During the interview, Will was really open about everything. He talked about what led him to making âSeven Poundsâ, what else heâs working on, the difficulty of doing his love scenes with Rosario Dawson, how hard it is balancing his life with his stardom.I have to say, for a movie star of his caliber, Will is the best at doing press and he always gives great answers. If youâre a fan of Willâs, youâll love the interview.
As always, you can either read the transcript or listen to the audio by
Question: Will?
Will Smith: Yes.
You know youâve been referred to a lot in the past year as the biggest movie star on planet Earthâ¦
Will: Wow!
â¦so how does the view look from there?
Will: Itâs ahâ¦I readâ¦I wish I could remember. You know my wife always remembers where she read stuff and it sounds cool when you can say the author and stuff, but I read somebody said he was a mountain climber and he set his mind, I want to climb Everest. Iâm going to do it. Iâm going to do it. Iâm going to do it. And he climbed and he got to the top and realized he couldnât breathe, all right? And the only thought that he had was how the hell can I get down off of here as fast as I can? And itâs like this weird thing that kicks in your mind like be careful what you wish for, you know? You go and you fight and go and fight to get there and thereâs this discomfort that sets in. And itâs really the last probably year and a half have been kind of scary and a little bit frustrating for me. I had an epiphany after working on âSeven Poundsâ. I realized that part of that feeling was that I was looking at my life and I was looking at my self and my future too much around these movies. And after âSeven Poundsâ l just had this huge epiphany of how much more I want to be, how much more I want to do, and the idea of living in service to humanity vs. living in service to the commerce of my movies. And that explosion just totally washed away that sort of scary uncomfortable feeling. Itâs like however people look at me as a movie star or notâ¦.I want to be remembered as a man who cared about people and dedicated his life to making the world better, so with that I went from thinking of myself in this high place to damn Iâve got so much to do. I need to get to work. And thatâs so much better a place for me emotionally.
Are you just
Will: I know, right. Iâm just so dude at the dinner table, you know?
Does this mean you want to make message movies though from now on?
Will: Well not message moviesâ¦itâs like with âSeven Poundsâ I was attracted to âSeven Poundsâ not because there was a fantastic one-liner that I could sell around the world very easily, you know? I was attracted to âSeven Poundsâ because there were ideas. There were emotions. There were parts of this character that I was hiding myself from. So it wasâ¦I took âSeven Poundsâ almost as a self-examination--as a self-exploration and Jada said something to me a few months ago. She said, âyou know itâs funny how much I was rejecting this character.â And she was saying âitâs funny how youâre doing that. Sheâs like you know that you are Ben, right?â I was like what? She was like, âthe reason youâre so nice and the reason you fight so hard to be up tone is because youâre at war with that guy inside of you.â You know? I was like damn deep lady! Thatâs what I realized itâs like the projects I was choosing and all like everything had to be okay in the end or it emotionally hurt me, right? So now my sensibilities are becoming slightly less delicate and I may be able to venture out a little bit more into the world of emotional and artistic ambiguity in a way that it strikes me as more authentic but itâs terrifying for me just as a child growing up. Itâs like I needed to know and my grandmother made sure I knew and God is going to make everything okay. So however scary you get, however bad life is just know that thereâs somebody in a high place thatâs on your side. So like to play a character who doesnât necessarily believe thatâto feel like he has to fix it. God made a mistake and itâs his responsibility to fix it and how to carry that emotional weight is a terrifying space for me emotionally and artistically.
What did it for you?
Will: Yeah, you know.. âSeven Poundsââ¦Iâve been exploring the idea of trauma and the relationship between trauma and continuing life, right? So with âI Am Legendâ and then into âHancockâ and now with âSeven Poundsâ Iâm starting the character on trauma, right? And then I was asking the question, âwell, whatâs the difference between-you know-someone who falls into depression and someone like Nelson Mandela or Muhammad Ali or Gandhi or Mother Theresa?â They just keep going in the face of-you know-the ultimate weight of humanity and life. And the thing that I discovered on âSeven Poundsâ is itâs purpose. When you have a purpose, when you wake up and youâve dedicated your life to something beyond yourself, all is bearable, right? And it just so exploded in my mind with this movie and with this character and if thereâs been a movie in my career that I would say changed my life itâs âSeven Poundsâ.
