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Mr. Smith Goes to New York By A.C. FERRANTE As a celebrity, Will Smith is used to getting high-fives. But while in New York City filming I AM LEGEND (the third film version of Richard Matheson’s classic horror novella), he found himself on the receiving end of a completely different kind of gesture from the public. “I’m used to people liking me, but I would say percentage-wise, it’s the most amount of middle fingers I’ve received,” Smith says with a smile. “We shut down six blocks of 5th Avenue on a Monday morning. That was probably poor logistics and poor planning.” While Manhattan residents were understandably frustrated by the accompanying traffic delays, the end result of this shutdown is some of the most eerie scenes of an deserted Big Apple ever committed to film, which Smith says is part of the magic of the movie (opening December 14 from Warner Bros.). “You realize you’ve never seen an empty shot of New York,” he notes, “and when we were doing it, it was chilling to walk down the middle of 5th Avenue. There’s never an opportunity to do that, even at 2 a.m. on Sunday morning. It created such a creepy energy, and there are [scenes involving] iconic buildings as well. There’s a shot of the UN. There’s Broadway. It puts such an eerie, icky kind of feeling in the movie, when you see those shots. Logistically, it was a nightmare, but it absolutely created something you couldn’t do with greenscreen or shooting another city for New York.” First published in 1954, Matheson’s story was previously filmed with Vincent Price as 1964’s THE LAST MAN ON EARTH and with Charlton Heston as 1971’s THE OMEGA MAN. The new movie, directed by Francis (CONSTANTINE) Lawrence, casts Smith as Robert Neville, the last man alive after a virus has wiped out almost all of the world’s population. Those who haven’t succumbed have evolved into nocturnal, vampire-like creatures who come out at night to feed and hide underground during the day. Neville barricades himself in a Washington Square apartment between sundown and sunup as he tries to find a cure for the plague—but once he makes his presence known, he soon becomes the hunted. “[Doing this role] was such an exploration of myself,” Smith says, “because what happened was, I got myself in a situation where I didn’t have people to create the stimulus for me to respond to. So I started creating the stimulus and response and there was a connection with myself, which my mind started to drift to in those situations. I learned things about myself that I could have never even imagined. To prepare for that, we sat with former POWs and people who sat in solitary confinement. That was the framework. First thing is a schedule: You will not survive in solitary if you don’t schedule everything. I talked to Geronimo Pratt of the Black Panthers, who was in solitary for over three months. [He told me] you plan things like cleaning your nails. You will take two hours, and you have to, because it’s on the schedule. He said he spent about six weeks where he trained roaches to bring him food. The idea of where your mind goes to defend yourself… Whether he did train the roaches or not, he needed that to survive either way, so if you put that on camera—it’s genius. “For me, that was the key thing—to get into the mental space where whatever the truth was for Robert Neville, it didn’t matter,” the actor continues. “The only thing that mattered was what he saw and what he believed. It was such an exploration of what happens to the human mind as it’s trying to survive, and I’m a better actor for having to create both sides of scenes with no dialogue.” Warner Bros. has tried to launch an updated film of I AM LEGEND for years, with directors as varied as Ridley Scott and Michael Bay attached to direct and, at one point, Arnold Schwarzenegger set to star. Smith, who has hung onto the prospect of playing Neville since the time Bay was first attached, was always intrigued by this character who spends the movie isolated and alone, with only his dog Sam as his companion. “I was really connecting to the Joseph Campbell idea of the collective unconscious,” he says. “There are things we all dream, things each one of us thinks about that connect to life, death, sex—things that are beyond language, and this is one of those concepts. You’ve been on the freeway many times and wished everyone was dead. There have been times you wished you were by yourself, and didn’t need any of these assholes and just wanted to be alone. That separation from people, being ripped away from everyone and being connected with the dark—that’s a primal idea. I couldn’t always articulate it like that, but I loved this concept, because it connects to an idea that a 4-year-old could understand.” With nobody but a few mannequins to “communicate” with, Neville has to form a very tight bond with his dog Sam (played by a German shepherd named Abbey)—an attachment that Smith found himself sharing. “When I was 9 years old, I had a white golden retriever named Trixie that got hit by a car,” recalls Smith, who refused to own an animal since then because he didn’t want to become “emotionally connected to a dog anymore. Then [trainer] Steve [berens] brought that damn Abbey to set,” Smith laughs. “You talk about a smart dog—it got to the point where Abbey would be playing and hear ‘Rolling,’ and she’d run over and hit her mark. She would know I wasn’t doing my lines right if I got lost in a scene. It was the first time I connected and allowed myself to bond with a dog since that experience. “I said, ‘Steve, Abbey has to live with me,’ and he said, ‘She’s how I make my living,’ ” Smith continues. “I said, ‘Tell me what you need—a house in the hills.’ She was so smart and fun and warm that I experienced the pain again. He said, ‘I’ll bring her over every weekend, Will, but she has to work.’ She was great. Abbey is way on another plane, connecting to what your energy is, what your feelings are. It’s beautiful.” With or without a canine companion, Smith says he’s not sure he would be cool, calm and collected if found himself in a situation similar to Neville’s, but admits, “That’s what’s interesting about playing characters like this, because you get to explore and wonder how would you react. To me, [starring in] ALI was the greatest time of asking myself that question. When Ali didn’t step forward because they wouldn’t call him Muhammad Ali, he knew he was going to jail, he knew what the situation would be, but he couldn’t do it. I remember reading this, thinking, ‘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. “I thought about Robert Neville,” he continues. “What is there to live for, to hope for; to wake up every day to try to restore something that is good and gone. I like to believe I would put my chest up and stand forward and march on and continue to fight for the future of humanity. It’s a tough question. I don’t know. There’s a part of me that wants to be tested to know what you would do…but you don’t really want to be tested. That’s the space I’ve lived in with quite a few of the roles I’ve played.” http://www.fangoria.com/fearful_feature.php?id=5590

