The Legend: Will Smith

Will Smith is one of our faves. He has cracked us up as a goofy, lanky youngster when he was "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" and has gone on to become a mega-moviestar excelling in both comedy (Men in Black) and drama (Pursuit of Happyness). In person, Will is a very positive dude, whether rapping, acting or chatting with reporters, he's always on the upswing and he is even very cheery about his dark "last man on Earth" actioner I Am Legend.

Will was "willing" to answer personal questions about his family life, how he got his self-confidence from his grandma, his angst at agreeing to a film that is practically a one-man show, working in films with daughter Willow and son Jaden, his holiday plans and what he would do if he actually were the last man on Earth. Get ready for a friendly, funny, candid chat with our special "Man in Black".. make that a black Gucci military-style jacket over casual tee and jeans..

TeenHollywood: How are you?

Will: I'm so good I'm almost ashamed of it. I'm almost feeling bad about it!

TeenHollywood: Glad to hear it. This film really requires you to basically fall apart. How did you mentally prepare for this sort of intense role?

Will: That was the terrifying part of even taking on this film, the idea of there's probably 80 pages of just me and a dog. I've had good times on camera before and people have enjoyed me in a movie theater but that might be a little too much will for anybody. I looked at it, I worked with Mark Protosevich and Akiva Goldsman, the writers of the script and we studied POWs, we found a guy who had been in isolation in prison and we found the things and the people that could create the texture of what that truly means to be by yourself. And the one thing that was across the board was schedule.

TeenHollywood: Scheduling things keeps you sane?

Will: Yeah. He would schedule things like cleaning your nails. You had to have a regimen. You had to do things that you trained your mind that had to be done this day during this time. Then it's the idea of the internal monologue. If no one's talking to you, no one's doing anything, no external stimulus, this guy said you forget the names of simple things. He remembers sitting in his cell for about four hours and tried to remember what these things are called (waves fingers). He couldn't remember what they were called. 'Oh, damn! Fingers!' It just dawned on him. "It's a beautiful day today." "Yes it is" --you have to say both things to yourself in a scene. There's an intensive internal monologue that you have to create so it looks like there's a lot going on even though it's a dude sitting there with a dog.

TeenHollywood: We hear you lost 20 pounds and you look great in the film. What did you have to do to prepare?

Will: Well, we determined from our research is that eating becomes just something that you do just because you have to. There's no pleasure, there's no real desire to eat. You just know that your brain won't function if you don't. So losing weight and then the working out is part of the regimen of what you have to do. For me, I have a much easier time losing weight than I do putting weight on. Ali was 50 times harder trying to put weight on than it was to drop. If you run 30 miles a week, if you get up and do five miles six days a week your body will look like whatever you want it to look like.

TeenHollywood: You look like you've kept it off.

Will: [smiling] There are wonderful elements of being in shape that keep a marriage going so it's important for me to stay in good physical condition. You marry a little firecracker, you've got to stay in shape! (laugh)

TeenHollywood: Let's say you are the last man on earth without your family. You are living totally alone. What comfort items would see you through?

Will: A pistol 'cause I'm outta here! (he laughs). I'm going to the nearest bridge!

TeenHollywood: So, you aren't too much of a loner then?

Will: That was another thing with this film that I realized. It's such a primal, childlike idea: 'I wish everybody was gone! I wish I was by myself!' No you don't! As much as people get on your nerves on the freeway, as much as people irritate you in your daily life, if you took everyone away and you had it exactly the way you wanted it, it would be the most miserable existence that you could experience. I walked down the middle of Fifth Avenue, we had cleared it out for six blocks, and as cool as that is, it's only cool because when we yelled 'Cut!' there's 10,000 people on the other side. Human connection and the groups that we form and being a part of something that moves and changes the world is such a basic, human simple idea. There was absolutely no pleasure for me at all in experiencing that amount of loneliness and solitude.

TeenHollywood: But, let's say you didn't jump off a bridge. What would you do with your time?

Will: What I do now in my spare time is I've really gotten hooked into the amount of reading I can do: how much can I read in one day. But I'm reading, connecting it to the application to my life. 'How can I take this and apply it to my relationship? How can I apply it to educating my children? How can I apply it to movies? How can I apply it to making the world better?' All of that. So if that were removed I can't even imagine what I would connect to by myself. And I love people, too, so that was hard for me not having anybody else around.

TeenHollywood: So give you a book and let you exercise and you'll be okay?

Will: I feel very, very confident that the keys to life for me are reading and running. There's no issue we can have that somebody didn't already write the answer down a thousand years ago in a book. The running aspect is how you connect with your weakness. When you get on a treadmill you deprive yourself of oxygen so what kind of person you are is going to come out very quickly. You're either the type of person that says you're going to run three miles and you stop the treadmill at 2.94 and call it 3 or you're the type of person that runs hard through the finish line and when you get to three you realize 'I really could do five' and you go ahead and do two more.

