Though Born to Reign and Nellyville put them in direct competition, the two platinum-selling crossover kings are happy to cheer each other on. Big Will and Nelly put aside rivalry and talk blockbuster sequels, real estate ventures and albums ready to drop.
Nelly: How you doin'?
Will Smith: Man, it is all good. Congratulations on everything, boy. You blowin' up.
Nelly: Hey, I'm trying to do you, dirty. You doin' your thing.
Smith: I just heard your new joint in Korea. I was in Seoul. You been over there yet?
Nelly: No. They blowing it out the water?
Smith: Yeah, you the truth over there.
Nelly: I appreciate that. You noddin' your head, of course.
Smith: Yeah, man. You know I'm trying to put my thing down a little bit.
Nelly: Fo' sho. What you gonna do, another eight, five mil? What?
Smith: I don't know, man. The record business is changing.
Nelly: True, indeed. But you holding your own, dirty. You got your people that's with you, so you can do whatever you want. I'm sittin here with Big Will, Will Smith, you know. We noddin' our heads right now. We chillin', we laying back. I'm gonna cut to the chase man. When I get to be in the movie?
Smith: Man, listen. That's what I was saying.
Nelly: That ain't even a question. I waited to spring that on ya when the cameras was rollin'.
Smith: Naw. Hey, man, we shootin' "Bad Boys 2" this summer. Me and Martin [Lawrence] in Miami. We gotta find something for you.
Nelly: Fo' sho.
Obviously "Men in Black" was stupid, crazy, out of the water. You doing your thing, you come back again on II. Was it a little different this time working on "Men in Black II" as opposed to the first one?
Smith: Yeah, when you make a film and you got a team like Tommy Lee Jones and Barry Sonnenfeld and Steven Spielberg ... it's like playing with Shaq. You gotta step up, you gotta do your thing. I feel real good. The movie is funny.
It's always a little easier when you're doing a sequel cause it's a character that you already created, so you step into it and you already know that. And you can create a little more freely when you don't have to make up the character. It's just more natural.
Nelly: Cool. That's hot. I just had a chance to interview Tommy Lee.
Smith: Oh, you talked to Tommy? How was that? You might have needed to tell me first so I could tell Tommy, "Yo, this is my man Nelly."
Nelly: Yeah, I kinda froze up on him.
Smith: Yeah, Tommy can do that to you sometimes.
Nelly: This was "The Fugitive." I didn't know whether to walk out the room or run, 'cause I didn't want him to chase me, you feel what I'm saying? So I just thought about kinda easing out the door.