BY JOHN ANDERSON | Special to Newsday December 9, 2007 As someone once said, change is inevitable, except from vending machines. In 1959, Harry Belafonte starred in "The World, the Flesh and the Devil," playing a miner who emerges from a cave-in to find himself the last human on Earth - save for a comely blonde, played by the Swedish actress Inger Stevens. The question? Would Eisenhower America accept the outrageous suggestion that a "Day-O"-singing black civil-rights icon and a white woman would be left to perpetuate the human race? That movie is virtually unknown today. It is now 2007, and on Friday, Will Smith will be the last human on Earth in "I Am Legend," the post-apocalyptic Warner Bros. thriller based on the celebrated 1953 novel by Richard Matheson ("The Twilight Zone," "Night Gallery"). The question? Can Bush America continue to accept Will Smith as its leading box-office star, perpetuating a collaboration with the film industry that has resulted in a career total of some $4.4 billion in worldwide box-office receipts? Hollywood likes change. At least the kind you get from a vending machine. But change - in the sense of transformation, metamorphosis, difference - isn't something audiences particularly spark to. They like questions with reliable answers, and there's no one more reliable than Mr. Smith. He is simply the top male American movie star, and a global phenomenon: Some of his films have done better overseas - "Bad Boys," for instance. And while it's safe to say race is always an issue in America, Smith - the biggest thing ever to come out of rap, lest people forget - isn't identified exclusively, or particularly, as anything. He's just huge. His popularity is based on an amiable persona that the actor has parlayed into various manifestations: confidence man ("Six Degrees of Separation"); young hipster ("The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air"); older hipster ("Men in Black"), authoritarian hipster ("Bad Boys"), hip savior of the world ("Independence Day"), wise-cracking lawman ("Wild Wild West"), wise-cracking aquatic ("Shark Tale"), desperate parent ("The Pursuit of Happyness"). And he does it all via the same technique used by every major star in the history of Hollywood: by making it seem like he's playing himself. "Smith gives a performance of mind-boggling range," critic Michael Sragow wrote of "Happyness." Smith himself seems less impresssed: "I've never viewed myself as particularly talented. I've viewed myself as ... slightly above average in talent," he told "60 Minutes" in an interview that aired last Sunday. "Where I excel is with a ridiculous, sickening work ethic. While the other guy's sleeping, I'm working. While the other guy's eating, I'm working." Michael Tadross, executive producer of "I Am Legend" backs that up. "One night during shooting it was cold out, freezing, and I told him 'Will, please, go back to your trailer,'" Tadross said. "He told me, 'No, no, no. This is what I do. And I get paid a lot of money to do it. If everybody else is out here, then I'm out here, too." It got worse during what Tadross called the "evacuation scene." "It was freezing, again," Tadross said. "Three-thirty in the morning, productivity was at an all-time low. Will picks up the microphone, starts laughing and saying, 'I'm going to Miami!!!' and it got everybody up. We got the scenes done. Who else is like that?" "I Am Legend," directed by Francis Lawrence and scripted by Akiva Goldsman, is a particular challenge for the star: Smith has to dominate the movie in a way neither he, nor any star since Tom Hanks in "Cast Away," has dominated a movie. He's the last man in New York (where the streets were shut one busy Monday morning so that Smith and a dog could roam alone. Alone, that is, except for hideous slavering vampires, from whom he has to sequester himself at night.) A 12-year-effort The Matheson novel has seen the screen twice before, in addition to being the oft-cited inspiration for George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" (1968). "The Last Man on Earth" (1964) was an Italian production starring Vincent Price, and was followed only a few years later by the considerably more upscale "The Omega Man" (1971) with Charlton Heston, another star who could virtually carry a movie on his chariot without the encumbrances of co-stars. It took a 12-year effort to get Matheson's story on screen again, with such directors as Ridley Scott, Guillermo del Toro and Michael Bay connected to the project at various points. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Douglas and Tom Cruise were mentioned as possible leads. That it should be Smith who has brought the film to realization says a great deal about his star power, and perceived marketability. Smith's commercial charms no doubt convinced Warner Bros. to go forward with the costly production. With the dimming of Tom Hanks (age), Tom Cruise (craziness) and Mel Gibson (both), the 39-year-old Phildelphia-born Smith has emerged as the iron man of the weekend box office, the guy able to consistently bring in $30 million in a movie's first weekend of release and who can, and has, helped a number of those movies cross the $150-million mark domestically. These include his last three film releases - "Happyness," "Hitch" and "Shark Tale." The sci-fi feature "I, Robot" made "only" $144 million, but others have leapt a considerably higher bar ("Independence Day," $306 million; "Men in Black," $250 million). He's also been hot in every genre, including the downbeat "Happyness," which grossed an astronomical $305 million worldwide, according to the tracking Web site boxoffice mojo.com. Smith is now No. 1, followed by Johnny Depp and Ben Stiller. Golden grail No one has been more careful and calculating than Smith in creating his own niche, if you can even call it that. As he has conceded in interviews, his career trajectory has been a meticulously plotted course aimed at the lowest common denominator of the American marketplace. No one has accused Smith of repeating himself, but when you consider how many of his films have been end-of-the-world, special-effects extravaganzas (such as "Independence Day," "Men in Black," "I Am Legend") or action movies ("Bad Boys," "Wild Wild West"), you can't imagine he's planning to do "Othello" anytime soon. His rare flops have each marked an understandable detour from formula - it would have been madness for him to turn down the chance to play the title character in "Ali," for instance, or to have passed on a chance to work with Robert Redford ("The Legend of Bagger Vance"), even if biopics and golf films aren't really anybody's strong suit. But "Happyness" couldn't have been predicted - the story of a down-and-out single father running around New York with a medical scanner in his suitcase doesn't sound like a good time. But the movie gave people Smith. And they turned out in droves. You can't quite see him as a villain. Not yet anyway, though with two best actor Oscar nominations on his resume ("Happyness" and "Ali"), the ordinary process of career and ego and adulation says he'll eventually want the validation that comes with much-historied statuettes. He won't be happy just making $25 million a picture, or being the highest-paid black actor - or, simply, actor - of all time. He'll want the gold. When he wins, as he certainly will, the prediction here is that it will be accepted, graciously, and with an impromptu rendition of "Just the Two of Us."At first Warner Bros. reportedly passed on filming in New York because of costs and logistics; then "I Am Legend's" production team got the city to approve closing the Grand Central viaduct, several blocks of Fifth Avenue and Washington Square Park (nights and weekends between September 2006 and April 2007). The studio then spent an estimated $5 million for a six-night shoot on the Brooklyn Bridge, an effort that required more than a dozen government-agency approvals, a crew of 250, and 1,000 extras. The Fresh Prince of Hollywood Here are Will Smith's most notable films, kicked off by his small-screen success on "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" from 1990-96. The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) Hitch (2005) Shark Tale (2004) I, Robot (2004) Bad Boys II (2003) Men in Black II (2002) Ali (2001) The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) Wild Wild West (1999) Enemy of the State (1998) Men in Black (1997) Independence Day (1996) Bad Boys (1995) Six Degrees of Separation (1993) Made in America (1993) http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/movie...46.story?page=1

At 39, actor Will Smith has 14 movies to his credit and a new horror-drama called I Am Legend. He feels anything is possible, including becoming the first black American President, as long as Barack Obama doesn't beat him to it "The whole of the universe is contained in a single grain of sand," says Will Smith, quoting from his favourite book, Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, while maintaining characteristically intense eye contact. "I've taken that to mean that you can understand everything about the universe from any one thing that you master. Cinema is my grain of sand. That's how I want to deliver messages to the world and I'm not willing to take even a centimetre of that focus away. The next five years will mark the peak of my career. I can't let anything get in the way of that." It's a rare earnest moment in a babbling stream of good humour that encompasses presidential ambitions, sporting braggadocio, toilet humour, David Beckham anecdotes and self-mockery, but it goes to the heart of Smith's character. The truth is that, without him ever appearing ruthless, nothing has ever stood in the way of Will Smith. 'Barack Obama can go first, then it's my turn as President,' says Will Smith He's portrayed his multi-faceted career as a series of lucky accidents, claiming that he has little clue about what he's doing. But nobody in Hollywood has ever planned more carefully, nor worked so determinedly to stay ahead of the game. All this is vividly apparent the moment he strides into a hotel room in the picturesque and soaringly wealthy LA suburb of Westlake Village. At 6ft 2in, he's tall but not imposingly so, his physique noticeably slimmed from the 151/2 stone he weighed to play Muhammad Ali in 2001. He's slightly greying at the temples but Smith's fresh-faced handsomeness is intact, lent an irresistibly comic touch by those famously cartoonish stick-out ears. "Hey man," he grins wildly, gripping my hand with vice-like conviction. I ask him where he'd like to sit and he quips, "I'll sit wherever you're not sitting, otherwise we'll both be uncomfortable." Then, throwing himself on to the chair opposite to mine, he manages to bump his head against a lamp stand, reacting with a loud peal of goofy laughter. He's dressed for golf and explains that, following our mid-morning interview, he's heading off to the nearest course for one of his regular games with close friend Tiger Woods. I venture that maybe Tiger will have a rare off-day, and the 19th hole bragging rights will surely belong to him. "Yup, happens all the time," he deadpans. "When Tiger's off form, I'm all over him. The thing with Tiger is you can't let him know you're competing in your mind. The second that he knows you're competing with him, he shifts up another gear. Your best chance, in fact your only chance, is to pretend that you don't care, that you're out there purely for the fun of it. Even then, you have no chance at all." In all seriousness, Smith has never really looked threatened by anyone. In the past, he has been heard complaining that the only scripts he gets offered are those that Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks have turned down, but it's always been obvious that he's joking. Rather, he gives the impression of being maniacally competitive with himself – and that seems to be reaching a crescendo as he approaches middle age. Smith has been a major box-office attraction for two decades now, ever since making the leap from TV's The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air to cinema's lofty reaches. He's since proved himself bankable in every movie genre, whether it's action-comedy (Men In Black), sci-fi (Independence Day/I, Robot), romantic comedy (Hitch), biography (Ali/The Pursuit Of Happyness), fast-paced thrillers (Enemy Of The State) or straight drama (Six Degrees Of Separation). His latest movie is horror-drama I Am Legend, in which he stars as a scientist who believes himself to be the only survivor of a man-made plague that has wiped out most of humanity and turned the rest into vampiric mutants. To date, his 14 movies have earned £2 billion worldwide and ten of those movies have made more than £50 million in the US alone. He now earns a reported £15 million per movie plus a handsome share of the profits. His personal fortune has been conservatively estimated at £250 million. On the strength of all this, US magazine Newsweek recently voted him the most powerful man in Hollywood. But that's not likely to satisfy him for long. Smith tells me he's now arrived at a crucial fork in the road, where past achievements mean next to nothing when measured against the ambitions still needing to be fulfilled. "I'm 39 in a couple of weeks," he says. I gently correct him, pointing out that he'll turn 39 only two days after this interview. "Thanks for reminding me," he laughs. It's significant, because a decade ago he told an American magazine he'd like to run for President, "maybe in my early forties." People have been asking him ever since if he was serious, and in today's interview he'll drop the strongest hint yet that he is, indeed, ready to run. So we meet Smith at a turning point. Ever since the day when, afraid to take a risk, he turned down the role of Neo in The Matrix in order to film the widely derided Wild Wild West, he has maintained absolute control of his own career, and aimed high. The first result? 