Q: Which one of your kids demanded more money, Jaden or Willow? Are you planning to work with either of them in any film soon?

Will Smith: Jaden, we say when we look at Jaden and Willow, that Jaden is Johnny Depp. He just wants to do good work, he doesn’t care what money he gets. He doesn’t care if people see it or don’t see it. He loves acting, he just wants to make good movies. Willow is Paris Hilton. (laughs) Willow wants to be on TV. (laughs) We are managing both of those in our household.

Q: How attached did you get to Samantha, the dog in “I Am Legend?”

Will Smith: Oh, Abbey is the dog’s real name. When I was probably nine years old, I had a dog Trixie. It was a white golden retriever that got hit by a car. So now I refuse, I have had no animals. ‘Jada, you can have the dogs you want, the kids can have the dogs they want, but I’m not putting myself emotionally connected to a dog anymore.’ Then, they brought that damn Abbey on the set. You say a ‘smart’ dog. It got to the point with Abbey that she would be playing, playing, playing, and she would hear ‘Rolling!’ so she would run over to her mark and get ready. I was like ‘What in the hell?’ It’s like she would know when I wasn’t doing my lines right. If I would get lost in the scene she would just go silent you know? (laughs) It was the first time I had allowed myself to connect and be fond of a dog, since that experience, and to the owner I said, ‘Please, Abbey had to live with me. Please.’ He was like ‘Well, this is how I make my living, man.’ I was like ‘Tell me what you need. Tell me what you need. A house in the hills?’ But she was smart, just fun, and warm. I experienced the pain again, because he said ‘I’ll bring her over every weekend Will, but she has to work.’ It was painful. She is great. I used to watch ‘Lassie’ and animals really can be smarter than other animals. She is way on another plain of connecting to what your energy is, what your feelings are, and protective. It’s beautiful.

Q: When is the last time you were called “Fresh Prince?”

Will Smith: About four seconds ago (laughs).

Q: Do you still talk with DJ Jazzy Jeff?

Will Smith: Yeah, Jeff and I perform a couple of times a year. We’re going to go out big in July. We are figuring out some places around the world to do some big shows. It’s about to be that circle back to the golden age of hip-hop. There is starting to be a little resurgence, so yeah, we are planning some things. As far as Fresh Prince, it’s interesting. On July 6, 1996 ‘Fresh Prince’ stopped. After ‘Independence Day,’ that Monday, after ‘Independence Day’ was the first time that anyone called me Mr. Smith. I was like, ‘What the hell?’ All through ‘The Fresh Prince’, all through the music, it was ‘Fresh Prince, Fresh Prince.’ And that morning, when the box office numbers came out, after ‘Independence Day,’ it was ‘Good morning Mr. Smith.’ It was so bizarre. I specifically remember that morning is when people started calling me Mr. Smith.

Q: Will the new tour coincide with your next film “Hancock?”

Will Smith: Yeah, it will probably go out with ‘Hancock’ and do performances with premieres around the world.

Q: After “I Am Legend” do you want to do a comedy?

Will Smith: Yes.

Q: What’s next?

Will Smith: Working with Gabriele (Muccino) on something in March, it’s called ‘Seven Pounds.’ Gabriele has a wonderful insight on who I am and how to get the best out of me. Michael Mann and Gabriele Muccino/ You know how people can have X-ray vision on you? There are some people that you can’t pull tricks on, they know exactly what is going on. They see you, right to the heart of who you are, and what you are feeling. That is the relationship I have with those guys. I’m definitely looking forward to getting back in there with Gabriele. ‘Hancock’ is July 4 with Charlize Theron and Jason Bateman. Peter Berg directed.  Akiva Goldsman, Michael Mann, and myself are producing.

Q: What is “Hancock” about?

Will Smith: If you can imagine, it’s the Michael Mann version of an alcoholic super hero. It is so bizarre. Michael Mann developed a script about an alcoholic super hero.

Q: Isn’t your character in love with his buddy’s best friend?

Will Smith: Right. Jason Bateman plays a publicist and I save his life. He begins to rehabilitate me in the eyes of the public.

Q: The movie with Muccino is a comedy?

Will Smith: No, it’s a dramatic film. It’s fiction.

Q: Many of the books on the “New York Times” best-seller list deals with life, the self-conscious and our feelings. What do you think it is that has people so fascinated in that subject, since that’s what the film deals with?

Will Smith: I think it’s a primal idea. Carl Jung talked about the collective unconscious and how we dream similar things, even though we have no contact with one another. If you map the dreams of an Aboriginal tribe in Australia that has no contact with Tibetan Monks, but if you monitor the dreams, they dream similar things. I think that this is one of those concepts. We have all had a piece of that collective unconscious idea. We have all dreamed about, or had nightmares about being alone, being by ourselves. It’s the representative dark of the unknown and what that would be. The fear and the converse of the fear is the hope, the hope that you connect to those concepts.

Q: With the holidays coming up, are your kids expecting a Lamborghini? How do you keep them grounded?

Will Smith: It’s funny, it’s really simple. Jaden and Trey are very simple. Willow just wants clothes. She loves it, she’s dressed herself since she was about four years old. She is very specific about her style. She is very specific about how she wants to look, how she wants to present, the sizes and all that. Willow is like a …

Q: Would you say she’s like a shop-a-holic?

Will Smith: It’s funny, she doesn’t like shopping. She doesn’t like going out and shopping. She wants you to think about her and she loves the idea that she gets things by surprise. Christmas really isn’t big for her. If she knows its coming it’s not as big of a deal. Jaden just wants his family around. Anything that causes the whole family to be together, that is what he wants.

Q: How do you manage to keep them grounded?

Will Smith: We live in La-la-land out here. Los Angeles and New York are cut off from the rest of the country and the rest of the world. For us, traveling is hugely important, for our kids to really see other things, and experience other things. We have taken them to South Africa. Gabriele hosted us just outside of Rome in his town. We try to get them to experience how other people live. The grounded idea is more of a concept of how you relate to your service of mankind. That is what we try to impart to our children. You are a part of a whole, and you have a responsibility to uplift and be a positive influence, on the whole. We feel like that will help with the concept of grounding in this.

Q: Is there another country you would like to take your family to and possibly live in?

Will Smith: Not to live. To me, Los Angeles and Miami, I just can’t imagine topping those places for where I would love to live. I have a theory that cities and towns have, essentially, emotional patterns. There are cities that each and every one of us could live in, that match our emotional pattern, that we would just be better people if we lived in this place. I think that my emotional pattern is like the weather patterns of Los Angeles and Miami. Its warm all the time, it rains a little bit, but when it does its fun because it cools it off. The traffic might get a little bad but it’s not like being in four inches of snow in traffic. Jada needs four seasons. She can’t function if it’s warm all the time, it’s light and fun all the time, and she needs the hibernation. She needs the time where nothing is moving, it’s quiet, you aren’t hearing cars and horns, because they are muffled by the wonderful snow. If I never, ever, see snow again for the rest of my life, that’s great.