, I ran into Denzel (Washington), who whispered, 'I've been hearing things. Let me talk to you for a second. I've been hearing things about this "Ray" thing. You'll be fine. How old are you?' I'll be 37. 'Yeah, you'll be alright.'

"And then behind you, (you hear), 'Jamie Foxx -- oh, my goodness, Jamie Foxx.' It was Al Pacino. 'Oh, look at you, come here, you,' and he gives me advice. Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise -- the most well-adjusted millionaire in the world -- it's a different club, because they're respecting you now not as just an actor, but as an artist."

That said, Foxx confessed to some last-second uncertainty over whether he'd win the coveted Best Actor Oscar, even though he was heavily favored: "I've always said, 'I'm relaxed. Oh, man, I got it.' And then, when it started getting closer, and when it didn't come right now (as presenter Charlize Theron, last year's Beat Actress winner paused before reading the name of the winner), you kind of get a little anxious, a little worried about just, whatever."

Foxx added that it's fulfilling, knowing the public is behind him as well. "Last night, I walk into the Four Seasons, restless, and we go over to the piano and we start singing a Ray Charles song, and everybody in the Four Seasons came to that piano and sang the lyrics. Then we did "Georgia," and I said to myself, 'It's not a win for Jamie Foxx, it's a win for that celebration of that Ray Charles music and that culture and how it's changing culture now.'

"Riding down the street (and hearing a fan sing out Charles lyrics), that's what cinema's about."