Will smith Actors often say they don’t want their kids going into the business. Don’t you have any fears about that? I was raised in the family business. My father owned an icehouse so those bags of ice you see at the supermarket? We would bag and deliver them, get the money and go into the supermarket to buy food. I learnt everything about life by working with my father and I learnt the connection between survival and the lessons taught by my parents. I don’t know how else to parent. I can’t see how shipping my kids out for huge formative periods of their lives allows me to be an effective parent. When my son is with me all day, every day, I don’t see a better way to teach and parent your child than that.
“For many years I bumped into the idea in Hollywood that black people can’t translate a film internationally. To me that is just a ridiculous concept”
But at some point you have to let them go... Yes, and when we were working on After Earth, we experienced a parental-teenager collision very similar to our real lives. We were able to talk about it in the terms of our characters, Cipher and Kitay, but we were both voicing our opinions about Will and Jaden.
age of 11, I was very much the general taking control. I would drum it into him that ‘yes, you are 11, but you are an 11-year-old taking on a responsibility. All these people eat based on your ability to deliver these lines and show up on time and all of that. With After Earth I stepped back and allowed his own personality to show through. I treated him more as a costar than my son.
How difficult was it for your father to let you go? When I actually had to leave to carve out my career, I was on the road and my father was still working. It was good for me in those early stages of my career because he definitely would not approve of the decisions I was making! What are you most proud of in After Earth? I’m most proud of being able to take a movie like this, centered on a parent and child trying to survive the teenage years. Are you more demanding with Jaden on set than everyone else? I had to make some adjustments with this movie, because when Jaden was in China making The Karate Kid at the
Is that a tangible reward? It’s a huge reward. On The Karate Kid, when something went wrong, the last person he wanted to show up, was me, because he knew I was going to say ‘Hey, if you would had done it harder, we wouldn’t be here, so do it again’. With this movie, with me taking another approach, the only thing I concerned myself with was that he was okay, and if something went wrong, he himself would ask for me. He wanted his father there. Roland Emmerich said that you changed history by becoming the first African-American hero. Is this something that you see as your biggest achievement so far? It’s definitely been a huge achievement. For many years I bumped into the idea in Hollywood that black people can’t translate a film internationally. To me that is just a ridiculous concept: people are going to see things that are good – whether an actor is black or white. But I feel like the things that I’m going to truly be remembered for, I haven’t done yet. I’m still seeking, I’m in transition right now!
CREDITS: Phil Thompson/The Interview People and Jasmine Bandali
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