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December 2007
I AM LEGEND
Press Conference Interview With Will Smith |
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December 10, 2007 If there was ever an actor who was called upon more times to save mankind, no one has taken more jobs than Will Smith. From the minute his career exploded on the big screen with ‘Independence Day’, Smith has saved the world plenty of times with films such as ‘Men in Black I & II’ and ‘I, Robot’. Not only has Smith been successful in doing well with these films and others, he’s found a way his family be close to him by having some of them star along with him. Last year, he and his son Jaden starred to the critically acclaimed film, ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’, and with his latest film, ‘I Am Legend’, Smith is not only trying to save mankind again, but his daughter Willow makes her feature film debut as well, playing his daughter. Based on the Richard Matheson book, Robert Neville is the last living man on Earth... but he is not alone. Every other man, woman, and child has become a vampire, and they are all hungry for Neville's blood. By day, he is the hunter, stalking the sleeping undead through the abandoned ruins of civilization. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for the dawn. How long can one man survive in a world full of vampires? At a recent press conference in Los Angeles, Smith talked about his character, having gray hair for the film, acting with his daughter, and his upcoming projects. How was shooting in New York City? Will Smith: Shooting in New York, especially something on this level, is difficult. I would say that percentage-wise, it’s the most amounts of middle fingers I’ve ever received in my career. I was like, ‘I’m used to people liking me. When I come [laughs] to town it’s fun, so I thought ‘Middle fingers?’ I was starting to think ‘f-you’ was my name.’ [Laughing] We shut down six blocks of Fifth Avenue on a Monday morning. That was probably poor logistics, which was poor planning. You realize that you have never actually seen an empty shot of New York. When we were doing it, it’s chilling to walk down the middle of Fifth Avenue. There is never an opportunity to walk down the middle of Fifth Avenue. At 2 o’clock in the morning on Sunday you can’t walk down the middle of Fifth Avenue. What happened is that it just created such a creepy energy. There are iconic buildings, there is a shot in the movie with the UN, there is Broadway, and it puts such an eerie, icky, kind of feeling on the movie when you see those shots. Logistically, it was a nightmare, but it absolutely created something that you can’t do with green screen, and you can’t do shooting another city instead of New York. What about the loneliness of your character, Robert Neville, and the madness he begins to feel? Basically, you are acting for the first half of the movie by yourself. Will Smith: It was such a wonderful exploration of myself. What happens is that you get in a situation where you don’t have people to create the stimulus for you to respond to. What happens is that you start creating the stimulus and the response. There is a connection with yourself, where your mind starts to drift so, in those types of situations, that you learn about yourself things you would never even imagination. You’ve had a passion for I Am Legend since you were going to do it with director Michael Bay. Why has Neville stayed with you for the past twelve or thirteen years? Finally, the grey hair you have in the film, was that a special effect or the real Will Smith? Will Smith: That was a special effect. We had the world’s best grey hair people come in from -- uh, they were uh, from Europe. On the first one, Robert Neville staying with me this long… I think with movies I am really connecting to the Joseph Campbell idea of the collective unconscious. There are things that we all dream. There are things that each one of us has thought, that connect to life, death, and sex. There are things that are beyond language. To me, this is one of those concepts. Times that you have been on the freeway many times and wished that everybody were dead. [Laughing] There have been times where things have gone and you just wish you were by yourself. You don’t need any of these a--holes. You just want to be by yourself. That, coupled with that separation from people, being ripped away from people, being separated, connected with the dark and unknown of the dark. It’s how we would fair against whatever is in that unknown is a really primal idea. I couldn’t always articulate it like that, but I’ve loved this concept. It connects to ideas that a four year old can understand. The cover of Men’s Vogue alluded to the idea that you may have converted to Scientology? Will Smith: No, wow, that’s what you got? [Laughing] Well, that is a broad array of questions. And, the grey hair? Will Smith: Yes, that is a European [team]. They are GHI, or Grey Hair International, and they just do that, because this [indicating his much darker hair] is what it normally is. [Laughing] I can prove it! I can prove it! [Laughing] “As far as Scientology. 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 answers, 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. What was it like working with your daughter Willow? Will Smith: You kind of don’t work with Willow, you work for Willow. [Laughing] It’s interesting. Jada (Pinkett-Smith) and I debate the age old debate of nature versus nurture. Is it because two actors went to Mexico and drank some tequila and made a baby? Does that make the baby an actor? Or, did she grow up in a house where that is what is in her house, that is just the life, and that’s the experience that she knows. When I look at Willow, I just believe that it has to be neither one of those. There has to be something else. She just knows… [A glass dropping interrupts his answer] See? That’s the problem, see? A black man starts to make a good point and you got to keep him down. Trying to keep me down, I get it, I get it. How often does the soundman make that much noise? Page 1 | Page 2
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