Will Smith Part 1

Emmanuel Itier: How did you prepare to be that person–to be the main and only character for most of the film? How “lonely” of an experience was it for you?

Will Smith: Indeed, this was the terrifying part of taking on this film. There are 80 pages of me and a dog, so I freaked out when I read this script. And even though I’m sure people like to see me on the screen, I was afraid it might be a little too much of “Will” for anybody. So it was an interesting process to get to understand this character. I actually studied and met with real POWs–Prisoners of War–and we found a guy that had been in isolation, and we found the things and the people who could create the texture of what that truly means to be by yourself. One thing that was across the board is “schedule.” A guy who had been in isolation during the war told me that to keep your sanity, you had to schedule things, like cleaning your name, just to keep a sense of what it is to be a human being and keep the illusion of the notion of “society.” You had to train your mind to do things according to a very strict schedule and hope you won’t lose your sanity. He was, for example, spending two hours cleaning his nails! That was the basis for creating this character. Also, another aspect of my character is the internal monologue. When you have no stimulus, when nobody speaks to you, you lose the stimulus/response with your thoughts and feelings. You forget the names of simple things. One time, a guy who spent time in isolation was telling us that for four hours he was looking at his hands and was trying to remember what these “things” were called, and then it came back to him–”Fingers! These are my fingers!” It’s really daunting to lose your mind like this when you have no stimulus or response needed. With the internal monologue, we structured it in a way where I had to say both, “Oh, it’s a beautiful day, today,” and “Yes it is, you’re right.”

EI: Tell us also about your physical transformation and how you lost 20 pounds, which is a lot for you, since you’re already so trim.

WS: What we determined from our research is that in these conditions, eating is just something that’s a basic necessity but not a pleasure or luxury, which means that you eat less and therefore lose a few pounds. There is no desire to eat. For me, I have an easier time to lose weight than put it on. And to do Ali was 50 times harder than to be in I am Legend. If you run 30 miles a day and six days a week, trust me, you will lose all the weight you want. It’s important for me to stay in good physical condition in order, among other things, to keep a happy mood in my couple! [Laughs]

EI: You are again saving the world, and this time it’s around the holidays. Is there an extra warm feeling about the timing of the release of your film?

WS: Good question. Yes, it is an extra positive feeling to save the world around the holiday season. I’m humbled by this coincidence and will try to keep my cool about me saving the world…one more time!

EI: How was this film difficult to put together, beyond the fact you’re the main and only actor on the screen most of the time?

WS: Well, it was a difficult movie for me on a creative level all across the board. The main struggle was to make a fall movie that is both big in scope like a summer movie, but also has the intensity and artistic quality level of a fall, pre-Oscar movie. We truly tried to commit to an artistic and indie feeling movie of a man and a dog but in a big concept box office winner and summer-type picture. We’re hoping people will respond to both–to the big, popcorn side of this film and the more intellectual, moving aspect of it as well.

EI: If you were the last man on Earth, what would be the comfort items you would have with you to keep your sanity?

WS: A pistol, because I’m out of here! [Laughs] With this film, I realized it’s a childlike primal idea to dare to think “I wish I was all alone–that everybody would be gone from the surface of the Earth.” No, you don’t want to be by yourself and all alone in this world. Even if people get on your nerves on the freeway or irritate you through your daily life, if everyone would be gone, you would have the worse time of your life and go totally insane. I remember I walked down, during the shoot, through the middle of Fifth Avenue in New York and we had cleared it for six blocks, and as cool as that is, it’s only cool because you can yell “Cut” and all the people behind the camera suddenly reappear. You need a connection in life. You need to feel part of something. You need to feel love–it’s a primal need. But experiencing loneliness and solitude is devastating. If it happened to me, I would probably read a lot. It’s what I do right now when I’m not doing anything, but usually I read books that help me apply the ideas I read to my life. And if I was alone on Earth, I don’t see how I could apply anything since there wouldn’t be anybody to validate the goodness or not of my actions. In any case, I love people so I would be miserable to end up all alone. So yes–love reading, running…and of course women and sex!

