Transforming Will Smith

There is nothing funny about Will Smith at the moment. Slabs of muscle under his T-shirt inspire menace more than mirth. It is disarming to see the once-wiry rapper look like a safety who loves to blitz.

Then he smiles and Smith's warmth beams through the sinew. His physical transformation is all about a movie. Well, the movie as far as Smith is concerned.

You can catch the skinnier Smith as a mystical caddie who helps a broken man regain his life and golf skills in "The Legend of Bagger Vance," opening Nov. 3. But from here on in, Smith gets tougher, louder and prouder.

He is preparing to play heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali in "Ali." Contrary to reports that Sony had shelved the movie, the company last week confirmed that filming begins in January. The Champ himself has endorsed the biography, and Smith is training under Ali's former trainer, Angelo Dundee.

Detractors have said Smith isn't deep enough, isn't angry enough.

"I love the haters, people who think I can't do it," Smith says as he settles into the couch in a Manhattan hotel room. "I need that so much. That gets me out of the bed every morning, that keeps me in the gym that extra hour every night.

"I'm clearly about to shake up the world."'

If you have followed Smith's career, you would know that the Ali-like braggadocio comes naturally. The 32-year-old likes to tell of his introduction to an all-black high school after he transferred from a predominantly white school in his middle-class Philadelphia neighborhood. Smith announced to the class, "I'm here."

When one kid said he didn't care, Smith replied, "Your girl does." The kid used a padlock as a brass knuckle and punched Smith in the head.

Says Smith: "It was a really weird way to have an epiphany, but I said, 'Hey, maybe that's not the way to approach people.' "

Smith has learned the art of making an entrance - and sticking around. He transformed from hip-hop poet Fresh Prince to sitcom goofball to perhaps the most bankable African American movie star on the strength of heroic roles in "Independence Day" (1996) and "Men in Black" (1997).

So it is curious that Smith downshifts into an unassuming god figure in "The Legend of Bagger Vance." Smith believes that too many adventure movies back to back could be his box-office Waterloo.

In "Bagger Vance," directed by Robert Redford, Smith's Bagger appears out of nowhere to offer homespun advice to Matt Damon's troubled golfer after Damon has entered a hometown tournament against the world's best players. But Damon is so rattled by his World War I experience that he cannot play. Smith is a subtle cosmic force. No mugging, no joking.

"There's a dude inside me," Smith says, "banging against my head, rattling around, telling me, 'No, no, there's a moment here. We can steal the scene!' It's really having to subdue that guy. It's allowing Redford to take me to a place where I wouldn't naturally go."

Redford and Smith had their moments. Redford even threw Smith off the set because he wouldn't shut up. But Smith let subtlety be his guide, according to Redford.

"The Will Smith you might come to expect doesn't totally disappear," Redford said. "He is there. I like to think of it as an added dimension. I told him to rely on the strength of the quiet, so the stuff you don't do and you don't say adds strength."

Smith endured a bout of insecurity before "Bagger Vance." "Wild Wild West" (1999) was a critical dud that managed to gross more than $100 million. But Smith does not hide behind pseudo-respectable numbers. He made a bad movie, and he felt bad about it. Even the most adoring fans would congratulate him on everything from "Six Degrees of Separation" (1993) to his 1999 Grammy-winning rap solo, "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It," but they would turn mum on "Wild Wild West."

"There was a certain catharsis that I felt after 'Wild Wild West,'" Smith says, "like a release of not having to be box-office superman. It feels good that that's my flop, that I flop movies over $100 million. But you just never want the fans to see something that is less than perfect."

Smith's wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith, is about to give birth to the couple's second child (and Smith's third). Smith calls himself a "storybook dad," and he beefed up the college fund recently by agreeing to re-team with Tommy Lee Jones for a "Men in Black" sequel.

Smith is one of the top earners in Hollywood and lands enviable parts, but declines to call himself a role model for blacks.

"I want to keep it unspoken because as soon as you speak it, you degrade it," he says. "It's like if you were to hear Jesse Jackson say he's an activist. You don't wanna hear someone say he's an activist. Just be an activist."

As Ali, Smith is about to take on the role of an entire generation's activist. Smith continues to train, waiting to prove his doubters wrong. He even has adopted the fighter's handshake, a limp-noodle grip because boxers try to protect their hands out of the ring. Smith wears his hair in corn rows to hide a big afro that can be trimmed to fit the year in Ali's life.

Actors don't get a title shot very often, and Smith is coming out swinging.

"It feels so right," he says.