Jennifer Lopez and Jharrel Jerome recall how Jamie Foxx helped them both navigate some hard times

Jharrel Jerome still doesn’t know how Jamie Foxx got his phone number — but it’s a call he’ll never forget.

It was shortly after Jerome costarred in Moonlight, which won the Best Picture Oscar in 2017, and he started getting recognized at industry events.

“Every function I was at, people were giving me a certain look,” he recalls, sitting down with his Unstoppable costar Jennifer Lopez for EW’s Reel Wisdom video series (above), “whether it was like too much love or hate.”

But Foxx, who won an Oscar in 2005 for his portrayal of Ray Charles in Ray, had some simple life advice for the rising star, whom he called out of the blue one day.

“He just told me to breathe,” Jerome recalls. “I can’t remember exactly what he said, but he said the word ‘breathe’ while I’m on this balcony, and I’m freaking out ’cause Jamie Foxx is on the phone.”

Smiling as Jerome shares his story, Lopez almost can’t believe he mentioned Foxx, who she says helped her early in her career when the two started working on In Living Color at the beginning of its third season in 1991.

“If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have made it through that season,” she says, leaving Jerome in disbelief over their random connection. “That was when I first got to L.A…. I used to [go back to New York] every weekend ’cause I was so lonely — I hated it, I missed my family. Jamie and I, we became really good friends, and we’re still friends to this day, honestly. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have got through that. I might have moved back to New York, and none of this would have ever happened. We would not be here right now.”

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Lopez and Jerome star in the upcoming movie Unstoppable (in select theaters on Dec. 6 and streaming Jan. 16 on Prime Video) as mother and son Judy and Anthony Robles, who became an NCAA champion wrestler despite being born with one leg. For all of the challenges he faced on the mat, there were more at home, where he faced a different opponent in his abusive stepfather.

Also, in the video, Jerome tells Lopez he developed “a bit of body dysmorphia,” she shares the acting advice she got from Jack Nicholson on the set of Blood and Wine and explains what she’s learned from the lowest moments of her life and career.