2001's Ali and an Oscar nomination. A few years later came the inspiring biopic The Pursuit Of Happyness, bringing yet another Oscar nomination. On the face of it, I Am Legend, with its monster-slaying, is a step back to his comfort zone but Smith doesn't see it this way. There are no backward steps in his plan. "On the one hand, the film is about scary monsters," he says. "On the other, it's about the real horror of solitude and death; it's about rebirth, reinvention of self and the true meaning of hope. It took six months and it was gruelling but that's not to say it wasn't fun to shoot." "One of the key scenes features a major evacuation of New York across the Brooklyn Bridge. This was a major six-night shoot involving a crew of 250, more than a thousand extras and many more people who turned up to watch. One night it was freezing cold so I grabbed the mic and started rapping Summertime. It wasn't planned. A microphone to a rapper is like a magnet. I can't leave it alone." Plenty of actors are driven, focused, do serious stuff, get Oscar nominations and make money – but how many have this much fun in the process? For the key to Smith's indomitable nature, you need only look at his upbringing. His father, a US Air Force sergeant turned refrigerator installer, ran the Smith household on strict military lines and instilled in his son a self-discipline that extended to avoidance of all drugs and only occasional indulgence in alcohol. "Through my teenage years I was too focused on sex to even think about all the other vices," he says. "I'm much the same now. No drugs and only the occasional drink. My motto is this: if you stay ready, you don't have to get ready. I have a need to stay as close to peak condition and the right mental shape as possible for whatever life might call on me to do." So what comes next? So exorbitant is his ambition that you'd be unwise to rule out any achievement for Smith in his forties. He's already set about trying to fix the world, with non-profit organisation Malaria No More. "If I was able to look back and say that I was a part of something that made malaria non-existent on Earth, that would mean more than anything I've achieved as an actor." Then, without prompting, he returns to the theme he's employed as a makeshift interview tease for nigh on a decade: "And I'm going to be the President of the United States." When making similar proclamations in the past, he would routinely insert a get-out clause, but today there's no such hedging of bets. "I always wanted to be the first black president but Barack Obama stole my idea. That's OK with me. Barack can go first and then I'll take my turn." "Once I'm in, I'll start changing a few of the things that urgently need changing. The basis of human sanity is physical survival, right? So I'd start with universal healthcare and shelter. I can't see that happening under Bush. Too many bad things have happened during his presidency. I don't believe he's an evil man, I just think he has an unevolved perspective. It's a good thing he's served his time. Now it's time for Barack Obama." Like Obama, Smith has cultivated an appeal that cuts across racial and sexual boundaries. Everybody, it seems, can find something to like about him. His easy, irresistible charm might just be his greatest talent. That – and his enviable luck. An aura of effortless success is one of the presidential prerequisites. Voters also like a candidate who's fallible, of course. Both Bush and Obama admit to misspent youths, and Smith is no different. In 1989, aged 21 and flush with the success of The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, he squandered more than $1 million on high living and expensive cars, narrowly escaping jail when it was discovered that he had omitted to pay his taxes. It's an incident he now laughs off, saying, "Everybody else was paying their taxes. I figured that nobody needed mine." What else does a presidential hopeful need? Funds, for a start. Not a problem for Smith. He owns homes in Stockholm and his native Philadelphia but his main base is a spectacular £10 million estate on the outskirts of Los Angeles. It is here that Smith gleefully indulges his love of state-of-the-art gadgets. Pushed to pick a favourite, he thinks long and hard before revealing that it's a Japanese-made, paperless toilet. I beg him to spare me the details but he is up and running. "It's a gift from heaven, believe me. People think it's all about suction and that they're going to have their insides removed by this marvel of modern engineering – but it doesn't suck, it blows. Not everyone can handle this thing emotionally, so I've made sure I also have a few normal toilets in my house." Connections count in politics, too. Smith counts numerous fellow A-listers as close friends, and chief among them are Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Together, the Smiths and the Cruises hosted the Beckhams' welcome to LA party in July 2007. "David's hilarious, believe me. In general, Americans tend to be loud and outspoken so David's quiet by comparison. But he knows how to make people laugh. He has this very dry sense of humour. At the party I did my human beat box routine, then handed David the microphone. He looked at the mic, looked at me, and said, 'Everyone knows you've just covered this microphone with spit. Now I have to be courteous and pretend I'm not looking at your spit.' He's a very funny guy.” "As for the chances of soccer making it big in the States, it's never going to take over from baseball or American football in my country but, in the next generation, it's gonna be big. Even bigger than dwarf-throwing.' He lets out a laugh that can be heard a mile away before returning to the pressing question of why, as he approaches his forties, he feels the need to drive his talents even harder, even further. "At 39, I feel anything is possible. But that doesn't mean my body isn't capable of saying 'no more.' In my next movie, Hancock, I play this superhero character and the crew have built a harness that enables me to fly. I run and jump in the air and soar 400 metres over concrete at 55mph before landing at the other side. It looks great but I do wonder whether I should be doing that sort of thing at my age. I guess I'm not happy unless I'm accepting a challenge. And I doubt that will ever change.' I Am Legend is out on December 26 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...in_page_id=1889

