Will Smith: A Heartbreaker in "Seven Pounds"

He's the biggest movie star on earth. If you show a picture of Will Smith to an aborigine in the outback or an Eskimo in Alaska, they'll recognize this friendly, unassuming and talented guy. You know the drill; a rapper, turned TV star turned movie mega-star, husband of Jada and dad to talented Jayden and Willow who have followed in dad's impressive footsteps.

Will bounces successfully from sci-fi actioners like Independence Day and I Am Legend to heartfelt dramas like The Pursuit of Happyness. This holiday season you can catch him in the sadly-twisted romance Seven Pounds where the star showcases his acting abilities to the max as a tortured fellow so guilty over the death of his fiance that he spends the rest of his life trying to atone, until a beautiful heart patient re-awakens his will to live. Will admits that doing the film made him examine his life and make some changes as well.

We've interviewed Mr. Smith several times and attended a few of his rare rap performances in L.A. wearing a "family and friends" pass around our neck. This time, we're sitting down at the Four Seasons hotel in Beverly Hills. Will enters the room dressed impeccably as usual in a "preppie" outfit consisting of black slacks and a blue, v-neck sweater over a white dress shirt and a black tie. Some spiffy gold and turquoise cufflinks were eye-catchers. We shake his hand and tell him he was amazing in the film....

Will: Oh, thank you so much.

TeenHollywood: You know you've been referred to a lot in the past year as the biggest movie star on planet Earth...

Will: Wow!

TeenHollywood:...so how does the view look from way up there?

Will: I read where somebody said he was a mountain climber and he set his mind, 'I want to climb Everest. I'm going to do it'. He climbed and he got to the top and realized he couldn't breathe. And the only thought that he had was 'how the hell can I get down off of here as fast as I can?' And it's like this weird thing that kicks in your mind like 'be careful what you wish for', you know?

TeenHollywood: Are you saying you want down off the mountain?

Will: Well, you go and you fight to get there and there's this discomfort that sets in. And it's really the last probably year and a half that has been kind of scary and a little bit frustrating for me. After Seven Pounds l just had this huge epiphany of how much more I want to be, how much more I want to do, and the idea of living in service to humanity vs. living in service to the commerce of my movies. And that explosion just totally washed away that sort of scary uncomfortable feeling. It's like whether people look at me as a movie star or not, want to be remembered as a man who cared about people and dedicated his life to making the world better. So, with that, I went from thinking of myself in this high place to 'damn I've got so much to do. I need to get to work!' That's so much better a place for me emotionally.

TeenHollywood: Great attitude! But are you also just Willow and Jayden's daddy?

Will: (laughs) I know, right. I'm just some dude at the dinner table, you know?

TeenHollywood: This character is intense and not too happy most of the time. Did you take him home with you because he's so different than your own personality? Was he hard to shake at the end of the day?

Will: Yeah. It's crazy. When you start to program a character, you're working on it every day but you don't realize the adjustment. I remember one night we're sitting at dinner and Jayden is 'Mr. Reality'. He keeps me really informed about what's going on in the house and he tells me the truth all the time. So we're sitting at dinner and it's really quiet. So I lean over to Jayden and say, 'Hey Jayden, why is it so quiet?' He said, 'Cause you look crazy!' (we laugh).

TeenHollywood: Okay, why did you look 'crazy'?

Will: The character is trying to determine if someone's a good person (or not) so we talked about how people all wear masks. You wear your 'sensitive lover' mask, when it's one of those special nights. You wear your 'disciplinarian' mask when you're dealing with your kids. You wear your 'law abiding citizen' mask when you get pulled over by the police. My character is trying to see if he can see around and under people's masks but while he's keeping his on. And I programmed it so much and I didn't realize that I'm sitting at the dinner table and I'm looking like (he demonstrates a very weird, forced smile) and I hadn't even noticed that I had gotten to that place!

TeenHollywood: Has any role ever affected you this much?

Will: No. I got really messed up for a while because I wasn't aware. I didn't know that when you reprogram your instincts that way, you really are changing yourself, right? Like for Ali it was great because I was in shape and I was strong and it sort of changed things with Jada and I for Ali, you know? (impish, sexy grin...we know).

TeenHollywood: You look more gaunt though some of this film. Was that on purpose?

Will: Well, I lost about 15 pounds. I just wanted to have that really sort of more sunken in look. You actually have to go to the gym more. I was doing two hours a day cardio but I just eat now. It's not pretty under here right now (he pats his abs). It's so not I Am Legend right now. It's "I Am Luggage" right here.

