| Will Smith Pursues "Happyness" For All Our Sakes |
| Written by Stephanie R. Green | |||||
| Tuesday, 20 February 2007 08:24 | |||||
Will Smith with his son, Jaden, and wife Jada Pinkett Smith at the L.A. premiere of "The Pursuit of Happyness"
Will and Jaden Smith stick together in "The Pursuit of Happyness"
Smith at the Museum of the Moving Image, which held a "Salute To Will Smith" in Dec. 2006
In the film, Gardner is candidly depicted as a bright and talented young man who’s marginally employed as a salesman. Struggling to make ends meet, Gardner finds himself and his five-year-old son evicted from their San Francisco home with nowhere to go. When Gardner lands an internship at a prestigious stock brokerage firm, he and his son endure many hardships, including living in shelters, public restrooms, bus stations and wherever they can find refuge for the night, in the pursuit of his dream of a better life for the two of them. How Chris Gardner chooses to raise his son alone against all odds after becoming a single father is one of the film's most inspirational messages. He makes a stand that his son must stay with him no matter what; he believes life will get better for them and it does. He persistently pursues a better paying job using every sales skill he knows. And Smith, who has often played more lighthearted, slick-sailing characters, handily takes on this character who really has to rise above his struggle to survive. Smith does it well and has garnered his second Best Actor Oscar nom as a result (he got his first for "Ali"). Q: So your son refuses to do press? Will Smith: (Laughs) Yeah, he’s… We did Oprah the other day; my son Jaden and my daughter Willow were both on the show. Willow was on the show because she wasn’t about to let Jaden be on “Oprah” and she wasn’t. I looked at them and Jaden was so unaffected. He wants to act and play video games, so the whole idea of press... He's completely unaffected by it. I was watching the two of them and I said, “I got Johnny Depp and Paris Hilton” [laughs]. Q: Did you think about the conflicts caused when [father and daughter] Ryan and Tatum O’Neal did “Paper Moon”--she won the Oscar and it ruined their relationship? WS: [Laughs] Now, listen, that kid, I told him probably about eight weeks into shooting--and he’s such a natural and he’s nailing it moment after moment--I told him, “it’s a good thing that you’re my son” because I’ve been leaning into his close-ups and all kinds of stuff, and he was stealing scene after scene on me. But it’s a beautiful thing. Q: Was it assumed he would play your son from when you first started on the movie? WS: Oh, no, not at all. Jada and I were laying in the bed one night and he’s between us, and we’re both reading the script, and he’s like “Tell me the story, Daddy!” so I’m telling him the story and he said, “PSSSH! I can do that!” And I said, “Oh, really?” and he said, “Yeah!” We shoot shorts around the house and that kind of stuff, so he’s familiar with the process. Jada took him next week in to start auditions, and he’s [with] 100 kids, then 50 kids, then 20 kids, and he was still there; then we got down to about 10, and I said, “I might need to pay attention a little bit” and I went and Gabriele Mucchino, the director, just fell in love with him. [Smith does the impression] “I must have your baby, Will, I must have your baby!” And I said, “Hold on, let me get clear about what you’re asking me. [laughs]. Q: How did you meet Chris Gardner and how did this project get started? WS: Well, it started with the piece "20/20" did on Chris. This has been lightning-quick in Hollywood years to go from an idea to a completed project. It’s been just about two years and thats just unheard of. So after the "20/20" piece, producers Mark Clayman, Todd Black and Jason Blumenthal called us in and we loved the piece. The imagery of black fatherhood, that’s not the image that we have in America, so it was something that was a powerful idea. I mean the "20/20" piece, to their credit, was done brilliantly and it told the story. Q: Since your life is so unlike Chris’s, what could you relate to most as far as his life is concerned? WS: Without getting too esoteric about it, I love and am connected to the idea that your will and your desire create what your future is, that the white man doesn’t create your future, your circumstances don’t create your future, none of that creates your future. Your desire to be who you want to be and your commitment to that is what creates your future. To me, that’s the idea that this country is [based on]: Life, Liberty and The PURSUIT of Happiness. Not life, liberty and happiness. Life, liberty and a spot you can pursue; Chris Gardner believed that, accepted it and was committed to it in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. That’s something that I’ve always believed that there’s this bizarre, I guess naivety for the “audacity of hope” that I’ve been committed to, and I’ve always felt it, and I’ve always believed it. Chris and I share that belief in the power of our desires. Q: After seeing the "20/20" piece, did you go after it yourself to get to Chris because you were so inspired?