TeenHollywood: How significant is it that the last man alive is African American?

Will: (Laughs) First and last, baby! It's funny, it's almost a metaphysical idea for me. I rarely think about that until someone brings it up. Then I say 'Oh, wow. That never actually crossed my mind in that way.' I kind of feel like, for me at least, the acknowledgement of those kinds of ideas puts a weird boundary on my thoughts. I can't allow myself to be a part of it because it sort of makes me think smaller, if that makes any sense. I said all that to say that I've never really thought about the significance of that with the film.

TeenHollywood: There were two earlier movies made from this novel, "I Am Legend". Did you look at either one or read the book? Why tell the story again?

Will: Yeah I looked at both of them [I Am Legend with Vincent Price and Omega Man with Charlton Heston]. It is such a primal concept, the idea of being alone, and the fear of the dark. There has never been this level of technology to support the idea, where you actually can shut down six blocks of Manhattan and, if a car goes by in the background, you can just do the scene and remove it later so you actually can see empty New York. You can see fighter jets take out a bridge. That level of technology has never been around to support the weight of the story. I felt like it would be a great opportunity to see visuals and experience emotion that you in the past haven't been able to.

TeenHollywood: At one point, you were accepted to MIT. If you weren't an actor, was that the direction you were going?

Will: Math and science were always my favorite, my strongest subjects. I always dreamed of designing a fully computerized classroom. You'd take the roll with your fingerprints and you'd sit down and there's a keyboard built into the desk and, when the teacher talks, it comes up onto the board. I dreamed of building and creating something like that when I was a child. I may still do that, it would be from a different perspective but I've always loved the idea of connecting technology and education.

TeenHollywood: Where does your confidence come from? I remember reading you didn't do drugs because your dad would have killed you.

Will: He was a little crazy, he's still a little crazy.

TeenHollywood: Who or what inspired you to believe in yourself as a boy?

Will: My grandmother just thought that I was the greatest. She always had us playing the piano and doing recitations in church. There was a look of pride that my grandmother would have in her eyes that became the fuel that I need for life. I need my woman and daughter and mother and women in general to look at me with that look that my grandmother had. And I was about 15 years old when my first girlfriend cheated on me and it so destroyed my concept of cause and effect in the universe. [I thought] that you could be good and good stuff happens and bad and bad stuff happens. Oh that's not true.

TeenHollywood: That's rough to take when you are fifteen.

Will: The way I processed why she cheated on me is I wasn't good enough. I remember laying in my bed and making the decision that I would never not be good enough again. That was the last time in my life that I would not be good enough. In that bizarre, hurt, 15-year-old mind it was 'ok, no one will ever be able to cheat on me and no one will ever leave me if I'm good enough.' I may have gone a little overboard with it in my mind but, every single day, Jada has to have that look. I can't function if she doesn't have that look in her eyes. That means with my movies, that means as a father, that means as a husband and in everything that I do in my life I have to educate myself so that I can contend as the best on earth and that's the only way I can keep my woman from leaving me. [he laughs]

TeenHollywood: There is a spiritual element to this film. There are rumors that you are interested in Scientology. Do you claim to be any particular religion?

Will: I don't necessarily believe in organized religion. I was raised in a Baptist household, went to a Catholic church, lived in a Jewish neighborhood, and had the biggest crush on the Muslim girls from one neighborhood over. Tom [Cruise] introduced me to the ideas. I'm a student of world religion, so to me, it's hugely important to have knowledge and to understand what people are doing. 'What are all the big ideas? What are people talking about?' I believe that my connection, to my higher power, is separate from everybody's. I don't believe that the Muslims have all the answers. I don't believe the Christians have all the answer, or the Jews have all the answers, so I love my God, my higher power. It's mine and mine alone. I create my connection and I decide how my connection is going to be.

TeenHollywood: Makes sense. What was it like working with your daughter Willow in this film?

Will: You kind of don't work with Willow, you work for Willow [we laugh]. Willow, she just loves it. We started [shooting] at sunset, and it was probably twenty-nine degrees or something. Then we watched [the temperature] go down to one, and then negative. Willow is out there, she has her stuff on, and she's cold. She is getting a little irritable. She looks at me and says, 'Daddy, I don't care how low it goes, I'm going to finish.' I was like, 'Wow!' I said, 'That's good baby, because Daddy is leaving if it go any lower than that one.' She just wants it, she has a drive, an energy, and she just connects to human emotion.

TeenHollywood: Is it also because her bro Jaden acted with you too?