Will Smith eyes Asian role Actor Will Smith stops in Hong Kong as part of an Asian press tour to promote his latest film, "I am Legend", and talks about his desire to work in Asia. http://video.google.es/videoplay?docid=8895142641186247683

Will Smith Might Not Be Legendary in China Will Smith made a grand entrance at the premiere of I Am Legend in Hong Kong yesterday after another press conference (hopefully nobody dozed off this time). He's been making his way across Asia to promote the film, but seems to be having some trouble getting the movie released in China. The country is trying to keep out foreign films in order to stimulate their own entertainment industry but Will still fought for his project, saying, "We struggled very, very hard to try to get it to work out, but there are only a certain amount of foreign films that are allowed in." The movie looks like it has definite blockbuster potential, so hopefully getting banned from China won't have a huge effect on the overall success of Will's movie. http://popsugar.com/863588?sidcheck=1&idcheck=1

Legend's Smith Researched Prisoners Will Smith, who plays the last man on Earth in the upcoming SF movie I Am Legend, told reporters that he researched the lives of prisoners of war and convicts in solitary confinement to get into the mindset of an isolated, lonely man. "It was such a wonderful exploration of myself, because what happens is, you get into a situation where you don't have people to create the stimulus for you to respond to," Smith said in a news conference in Beverly Hills, Calif., last week. "So what happens is, you start creating the stimulus and the response. So there's a connection with yourself that where your mind starts to drift to in those types of situations, that you learn things about yourself that you never would even imagine." In the movie, based on Richard Matheson's novel of the same name, Smith plays Robert Neville, the lone survivor of a viral plague that has wiped out the population of New York. Smith's Neville sticks to a rigid routine to govern his isolated life, but as the film progresses, his mind begins to unravel. To achieve his performance, Smith said that he talked with former POWs and prisoners in solitary. "That was sort of the framework for creating the idea," he said. "They said that [the] first thing is a schedule. That you will not survive in solitary if you don't schedule everything. And we talked to Geronimo ji-Jaga--he's formerly Geronimo Pratt of the Black Panthers--and he was in solitary for over three months. And he said, 'You plan things like cleaning your nails. And you'll take two hours, [and] you have to [do it], because it's on the schedule, that you have to just clean your nails.' He said that he spent about six weeks, and he trained roaches to bring him food. And, you know, I'm sitting, I'm like, 'Oh, my God.' The idea of where your mind goes to defend yourself. And either he really did train the roaches, which is huge, or his mind needed that to survive. Either way, you put that on camera, and it's genius." The film, which is told from Neville's point of view, even equivocates about whether Neville is really seeing what he thinks he's seeing. "That was the thing, to be able to get into the mental space where what the truth was for Robert Neville didn't matter," Smith said. "The only thing that mattered was what he saw and what he believed." He added: "It was such a great exploration of what happens to the human mind that is trying to defend itself. And, for me, I'm a better actor for having to create both sides of the scene with no dialogue." I Am Legend opens Dec. 14 http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?c...=3&id=45973

Will in Hong Kong http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acsmLcMl2BI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5LHWfWrH7o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZKXFSdttmg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhppBJpkaiM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQAKNCFYidM

An Exclusive Interview with Francis Lawrence Source: Ryan Rotten December 7, 2007 The last man on Earth is not alone. What an understatement. The last man - in this case, actor Will Smith - was definitely not alone on the set of Warner Bros.' big budget adaptation of Richard Matheson's classic tale I Am Legend. Descending on Manhattan with a colossal crew, the production shut down entire city blocks while Smith played - as WB's aggressive marketing campaign reminds you - Robert Neville, the supposedly lone survivor of a virulent outbreak that wipes humankind off the planet. Leading this army and pushing Smith through solitude and flirtations with madness was Francis Lawrence, director of Constantine and this latest undertaking that has seen directors (Ridley Scott) and actors (Arnold Schwarzenegger) come and go. Initially published in 1954, "I Am Legend" spawned two big screen adaptations, the Hammer Films-rejected Italian production "The Last Man on Earth," starring horror's sinister Vincent Price, and Boris Sagal's "The Omega Man" with Charlton Heston as a square-jawed, gun-totin' Neville and Anthony Zerbe sporting albino makeup and contact lenses. "Omega" hit theaters in '71 and in the subsequent decades, Hollywood knew a modern re-telling was due. Enter Lawrence. ShockTillYouDrop.com caught up to the director for a one-on-one chat following a press conference at The Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. ShockTillYouDrop.com: Post-"Constantine" you probably had a wealth of projects to choose from. Why rescue "I Am Legend" from development hell? Francis Lawrence: I read one of [screenwriter Mark] Protosevich's drafts before I did "Constantine" and it stuck in my head. I hadn't read the novel before that draft. When I was finishing "Constantine," Akiva and I were talking about working together again and Warners gave him that project to resurrect 'cause they thought it was dead. He brought it up to me, and I finally read the novel. Even before