Will Smith on set with director Gabriele Muccino
Jaden Smith and father/co-star Will at The Museum Of The Moving Image
Smith portrays Chris Gardner, whose rags-to-riches story is also a tale of family togetherness
Will Smith hamming it up for a lucky fan before the Academy Award nominees luncheon in Hollywood It goes back to the idea... There’s a movie called “What the Bleep Do We Know?” I don’t know if you’re familiar with it. “What the Bleep Do We Know?” and there’s an idea that’s almost a quantum physics idea that Chris and I both connect to that something is only there if you acknowledge it’s there. Something only has power over you if you acknowledge that it has power over you, and Chris specifically said that sure, he knows he was in America, he knows that there was probably racism, but he never paid attention to any of that. Chris found good people, he connected to good people, people who weren’t washed themselves away from him, but the idea that… He felt that if he allowed himself to say that there’s racism and somebody’s trying to keep me down because I’m black that it actually weakens him in acknowledging the obstacle. Q: Your first hit song was “Parents Just Don’t Understand;” now that you’re a parent is there something that you don’t understand? WS: Kids Don’t Know anything! (Laughs) That’s my new record, “Kids Don’t Know Nothing” (laughter) No--it was actually a beautiful experience being with my son, because I did more learning than he did. My entire approach to acting is forever changed after working with Jaden. The way that he works, and I happened to be reading “Zen and the Art of Archery”  during the time that I was working on the film, and there’s an idea inside the "Art of Archery" that that type of human perfection, that type of achievement, that type of connection between yourself and your target or your goal, that you discover it in a childlike manner, that you discover that play. We were on the set [one time] and he looked up, we had done a few takes, and Gabriele kept giving me notes--Jaden always thought that was funny when we would do a take and the director would come give me a note and not say a thing to him--so he took that as him winning. There was a particular scene where Gabriele kept talking to me, talking to me, and Jaden just looked up and he says, “You just do the same thing every time, Daddy.” And I was a little offended, but the idea that he was saying innately didn’t connect to him was “how can you give the same performance every take? I’m saying different stuff; I’m doing different stuff. And if we’re supposed to be living in these moments then how come you’re not reacting to the new stuff that’s happening?” So I started watching him and what I realized is in the scene, I’m a producer, I’m Will, I’m a movie star, I’m all of that stuff in the scene, and Jaden is just the character. And it’s just a block that I’ve had in my career for a lot of years and this is the first time that I’m feeling myself free of that. It’s to hell with continuity, to hell with whether we make the day, or how much the day costs, and we lose the set and all of that, I’m finding that space where I’m committing to the truth of the character and it’s such a liberating, artistic space. I’ve been there two other times in my career with “Ali” and with “Six Degrees of Separation” where [I was] just completely liberated to live and be free and to create. I’m just extremely excited about it and thankful to my son for showing me the way. Q: Was there ever a thought of completing the trifecta and having Jada in there as well? WS: Well, you know, Jada rather prefers not to work with me [laughs] because I’m like “You know, baby, the last take, you did this, why don’t you try it a little different this time?” and she’d be like “Boy, you worry about you, let me worry about me.” We worked on “Ali” together so… we’re trying to keep a happy home, so we avoid that. Q: Do you think this is the best thing you’ve ever done, and when you were reading the “Zen” book was it partly because Chris manages to keep so much inside him and doesn’t explode when he’s forced to do errands? WS: I don’t know if the two things were connected. I didn’t intellectualize why that book drew me during that time, but I’m sure there was something about the piece and the comfort that he finds. As an actor, when you make these movies, you actually get to walk someone’s footsteps. You actually get a rare glimpse and a thorough glimpse—that’s almost an oxymoron—you actually get to look into someone’s life and see what moves they would have made differently than you would have made. You always ask yourself, where would your breaking point have been? Am I as much man as Chris Gardner? Am I as much man as Muhammad Ali? Would I have stayed in prison for 27 years if I were Nelson Mandela? Or would I have just said whatever I needed to say to get the hell out of there? With the bathroom scene in this movie, I can’t imagine that I would have been able to stand up that next morning and go to work the way Chris was able to do it, to get to zero, absolutely nothing, to have nothing and the only thing you have left is an idea, and he woke up, washed his son in the sink, and went to work based on an idea. That is something that is hugely inspiring to me and my hope artistically is that it can be inspiring to other people, but as I sit here, I can’t imagine that I would have walked out of that bathroom the same person or as Chris Gardner did, walked out a better person. Q: How was Jaden able to relate to suffering?