Will: I think a big part of it is probably Jaden. After The Pursuit of Happyness and she saw what Jaden did, she thought, 'I want that.' (laughs) The night we told Willow that she got the role, because we make our kids audition and all of that, we don't do the whole nepotism thing, Jaden was sitting where you are. I'm Willow. We always call the family in and we announce all the good things that happen with everybody in the house and everybody has to share in it. Willow is there and we say, 'Everybody, we just want to congratulate Willow. She got, I am Legend'.' She immediately turns around to Jaden and smiles and I went 'What's that? What was that?' Never had she talked about any feelings she was having, but it was like 'Okay, I'm plotting on you dude.'

TeenHollywood: Which one of your kids demanded more money, Jaden or Willow?

Will: We say when we look at Jaden and Willow, that Jaden is Johnny Depp. He just wants to do good work, he doesn't care what money he gets. He doesn't care if people see it or don't see it. He loves acting, he just wants to make good movies. Willow is Paris Hilton [he laughs]. Willow wants to be on TV. We are managing both of those in our household.

TeenHollywood: You've been a hero in a lot of films. What would you do in a real life disaster? Have you ever had to play the hero in the real world?

Will: That is always a tough question. That is what is interesting about playing a character like this. You get to explore and wonder how you would react. When I look at Robert Neville, I think, 'What was there to live for? What was there to hope for? To wake up everyday and try to restore something that is good and gone?' I like to believe that I would put my chest up and stand forward, just march on and continue to fight for the future of humanity but I would probably find a bridge and say 'I'm coming to join you Elizabeth.' (laughs) It's a tough question, and I guess the answer is, 'I don't know.' You want to be tested to know what you would do, but you really don't want to be tested. That is sort of the space that I have lived in with quite a few of the roles I have played.

TeenHollywood: There is a great dog in this movie named Samantha. How attached did you get to the actual dog?

Will: Abbey is the dog's real name. When I was probably nine years old, I had a dog Trixie. It was a white golden retriever that got hit by a car. So now I refuse, I have had no animals. I say 'Jada, you can have the dogs you want, the kids can have the dogs they want, but I'm not putting myself emotionally connected to a dog anymore.' Then, they brought that damn Abbey on the set. You say a 'smart' dog. It got to the point with Abbey that she would be playing, playing, playing, and she would hear 'Rolling!' so she would run over to her mark and get ready. I was like 'What in the hell?'

TeenHollywood: Talk about well-trained and smart!

Will: It's like she would know when I wasn't doing my lines right. If I would get lost in the scene, she would just go silent you know? It was the first time I had allowed myself to connect and be fond of a dog, since that experience, and to the owner I said, 'Please, Abbey has to live with me. Please.' He was like 'Well, this is how I make my living, man.' I was like 'Tell me what you need. Tell me what you need. A house in the hills?' But she was smart, just fun, and warm. I experienced the pain again, because he said 'I'll bring her over every weekend Will, but she has to work.' It was painful. She is great. I used to watch 'Lassie' and some animals can be smarter than other animals. She is way on another plain of connecting to what your energy is, what your feelings are, and protective. It's beautiful.

TeenHollywood: What's next for you?

Will: Well, Hancock is July 4 with Charlize Theron and Jason Bateman. Peter Berg directed. Akiva Goldsman, Michael Mann, and myself are producing. It's the Michael Mann version of an alcoholic super hero. It is so bizarre. Michael Mann developed a script about an alcoholic super hero. Jason Bateman plays a publicist and I save his life. He begins to rehabilitate me in the eyes of the public.

TeenHollywood: With the holidays coming up, are your kids expecting a Lamborghini or something huge and expensive?

Will: It's funny, it's really simple. Jaden and Trey are very simple. Willow just wants clothes. She's dressed herself since she was about four years old. She is very specific about her style, the sizes and all that. She wants you to think about her and she loves the idea that she gets things by surprise. Jaden just wants his family around. Anything that causes the whole family to be together, that is what he wants.

TeenHollywood: How do you manage to keep them grounded?

Will: We live in La-la-land out here. Los Angeles and New York are cut off from the rest of the country and the rest of the world. For us, traveling is hugely important, for our kids to really see other things, and experience other things. We have taken them to South Africa. We try to get them to experience how other people live. The grounded idea is more of a concept of how you relate to your service of mankind. That is what we try to impart to our children. You are a part of a whole, and you have a responsibility to uplift and be a positive influence, on the whole. We feel like that will help with the concept of grounding.

TeenHollywood: What would make the holidays this year perfect for you and your family?

Will: Christmas, wonderful holiday, we like to go to snow. And by 'we' I mean Jada likes to go to snow. I'd much rather be in Jamaica. But Jada has wonderful childhood memories of snow so we try to find wherever there's the most snow. She actually spends weeks online finding out where the most snow is and that's where we end up going.

***

Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.