Not âIndependence Dayâ?
Will: Not âIndependence Dayâ, you know? When I punched that alien and said, âWelcome to Earthâ that was a huge moment, you know?
Now
Will: See with the loveâ¦like for me, my grandmother was really firm andâ¦my mother and grandmotherâ¦about how men are supposed to treat women. My grandmotherâ¦you know I started driving and you know when you start driving youâre excited. I run down and go hop in the car and start it and Iâm ready and my grandmother would just stand outside. And she would just standâ¦oh sorry grandma. Iâd get out and run around and open the door, you know so she could get in and close the door. So itâs like, for me, my worst nightmare is for an actress to come on my set and feel like Iâm taking this as an opportunity to get a little quickie feel, you know, some legal cheating going on. I just need, specifically, women to be comfortable around me. I just donât want to feel like Iâm that dude and doing a love scene and her clothes are off and all of that, it just puts me in my defensive space but it also hurts the acting if Iâm in that space. Youâve got to find a comfortable space to feel free and your hand can brush up against her and all of that and itâs not âoh, excuse meâ, you know?
How was Jada about all that? Was she cool?
Will: Oh, Jada said âlisten, I know you are uncomfortable but you better not embarrass meâ. She was like, âWhen you do that love scene you better show them what youâre working with.â
She didnât come to the set that day?
Will: No, no she didnât come to the set. I asked her to come to the set and she was like âAre you stupid?
Will, when you were kid did anybody ever do some random act of kindness for you or even as an adult? Did anyone ever done anything like that for you like out of the blue and unexpected that made you stop and say wow?
Will: I always go to my grandmother. She was that lady. My grandmother was the woman who-you know- you come home from school and thereâs just 4 homeless people in the living room. Youâre like, âoh Gee-Geeâ. Oh weâre just going to give them a bath. Go do your homework. You know? I was like wow. There was alwaysâ¦my grandmother was the randomâ¦and the more random the better it made her feel. So I sort of grew up with the comprehension of what that is. Itâs almost like it was her responsibility. She felt like it was her responsibility because of what she had been blessed with. It wasnât a choice she was making to do nice things for people. It was a responsibility. It was things she had to do.
Mr. Smith, thereâs all these reports about how easy and grounded you are to work with. How do you manage to stay so humble amidst of all your success?
Will: I think because Iâm scared. Itâs like Iâm so grateful to be in a position that Iâm in. To have been blessed with the things Iâve been blessed with and itâs like I was with Redman the other day in
On the Fascinating People interview with Barbara Walters you talked about the only racism you could think about in modern times that you felt was the racism in
Will: I think itâs something thatâ¦and itâs interesting. Iâve never liked the word racism because thereâs so many other connotations that go with it, but itâs like the idea is if you put 10 black artists in a room and we sit down and we come up with something, itâs going to be about black people, right? Because thatâs what we know, thatâs what weâre going to come up with. So itâs not necessarily racism with studios and things like that. Itâs just the majority of the creative people are of a certain background so thatâs what gets produced. Itâs more our responsibility to be able to display and be able to show how it could be different. To show how Set It Off could work for a mass audience. To show how Bad Boys could work or the Secret Life of Bees. Weâve got to be able to display how that could work. We canât expect other people to write and produce and create our stories. So at Overbrook we did âSecret Life of Beesâ this year and we did with Sam Jackson we did âLakeview Terraceâ and so, you know, we have a black President now so we have no more excuses.
Are you going to the Inauguration to meet him?
Will: Yes, yes. Absolutely.
Do you have like front-row seats or anything?
Will: Itâs hard to get a front-row seat to that one, you know? I donât know. Whatever our Commander-In-Chief asks of me I will humbly serve.
