Interview with Will Smith

From the moment he walks into a room, Will Smith oozes the crowd-pleasing charisma that has immortalized him on cinema screens across the globe. As he sits at the head of a table lined with journalists, Smith leans forward in his chair, moving his hands in choreographed rhythm with each uttered syllable. His charm is unmistakable, his humor is infectious, yet above that megawatt smile are eyes that burn with newfound intensity. After battling aliens to box-office success, and earning laughs as the Fresh Prince, Smith now seems to harbor a willingness to take more chances, reach more personal goals, and develop even further as an actor. This change can be sensed immediately, as the 38-year-old king of today’s entertainment industry voluntarily begins the interview by talking of nothing else but the fatherly pride he feels for his son.

In his new film The Pursuit of Happyness, opening December 15th, Smith plays real-life family man Chris Gardner, who struggles to defy poverty by interning at a stock brokerage firm, while taking care of his five-year-old son, played by Smith’s own son Jaden. Smith recently talked with the Chronicle about the joys of fatherhood, his belief in America, and how acting with Jaden changed his life forever.

What has your reaction been to the positive buzz surrounding this film?
I’m not the type of person who generally has a fear for things going in the right direction out of my control, but [with] this one I’m actually shook a little bit because everything is really perfect. As an artist, I feel that it is my job to create images that inspire ideas that inspire change, and that’s exactly what this is. I feel that this is artistically one of the greatest projects I’ve ever been involved with.

Describe what it was like working with your son in his debut performance?
It changed how I act. We were on the set; we had been shooting for about two weeks. He looked up at me and he said, “Daddy, you just do the same thing every take.” Then I started watching him. He’s pure and natural in the moment. If we’re sitting there and talking and he becomes interested in his scarf, he’ll grab his scarf. And that’s what actors look for. It’s the Nirvana you find when you’re living in the moment. When I explain a scene to Jaden and I say you’re with your father and you’re tired, he asks, ‘How long have I been awake? Have I been to school? Did I take a nap? And what time is it? Okay, you can say action.’ I really evaluated how I perform, and I stopped preparing. And I went back and got acting coaches, which helped me begin to strip away all the thinking I’ve been doing up to this point. [Jaden] helped me create new moves, and in this movie, the new moves are no moves.

Will these new moves help you continue to conquer the box office?
I can do that. I believe in universal patterns. Things happen certain ways since the beginning of time. Study the pattern, find the pattern, and at the minimum you give yourself a 99% chance of succeeding. Top ten films of all times, have special effects with creatures and a love story. If you make a movie with special effects, creatures, and a love story, you can be pretty damn sure that you can open up that film on the Fourth of July. That’s the gift and the curse that I have that my son is helping me break, because it’s easy to live in the patterns, but I want to create patterns.

What inspired you to help tell Chris’s story?
[Chris’s story] is so connected to the idea of why America works. This is the only country on the face of this earth where Chris Gardner could exist. [His story] doesn’t happen anywhere else on earth. That you’re homeless, you have $23, [and] without killing anybody, without oil, without anonymity, you can go strictly based on an idea in your mind, hold onto that idea, and go create a multi-million-dollar empire. America thrives because that is the idea and the promise that we sell to the rest of the world. Now in practice, there are some difficulties. The promise of it, though, is what inspires great minds to come here, and the poor tired huddled masses are not just coming here for food and a house – they’re coming because they have an idea and their idea is being murdered in other places. This is a country that says we believe in nurturing ideas. To me, that is so the center of humanity. An idea can just fill a spot in your stomach; you won’t need food for a while if you’ve got the right idea.

How important is an Oscar to you?
For me, the period between the nomination and the actual awards is the best time. There’s a hundred-plus people [nominated] for hundreds of movies, and everybody’s a winner. It’s the celebration of cinema. It’s a time of celebration that then deteriorates into competition. The actual show is the balloon toss. There’s something about that ‘and the winner is…’ moment that’s just distasteful to me.

Parenting has been a consistent theme in your work, including your song ‘Just the Two of Us.’ Describe your values in parenting.
[My wife] Jada and I have connected to [the values of] love, knowledge and discipline. Love: meaning that your kids have got to know that at the end of the day my parents love me. There can’t ever be a question. Knowledge: meaning that you don’t wait to teach your children anything. They can learn subatomic physics, and it’s better for them to learn it now than it will be when they get older. And discipline: the idea that they won’t be able to achieve anything if they don’t command their minds to overcome their bodies. I always call it the treadmill test. You deprive someone of food, deprive them of oxygen, you’re gonna know exactly who you’re dealing with. I have a lyric in one of my records. I say, ‘The key to life is on a treadmill. I’ll just watch and learn while your chest burns. Cause if you say you’re gonna run three miles, and you only run two, I’ll never have to worry about losing somethin’ to you.’