| Will Smith Pursues "Happyness" For All Our Sakes - Page 2 |
Page 2 of 3  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 {mos_ri} WS: No, it was almost three days later after seeing the "20/20" piece; a couple people were a little quicker on the draw than we were, and they sent it to us. I don’t know if you’ve seen the piece, but it is absolutely brilliant. The individual image that gets you is Chris Gardner walks the steps and he actually goes back to the subway bathroom that he stayed in with his son. The bathroom scene made me want to make this movie and subsequently, Chris took me and walked me through those steps and there’s a moment that actors look for when you get it. Like trying to find a character, you’re in a dark room just feeling around and every once in a while, you grab something and you’re like “ah, yeah, that’s it” It’s dark, you can’t see anything, you’re just wandering around. When I walked into that bathroom with Chris and stood there, that was… I got it. I understood. And then after that to actually shoot the scene—I believe it was a rebuild of the set—but to actually shoot the scene with my real son on my lap is no acting necessary. Q: How do you feel about the film's choice to not play up the racism that was so prevalent at the time? 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. |