â¦maybe not a cabinet thing but I mean, is some sort of like emissary or you know good will ambassador or somethingâ¦?
Good Will. I like that. You know, I amâ¦Barrack being elected did something like I was crying uncontrollably.
Thatâs funny. (pointing at a reporter who was either asleep or not paying attention)
Will: Thatâs so rude. I cannot believeâ¦Iâm out of here. Iâm out of here. (laughter) Youâre lucky I donât have a camera! No, he fell asleep. He fell asleep. (laughter). So no, what Iâm saying is when Barrack was elected itâs like it so validated something that I believed for a long time. Itâs like a black man in
To distribute your movies or make movies there?
Will: Well, for me itâll be laying a conduit, you know, between the Muslin world and the West. I mean, itâs a perfect opportunity. I truly believe a large part of why Barack is in office is to doâand theyâre not getting creditâis to do with MTV. What MTV did is lay conduit between the inner city, the suburbs and between American kids and the world. You canât tell a 15-year old white kid a lie about black people. They know itâs not true. Whereas their parents and grandparents, you could feed any kind misinformation that you wanted to because they didnât have the connectivity and the artistry. What MTV was able to create in connecting kids just of all races, creeds and colors, was able to release and relieve the fear that comes when you donât know. So for me in my mind the deal that weâre making in the UAE is going to lay that type of artistic conduit between the West and the Muslin world.
Are you going to play him in a bio-pic?
Will: Am I going to play him? You know, I would love to. He just wrote a fantastic end to the first movie at least, so Iâll be looking to do it when heâs out of office in 8 years.
The aspect of the film with the connection of loveâ¦can you talk about how the two of you fall in love on screen is very believable?
Will: Thereâs an idea that was one of the central concepts that I fell in love with in this movie. We talked about trauma and thereâs an idea that in the west we think about things in straight lines, okay? Thereâs birth, thereâs life, and then thereâs death. And at death thereâs a cliff and itâs the you know the end of the world and everythingâs over. And thatâs not really how things work and if you take the ends of that line and bend it into a circle, thereâs birth, life, death and then re-birth. Re-birth is inevitable. Thereâs nothing that can happen. Thereâs no literal or figurative death. You lose your job, you get divorced, anything like that. When itâs winter, everything dies. The spring is always coming. Thatâs just the way that it works, right? And this is a character who didnât realize that. He didnât realize that the spring and the metaphor of the spring being new love, right? He didnât know that he could fall in love again. He didnât know that what got broken could be repaired. And I loved that transformative power of love and that idea that you canât destroy the crops just because itâs winter, right? Youâve got to stay prepared. Yes, your partner died or you lost your job, you lost your house-you know- you didnât graduate when you were supposed to graduate but relax, relax. Please just pay attention. Stay focused because the spring is coming but youâve got to be there and be prepared to catch the wave of new life and this movie is almost a cautionary tale because Ben Thomas realized it too late. He didnât know and he set this thing in motion. He did this. He was trying to fix it and he set this thing in motion and he missed the natural tide, you know? I donât know. I could do that for hours but I just love that concept.
Have you ever had one of those moments, you know, those winters when you didnât think or know that spring would come or were you always a positive person?
Will: For me it was probably my divorce was one of the most emotionally devastating things Iâve ever experienced just for a lot of reasons. I had a 2-year old and the whole idea of failure. I just canâtâ¦that idea that I was too weak to make something work was just devastating for me. The idea that somebody could not love me anymore and all of those things were going through my head and I really just gave up and I think that was the most devastating part. Itâs like I donât mind if Mike Tyson knocks me clean the hell out and I get hit when Iâm swinging, but you canât be cowering in the corner and get knocked out, you know? I just hated that feeling.
Did you take this character home with you because heâs so different than your own personality?
Will: Yeah.
And did Jada comment that youâre too much of a downer for a little while?
