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Will Smith Press Conference

The cover of Men’s Vogue alluded to the idea that you may have converted to Scientology?
"No, wow, that’s what you got? [Laughing] Well, that is a broad array of questions.”

And, the grey hair?
"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?
"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?

[Laughing] With Willow, she just loves it. We watched, I don’t remember the building, but we were shooting the bridge sequence. There is a building that had a temperature gauge on it and we watched it. You started at sunset, and it was probably 29 degrees or something. Then we watched it go down to 1, 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 goes any lower than that one.’

She just wants it, she has a drive, an energy, and she just connects to human emotion. 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.’ [Laughing] 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, so 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, Jaden and I are here, and Willow is behind her. 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.’"

You’ve had experience saving the world in Independence Day and Men in Black. What would you do in a real life disaster? Have you ever had to play the hero in the real world?
"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. For me, Ali was the greatest time of asking myself that question. When Ali didn’t step forward because they wouldn’t call him Muhammad Ali, and he knew he was going to jail, he knew what the situation was going to be, but still he couldn’t step forward. I just remember thinking in that moment, ‘What would I do?’ I just don’t know if I would be enough man to give up everything I have right now, the way Ali did, for that principle.

When I look at Robert Neville, I think, ‘What was there to live for? What was there to hope for? To wake up every day 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. I would probably find a bridge and say, ‘I’m coming to join you Elizabeth.’ [Laughing] It’s a tough question and I guess the answer is, ‘I don’t know.’ I don’t think so. 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."

Page 3:One Smart Dog and Richard Matheson's Approval