these projects, I was always intrigued by someone surviving in an abandoned urban environment. Back when I was doing music videos I'd try to do that with some of the artists I worked with. Trying to sell this feeling of isolation and emptiness. I said, Let's take a crack at it, and we went off with our own take from there. Shock: Like Jack Finney's "The Body Snatchers" - which was coincidentally published the same decade as Matheson's novella - "I Am Legend" is one of those timeless stories that demands to be re-told on the screen every couple of decades. Why do you think that is? Lawrence: I think people are really intrigued by the idea of the last man on earth. That concept is really interesting and in that there are different ideas to play with. Matheson, when he wrote his novel...his ideas are durable. You can transplant them in almost any generation. You look at "Omega Man" and they apply in a very different way than they did in the '50s and they do now. It's a classic idea of what do you do when you're the last person on earth? Shock: Then why do you think this incarnation has been such a tough nut to crack? The words are on the page and the themes are there. Lawrence: I think there are a lot of reasons, I think the original material is not built like a feature. The original material, although a novella and a fair amount in terms of page count, structurally does not have a motor. And it's sort of, as a film, structured like a short film 'cause it's got a button. That's what is tough about it, trying to create a motor. I also think that the creatures - the infected, vampires, however they exist in whatever form the story has taken - are difficult, because based on how much lucidity you give them, intelligence you give them, what can they do, what can't they do, what do they represent - that's been tough. We chose to tell the story of Neville and really create a hero's journey, a character piece about somebody who is struggling to survive after so much loss. Shock: And that falls all on the shoulders of Will Smith - was he signed on prior to your commitment to the film? Lawrence: This project has been around fourteen or fifteen years. Somewhere along the way Will had been on board for a while. I think it was before "28 Days Later" and then that version fell apart. When I came on with Akiva, we both had relationships with him and thought he'd be perfect. We told him our version of the movie, he started to get interested in it again, liked what we had come up with - he also liked some of the old stuff he had been working on and we came up with our version. Shock: The cause behind Neville's isolation has always been a virus that wipes out mankind, but the origins of that virus has changed somewhat in your film. I thought for certain your would have fallen back on bio-terrorism, however, the cause is simply a cure for cancer gone awry. So, kudos for not taking the obvious route... Lawrence: It was interesting because, in talking with the CDC, we learned this is how some of these things come to happen. These horrible viruses can pop up out of nowhere, it's not just bio-terrorism. It can be a change in the environment that brings an unseasonable grain to the area which attracts an animal with a disease and something is born and spreads. That stuff is interesting to me, when it's unexpected. Shock: We've heard that you tried to portray the infected through practical means. Did you find something comfortable in doing them CGI? Lawrence: We had a change. Originally, I might have wanted to do them digitally, but it was a very expensive ordeal so we decided to do everything live. We hired all of these actors, dancers and stunt people, put them through a boot camp, shaved all of their heads and put them through the makeup process. But what we found after literally one day of shooting is that real people couldn't have the abandon we needed. There was going to have to be some digital augmentation anyway because there were attributes we needed to see - their jaws distending, hyperventilating because their metabolism is all jacked up. These are things people can't do. We said, We just have to do these digitally. You get this different feeling from our creations because of their extended jaws and rapid breathing, their skin is sorta transparent. You get these subtle differences that I really liked. Shock: And there's a conscious decision to make them more animalistic, more primal than what they were in the book. This goes back to what you were saying about making Neville the focus, but did you and Akiva consider making the infected more human? Lawrence: We have about an hour of footage that's not in the movie, there are other things we have with the creatures. But the cleanest, clearest, most emotional through line we have in the movie is Will's character. That's the path we chose. Shock: Downstairs Akiva told us "Legend" is a mix of Matheson's book and elements from "Omega Man." There's a scene in the latter where Charlton Heston enters a theater and watches "Woodstock" - here, you have a touching moment of levity that has Neville watching "Shrek." Was the film your choice? "Shrek" is a far cry from "Woodstock"... Lawrence: For a while we had a movie theater sequence, then light became a very important thing in our story. Neville doesn't go in the dark spaces. The idea of "Shrek" for us was that there's something nice about a guy who has lost his family - it's not nice - but there's something nice about the experience of coming downstairs to find a child in front of the TV and "Shrek" is on. If you think about it, the last time he has seen that image was when his daughter was alive. There's something powerful in that and then, beyond that, I liked the counterpoint. Here's a film that's fun and whimsical in this desolate world. Shock: What are your thoughts on the last two adaptations - "The Last Man on Earth" and "Omega Man"? Lawrence: "Last Man on Earth"...Vincent Price is one of my favorite actors, I think he was miscast. It just didn't capture it and Price is not Robert Neville. The film also has big pacing issues. "Omega Man" is a little too tied to a specific generation, and a little cult-y to me. But both have very interesting ideas. You look back at "Omega Man" and you're like, Oh, it's all shot on the Warner Bros. lot. Shock: There are a lot of afros on display, too. Lawrence: There's one mannequin in our film with a giant afro in the background - not sure if you saw that, but that was my homage to "Omega Man." I got really paranoid about it on set that day because it's kind of funny and I didn't know if it was a mistake. But it's just far enough away that it's not corny. Shock: Can you talk a bit about your representation of New York City? This