Will: No, you know what? Itâs crazy. When you start to program a character you donât realize that when itâs sinking in itâs such a slow process, you know, youâre working on it every day but you donât realize the adjustment. I remember one night weâre sitting at dinner and Jayden is Mr. Reality. He keeps me really informed about whatâs going on in the house and he tells me the truth all the time. So weâre sitting at dinner, you know family dinner is a big thing in our house and itâs really quiet. So I lean over to Jaydenâheâs my man. I say, âHey Jayden I was like why is it so quiet?â He said, âCos you look crazy!â (laughter) And it was like I had no idea because we had worked on this thingâone of the ideas with the character is that heâs trying to determine if someoneâs a good person. So we talked about people all wear masks. You wear your sensitive lover mask, you know when itâs one of those special nights. You wear your disciplinarian mask when youâre dealing with your kids. You wear your law abiding citizen mask when you get pulled over by the police. And people have all these masks that they put on, so we developed this thing where my character is trying to look under peopleâs masks, right? But itâs a figurative idea but we said that heâs literally trying to look under the mask, right? So heâs literally trying to see if he can see around and under peopleâs masks but while heâs keeping his on. So I developed this really bizarre kind of behavior, you know, and if somebody would turn their eyes away, I would look. And I programmed it so much and I didnât realize so Iâm sitting at the dinner table, you know? And Iâm looking and Jaydenâs like⦠and I hadnât even noticed that I had gotten to that place.
Has any role ever affected you this much?
Will: No, this isâ¦on âSix Degrees of Separationâ I got really messed up for awhile because I wasnât aware. I didnât know that when you reprogram your instincts that way, you really are changing yourself, right? And I didnât know that. And the movie was over and I just needed to talk to Stockard Channing and I was like why do I need to call Stockard? And I call and say âhey Stockard. How you doing?â and sheâs like âHey, Willâ. Iâm like âHeyâ and Iâm just like oh my God. Iâm falling in love with Stockard Channing and I didnât realize that so at least this time I was prepared for the potential of it so it took me about 4 to 6 weeks to really just get back and remember who I was but it can beâ¦.it changes everything. Like for âAliâ it was great because it was like I was in shape and I was strong and it sort of changed things with Jada and I for âAliâ, you know?
Will, did you have to do any physical preparations for this? I know itâs not like a action movie like âI Am Legendâ or you knowâ¦?
Will: Well, I lost about 15 pounds. I just wanted to have that really sort of more sunken in look.
So you stopped going to the gym or�
Will: No, you actually have to go to the gym more. So I actually spent more time in the gym. I just changed what the work was. I was doing 2 a day cardio, so you just you know�
Whatâs your normal regiment now that youâre not on a movie?
Will: I just eat now. Oh now, itâs not pretty under here right now. Itâs so not âI Am Legendâ right now. Itâs âI Am Luggageâ right here.
Speaking of Robert Neville and âI Am Legendâ, thereâs been a lot of talk about you possibly doing a prequel or a sequel to that film. Could you tell us what it is and what excites you about going back to that character?
Will: We have a fantastic prequel idea. Weâre still trying to work through a couple of bumps in the story, but itâs the ideaâ¦.itâs essentially the fall of the last city. The last stand of
Will the cool dog be back in it?
Will: Yes, the dog will be a puppy. The dog will be a puppy, yes.
And I have to ask you about the Karate Kid.
Will: Yes, my son yes. Weâre working on for âThe Karate Kidâ. Weâre doing that with the China Film Group, so weâre lookingâ¦.itâs difficult in
What are your holiday plans?
Will:
During your last interview he said that when somethingâs brilliant he tells you itâs brilliant and you believe him and when somethingâs bad he just straight out tells you that was bad?
Will: Yeah, Gabrielle will say, âthat was awful. Thereâs nothing I could use. It was so bad I turned my eyes away. Itâs so bad I donât know what to tell you. Please just do it again.â Thank you guys.
Whatâs your move next?
Will: Iâm currently unemployed. Iâm developing a lot of things. I have no idea.
Do you have any resolutions for the family?
Will: You know, I donât do New Yearâs Resolutions.