Smith showing off his better half, longtime wife Jada Pinkett Smith
Jaden Smith is starting his entertainment career even earlier than his famous dad
The Smith's are one of Hollywood's more talented (and attractive) families
Watch out for Smith in the action flick "I Am Legend" in late 2007
WS: I know. (Laughs) There was probably about a year, maybe when he was 6, where he thought he was going to be a comedian and that’s what he wanted to do. He got the box set of “The Fresh Prince” so he wanted to tell jokes, and so he learned about 10 or 15 jokes and we used a couple of them in the movies, and those are all his. Q: You actually did the Rubik’s Cube on Oprah. What are you, an alien or something? WS: (Laughs) No, it’s a series of algorithms that anyone can learn. It took me… we flew in these two kids, the US Champ and the California State Champ, and they spent probably 12 hours with me teaching the series of algorithms and then maybe 30 hours practicing before I could do it by myself. Q: Can you talk about the Glide Memorial Church scene and what that experience was like? Reverend Cecil Williams was very open with us and welcomed us in, and all of the people in those scenes are actual people who stay at Glide. When you’re around people like Chris Gardner, Reverend Cecil Williams, people who have committed their lives to other people, you just feel like you aren’t doing nothing with your life. Just the spirit—and that’s always amazing to me for people who can survive on spirit, people who can survive on an idea. My mother and father came from a two-parent household, our electricity would get cut off and our gas would get cut off every once in a while but for the most part, I always felt like my worst fall was back to my parents house. The idea of homeless, I think about that idea... and Reverend Cecil Williams was explaining that homelessness is hereditary and what happens is most people, someone in your family at some point bought a home, so for generations, everyone will have some place to stay in a worst case scenario, and to be so disenfranchised and so disconnected that you have to sleep outside, you know what I mean, that is a huge problem and it’s an emotional issue and let’s just hope there’s people a lot smarter than me working on it. Q: You used the phrase “audacity of hope”… where did that phrase come from and what do you mean by it? WS: Who did I hear say that? Oh, yeah, that was Barack Obama. See, I have a three repeat clause. If somebody has a cool phrase, it’s three repeat. The first time I’ll say, “Well, you know, Barack Obama said, "The audacity of hope" and then the second time I repeat it, I’ll say, “Well, someone said ‘the audacity of hope’” and then the third time I say, “Like I always say, ‘the audacity of hope.’" [It's] the idea that you believe something with no facts and figures to support it, and actually if you look at the facts and figures there’s absolutely no reason for you to think the thing is going to happen that you believe. The audacity of hope, the idea that you’re going to be so arrogant or you’re going to be so disillusioned, or you’re going to be so something, so audacious that you are going to believe while you’re sleeping on a bathroom floor that you’re going to own a stockbrokerage firm. It takes real audacity to hope and I’m connected so much to this film and the spirit of this film because that is the fiber of this country. I think that it is a good time for us to remember why this country and how this country was designed, the reason that this country was put together. You know "We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide the common defense,... promote the general welfare, secure the blessings of liberty on ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America." There are serious poetic ideas in the promise of what this country is suppose to be and I believe it all starts with the audacity of hope. Q: Do you have your own moments of "audacity of hope" in your career? WS: It feels weird for me to talk about my audacity of hope in the framework of Chris Gardner’s life; I’d have to say no I’ve never had any hopes so audacious as Chris Gardner. I’ve had situations where there’s no reason to believe that things are going to turn out the way that they’re going to turn out. When Jada and I got together, the period in our lives, there’s no reason for us to have been successful in our relationship. There were a whole lot of obstacles lined up for us not to make it. And, to me even on that small level, we always say that divorce can’t be an option. Because if you allow divorce to be an option there’s absolutely one day that you’ll check that box. So, it’s audacious to remove it as an option. It just isn’t an option, that’s not one of the choices that we have no matter what happens and that type of audacity is what it takes to make things be successful. Q: How does it feel to be in the Oscar race at this time of year? WS: You know, that period between the nominations and the show is the best series of parties on the face of the earth. (Laughter) I mean it is every night, different cities. You’re part of this wonderful elite group and it’s a beautiful time. It’s sort of bittersweet when you get to the show, because it makes the transition from a celebration to a competition, and I’ve never been an awards guy. I mean it’s fun. I tell my wife all the time, I’m more of a mall guy. When I walk into the mall on Saturday afternoon, if they don’t shut it down, then I feel like I’m slipping. That to me, that’s how I judge my work, and that’s how I judge the quality of my material is by having to shut the King of Prussia mall down outside of Philly on Christmas. Q: Are you working on "I am Legend," and if so, what is the difference between "I am Legend" and "The Omega Man?" WS: Yes I am, and there are huge differences, too many for me to speak about now.
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