is set in the near future. The fact that much of the drama takes place in the daylight belies the usual post-apocalyptic dismal fare we've seen on screen before. Lawrence: New York City is such a great city to shoot in, but to be in such iconic places like the front of Grand Central Station. Will Smith shooting a machine in front of Grand Central was pretty great. We did a lot of conceptual work on this world and what we didn't want to do is the grim stuff we see in movie after movie after a situation like this. We talked to scientists and ecologists and started looking into what would happen to a city after the population disappeared. And the truth is, nature would start to reclaim the city. It'd become a slightly more beautiful place. Shock: I was visiting New York when you were shooting near 4th Street, where Tower Records used to be. You ran a tight ship - the production assistants were pretty sharp and aggressive. Lawrence: [laughs] We'd have 150 to 200 P.A.s working on a given day, depending on where we were. There were so many of them and some of them were so distant, on the fringe of where we were shooting. I'd take a break, go to Starbucks, come walking back and I would get some dude who'd say, Sorry, man, we're shooting. And I don't have my badge and I'm like, I swear I'm the director. Yeah, right, he says. I would get stopped, Akiva would get stopped. We had to give speeches all of the time telling them they had to stay mellow, they can't actually touch anybody, they have to be polite. There's a core group that went through training with the city on how to treat people with respect 'cause you can't actually stop people. Shock: And what's up next for you - "I'm a Bigger Legend"? Lawrence: I'm working on a couple of things: I might do a pilot for NBC. Then there's a movie at Disney that I've been talking to them about. It's a re-telling of Snow White in 19th century China - that's a cool project. And there's a Chuck Palahniuk project that I'm working on, "Survivor," that a friend of mine did an adaptation for. http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/topnews.php?id=3957

Washington, Dec 7 (ANI): Will Smith goes that extra mile to be at his very best with his wife - because he fears she will dump him like his first love did. The 'Hitch' star recently confessed that he cannot function unless his wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith, sees him as if he's the greatest man alive. "My grandmother just thought that I was just the greatest... There was a look of pride that my grandmother had in her eyes that became the fuel that I need for life. I need my woman and my mother and my daughter and women in general to look at me with that look that my grandmother had," Contactmusic quoted him, as saying. "I was about 15 years old when my first girlfriend cheated on me and it so destroyed my concept of myself that I wasn't good enough. I remember laying in my bed and making a decision that I would never not be good enough again. "I may have gone a little overboard with it in my mind but every single day Jada must have the look. I can't function if she doesn't have that look in her eyes," he added. Hence, he always tries hard for perfection as a father, husband and businessman, he said. "That means in my movies, as a father, as a husband. I have to educate myself to the place that I can contend as the best on earth and that's the only way to keep my woman from leaving me," he said. (ANI) http://www.thecheers.org/news/Celebrity/ne...e-greatest.html

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Will Smith earns record amounts of money for films, and has been nominated for an Oscar twice. Short of world domination, what's next, asks gill pringle Published: 07 December 2007 If there's one reason why Will Smith is Hollywood's highest-paid actor, then look no further than the girl who broke his heart when he was a teenager. "I was probably about 15 when my first girlfriend cheated on me, and it so destroyed my concept of cause and effect in the universe; that you could be good and good stuff happens and when you're bad, bad stuff happens. And what I processed from that, [the reason] why she cheated on me was that I wasn't good enough," says the actor. It's an interesting twist on the old adage that behind every powerful man is a strong woman, given that it was a cheating woman who launched Smith on the path to becoming the mogul, movie star and platinum-selling musician that he is today. At 16, the mathematics and science student turned down a scholarship to Boston's prestigious MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) after he'd begun rapping with Jeff Townes (aka DJ Jazzy Jeff). Thereafter he became one half of the hip-hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, together winning the first-ever Grammy in the rap category in 1988. Two years later he landed the lead role in hit TV series, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which ran for six years, and in 1993 he landed a role opposite Sir Ian McKellen and Donald Sutherland in Six Degrees of Separation. Rapidly starring in a succession of box-office blockbusters – including Bad Boys, Independence Day, Men in Black and Enemy of the State – his quick mind for numbers helped him gain a quick understanding of Hollywood's financial pulse. Paid a record-breaking $28m for the 2004 hit I, Robot, the actor today regularly tops up his basic salary by taking 10 per cent of the movie's gross box-office as well as serving as producer on most of his films. Smith's trump card is the fact he is able to become a leading man for everyone. The second of four children raised in middle-class Philadelphia, his family were devout Baptists, although he grew up in an Orthodox Jewish neighbourhood. Enrolled at Overbrook High, a largely white Catholic school, most of his friends were black, although his closest neighbours were Muslim. In the process, he learnt to get along with everyone, translating his universal likeability and easy charm into movie gold. Doubtless Smith's high-school heart-breaking ex has kicked herself many times since her former beau became one of the world's favourite leading men. And if she needs any further reminder of lost opportunity, Smith even named his production company, Overbrook Entertainment, after their high school. While his marriage to actress Sheree Zampino produced a son, Trey Willard Smith III, now 16, Smith failed to find lasting love, divorcing after three years in 1995. Only in fellow actress Jada Pinkett-Smith, 36 – they married almost 10 years ago – did he meet his match. "You're so much stronger when your partner is strong. I honestly believe there is no woman for me but Jada," he says, referring