TeenHollywood: (we laugh.. he looks fine to us). Do you identify with your Ben character in this film in any way?

Will: Jada said, 'you know it's funny how much you are rejecting this character. You know that you are Ben, right?' I was like 'what?' She was like, 'the reason you're so nice and the reason you fight so hard to be up-tone is because you're at war with that guy inside of you.' I was like 'damn deep lady!' So now my sensibilities are becoming slightly less delicate and I may be able to venture out a little bit more into the world of emotional and artistic ambiguity in a way that is more authentic. The thing that I discovered on Seven Pounds is purpose. When you have a purpose and you've dedicated your life to something beyond yourself, all is bearable, right? And it just so exploded in my mind with this movie and with this character. If there's been a movie in my career that I would say changed my life it's Seven Pounds.

TeenHollywood: This film has a love story at its core. Can you talk about that?

Will: This character didn't realize that he could fall in love again. He didn't know that what got broken could be repaired. And I loved that transformative power of love. Yes, your partner died or you lost your job, you lost your house, you didn't graduate when you were supposed to graduate but relax, stay focused because the Spring is coming and you've got to be there and be prepared to catch the wave of new life. Ben Thomas realized it too late. He missed the natural tide.

TeenHollywood: Rosario said that you were kind of shy about the love scenes and that you may have put them off a little bit. Was that the case?

Will: (grins) See, my mother and grandmother were very firm about how men are supposed to treat women so my worst nightmare is for an actress to come on my set and feel like I'm taking this as an opportunity to get a little quickie feel or get some legal cheating going on. I just need, specifically, women to be comfortable around me. You've got to find a comfortable space to feel free so your hand can brush up against her and all of that and it's not 'oh, excuse me', you know?

TeenHollywood: Awwww, that's sweet. Was Jada cool and comfortable about your love scenes with Rosario?

Will: Oh, Jada said 'listen, I know you are uncomfortable but you better not embarrass me'. She was like, 'When you do that love scene you better show them what you're working with.' (we laugh).

TeenHollywood: So, Jada didn't come to the set that day?

Will: No, no she didn't come to the set. I asked her to come to the set and she was like 'Are you stupid?'

TeenHollywood: Have you ever had one of those 'Winters' in your life when you didn't think that Spring would come or were you always a positive person?

Will: My divorce was one of the most emotionally devastating things I've ever experienced for a lot of reasons. I had a two-year-old and the whole idea of failure; that I was too weak to make something work was just devastating for me. The idea that somebody could not love me anymore (was devastating). I really just gave up. It's like I don't mind if Mike Tyson knocks me clean the hell out and I get hit when I'm swinging, but you can't be cowering in the corner and get knocked out, you know? I just hated that feeling.

TeenHollywood: This film is also about acts of kindness toward others. Growing up did anybody ever do some random act of kindness for you?

Will: My grandmother was that lady. You come home from school and there's four homeless people in the living room. She's like 'Oh we're just going to give them a bath. Go do your homework'. So I sort of grew up with the comprehension of what that is. It's almost like she felt like it was her responsibility because of what she had been blessed with. It wasn't a choice she was making to do nice things for people. It was a responsibility.

TeenHollywood: Got to ask. I assume you are going to Barack's inauguration in January.

Will: Yes, yes. Absolutely.

TeenHollywood: I can see you being some sort of good will ambassador for his administration.

Will: 'Good Will'. I like that. You know, Barack being elected did something (to me). Like I was crying uncontrollably. It so validated something that I believed for a long time. I don't think America's a racist nation. I think there's racist people who live here but I just don't see America as a racist nation, right? Now I'm allowed to say out loud what, for so many years, I've been wanting to say. I just feel so free. America to me is the most fantastic nation that has ever existed in the history of this planet. 'We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal'. There's nothing ever been written better than that ever. And now we just have to live up to it. So I'm just hyped.

TeenHollywood: Do you want to some day play Obama in a bio pic?

Will: You know, I would love to. He just wrote a fantastic end to the first movie at least, so I'll be looking to do it when he's out of office in eight years.

TeenHollywood: We hear that you also might play Robert Neville in a pre-quel to I Am Legend, true?

Will: Yeah. We have a fantastic prequel idea. We're still trying to work through a couple of bumps in the story. It's essentially about the fall of the last city; the last stand of Manhattan.

TeenHollywood: Cool. So, what are your holiday plans?

Will: Jada, for probably the three months before Christmas, is always looking at wherever the maximum snowfall is and she'll hold 'til the last couple of weeks and then chooses the place based on snowfall. So it's Utah or Montana or someplace like that.