It was the interview clip heard ’round the world. When Julia Fox appeared on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast in February, she discussed being Kanye West’s muse. But then she mentioned her role in “Uncut Gems,” telling listeners that she was writer and director Josh Safdie’s muse. It was the way she said it, though, that really stuck with listeners. Soon the “Uncah Jams” TikTok meme was born. And while Fox later admitted she was stoned during the interview, which is why her pronunciation was, well, what it was, we still want to get to the bottom of what she actually said. Was she Safdie’s muse?
What Was Julia Fox’s Role in “Uncut Gems”?
“Uncut Gems,” starring Adam Sandler, is a gritty drama released in 2019 about a gambling addict jeweler in who has to retrieve an expensive gem in order to pay off his gambling debts. It was written and directed by the Safdie brothers — Josh and Benny. Fox stars as a woman named Julia who bears quite the resemblance to the real-life Julia Fox. She told the “Guardian” in 2020 that she was almost wary when she got the script because the character felt so familiar. “There were a lot of similarities. Even in the character description, I was kind of like: ‘This is a little familiar.’ It was pretty spot-on.”
The Julia in the movie is Sandler’s girlfriend and an employee at his jewelry store. She’s intensely rough-and-tumble, which is something Fox relates to. She told the “Guardian” “being independent, resilient, being a hustler, having a ride-or-die mentality, and overall just being really cute” were all pieces of herself that she saw in her “Uncut Gems” character.
What Has Josh Safdie Said About Julia Fox?
Safdie himself told “The New York Times” that the resemblance between Fox and the character was coincidental initially, but considering he and his brother knew of her prior to casting her, it seems like she was stuck in their brains as they were writing. “When she finished [reading the script], Julia asked me if I had been spying on her because she thought that there were so many strange similarities with the character,” he told the NYT. “But she gave me good feedback, so I would call her on a whim when I had writer’s block, and I would ask her for advice. The character was just kind of constantly evolving to become more specific to her.”
Others who know Fox or worked on the film shared with NYT that they felt the character was 100 percent Fox, with one of her friends sharing, “I don’t even know how to say it other than, that is her. We’ve had those moments.” But despite the role feeling like it was tailor-made for Fox, she told the “Guardian” that other women auditioned for it before it was given to her.
So there you have it. Fox was, in some ways, Safdie’s muse for “Uncut Gems” after all.