EI: So you would commit suicide?

WS: Yes. The keys to life, for me, are reading and running. The idea that there are trillions of people who lived before us, and even if they had problems, they solved them and put them in books somewhere, so there is no new problem that we have to figure out by ourselves. There are no issues that were not written about and solved thousands of years ago by somebody else. So you need to find the right book. The concept of reading is bittersweet because, even though you know the solution is written somewhere, you have to find that right book containing it. You need the proper information. The running aspect is how you connect to your weakness. When you get on a treadmill, you deprive yourself of oxygen. What kind of person you are is going to come out very quickly. You’re either the kind of person who says you’re going to run three miles and stop the treadmill, or you’re the type that when getting to three miles wants to keep going. So suddenly there is an inner talk with yourself going on, and either you control and command that inner voice, or you let it take over you. This has been an important aspect of life, to take control of my life and over my inner voices.

EI: Do you have a favorite science-fiction book? You were also destined to study science but moved to acting. How come?

WS: Science was always my strongest subject. I have always dreamed to design a fully computerized classroom, with keyboards in the desk and with a board with the teacher coming to that board. I always loved the idea of connecting technology and education. So yes, my life took a different turn, but this is why I love so much science fiction, because I’m able, in a way, to bring to a certain life, life on the screen, all of the dreams of my childhood. Books-wise, science-fiction-wise, I love it all. Loved the novel I am Legend, among other books.

EI: Do you consider yourself a risk-taker? Because it seems like it form the range of films you choose to do.

WS: It’s funny because I don’t consider myself a risk-taker. Well, at least a huge risk-taker. I’m a student of the pattern of the universe. If I can figure out how something is seemingly risky but I got the numbers on my side, then I’m comfortable taking a leap of faith. And I do this when I decided to get involved with big effects movies like I am Legend. When I first came to Hollywood, it was obvious, by studying the box office, what type of movies were making it big, and so I decided I would try to do the same, and it worked out. So Independence Day was not a hard call to make, and same thing with I am Legend today. The risk is not about the type of movie to make but how to make it–the execution of it, the choice of the director, the shape of my character, and so on.

EI: Where are your self confidence and the strong inner faith you have coming from?

WS: There is a very essential idea in my life: My grandmother thought I was just the greatest and she always pushed me a lot at church. There was a look of pride in my grandmother’s eyes and it became the fuel I need for life. I need my women–my wife, mother, daughter–to look at me with that look, that vote of confidence. I was 15 years old when my first girlfriend cheated on me, and it destroyed my concept of cause and effect in the universe–be good and good things happen and vice versa–and I found out that’s not true. That cheating gave me the illusion that I was not good enough, but I remember later making the decision that I would never not be good enough again! That was the last time ever that I would not be good enough. So in my 15-year-old mind, it gave me the confidence that nobody else would cheat on me or leave me. I went a little bit overboard, but truly I need that look in the eyes of my family.

EI: What would make your holidays perfect this year?

WS: We’d like to go to the snow, and this is my wife’s wish so I think we’ll go somewhere and enjoy the snow and the cold. My wife spends weeks trying to find out where the most snow is, and this is where we will end up…when I’d rather be in Jamaica!

EI: What is your belief of “God”?

WS: I believe that there are forces at work in the universe. I think there is an end of human knowledge, and beyond that unknown, we have to call it something in order for us to talk about it. If people didn’t have to put a specific name and want to fight about it, we all could across-the-board agree to call the unknown the highest power–let’s call it God. There are things we can’t control, and things happen that we can’t explain. I believe and try to understand and try to be a surfer of that energy, whether it’s prayers… Yes, I believe there is some sort of energy out there and I try to connect to it, and I try to use it and be in the good graces of this energy to have things in my life go the way I’d like them to go.