to the fiery actress he first met when she tried out for – and lost – the role of his girlfriend in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Together the couple have raised two precocious progenies in son Jaden, nine, and daughter Willow, seven. Co-starring with Jaden in last year's Pursuit of Happyness, his latest film I Am Legend sees him co-star with Willow, cast in the role of his daughter, Marley. However, he says that they both got their parts on merit. "We make our kids audition, we don't do the whole nepotism thing. But, you know, it's the family business. It's just what our family does, and it's good." Smith also insists their children aren't spoiled, home-schooling them on the couple's 100-acre Calabasas ranch perched in the Santa Monica Mountains outside Malibu. "We live in La-la-land out here. For us, travelling is hugely important, for our kids to really see other things. We have taken them to South Africa and Italy and many places around the world. We try to let them experience how other people live." Having attended Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' wedding last year, it has since been widely rumoured that the Smiths have become the latest Hollywood converts to Scientology. Circumspect on making any public declaration of affiliation to the religious group, whose high-profile followers include John Travolta and Lisa Marie Presley, he says: "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? I create my connection and I decide how my connection is going to be." A self-avowed proponent of self-help books, he says: "The idea that there are millions of people who have lived before us; and they had problems and they solved them and then they wrote it down in a book somewhere. So there's no new problem that we can have that we've gotta try to figure out by ourselves. " If Smith won't absolutely confirm an involvement with scientology, then he will admit to a blossoming friendship with the Cruises' new pals the Beckhams: "I love his [David Beckham's] energy; I love his attitude – like, what he represents to the sport – and just getting to know them. They're very, very funny. I keep telling them: 'You probably should let people know how funny you all are, cause y'all are hilarious!'" Smith probably spent more time in the gym than Beckham does for his football matches in preparation for his latest film I Am Legend, after he lost 20lbs for the role of Robert Neville, a brilliant scientist tortured by his inability to contain an incurable virus. Grieving the loss of his wife and daughter, he finds that he is the last human survivor in New York and possibly the world. If no Smith movie is complete without a gratuitous display of the actor's impressive 6ft 2in muscle-bound physique, he says modestly: "For me, I have an easier time losing weight than I do putting it on. Ali was 50 times harder [than I Am Legend] – trying to put weight on." Based on Richard Matheson's 1954 science-fiction novel about the last man alive on earth, I Am Legend has already spawned two movies, 1964's The Last Man on Earth starring Vincent Price and 1971's The Omega Man with Charlton Heston in the lead. Warner Brothers Pictures has owned the rights to the book since the 1970s, first attempting to adapt it in 1994 with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the lead and Ridley Scott directing. But plans were abandoned after the production went over-budget. In I Am Legend, Smith hopes to combine his mass appeal with a serious acting performance. Having twice been Oscar nominated, for Ali and The Pursuit of Happyness, there's little left for him to achieve, other than Hollywood's ultimate badge of respect. "Screenwriter [of I Am Legend] Akiva Goldsman and I met during the Oscars when he won for A Beautiful Mind and I was nominated for Ali," he says. "So we hung out and talked, and posed the question to one another – why do the big movies come out in the summer and the good movies come out in the fall? Why are they separated? Is there any possibility that you could take both and marry those ideas? "So we tried to commit to the small art-house, truthful version that stays close to the source material, and has that feeling and that energy, yet has the big blockbuster package. We know when people go into the theatre, they'll be a little shocked by it, but hopefully that will turn out to be a good thing." If Smith's gamble for the intellectual heart of Hollywood fails, then he may well return to Plan A. "I truly, honestly believe that if I chose to be the President of the United States, I could," he once said. "You have to believe in the impossible." 'I Am Legend' opens on 26 December http://arts.independent.co.uk/film/feature...icle3229371.ece

Hollywood star Will Smith, in Hong Kong on Friday for the Asian premiere of his new film, said performing in the same movies as his children helped them bond as a family. HONG KONG (AFP) - The actor stars alongside daughter Willow in his latest film "I am Legend," which tells a story of a scientist, played by Smith, who tries to find a cure for virus-infected New Yorkers who turn into mutant humans. He played the role of father to his nine-year-old son Jaden in his last film "Pursuit of Happyness." "For me, it's such a perfect opportunity that they want to act because it's what I know most in this life. How much better could it possibly be that your kids are going to do something that you can actually teach?" Smith said. "Generally, we send out kids to school to learn things that we don't know... it's a perfect bonding... there's this thing that happens that a relationship grows in that way," he told reporters in Hong Kong. Smith would not be drawn on which of his children was more talented judging from their debut performances. The US star also talked about the difficulty in obtaining rights to show his latest film in China, which so far has not allowed it to be released, partly because of the restrictions on the number of foreign films that can be shown there. "We would love to able to find a way to be able to release the film in China. We struggle very very hard to work (things) out," he said. Despite that, his enthusiasm to make movies in China and Asia has not been dampened. Smith, who earned an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of boxing legend Muhammad Ali in the film "Ali," said he had met a representative from the state-run China Film Group about making movies. "There's a few things we are trying to put together... we try to figure out how to get there and make some movies," he said. The actor added he is considering filming in the region, including Hong Kong or China's capital Beijing, for his remake of hit 1980s martial art movie "Karate Kid." "I am Legend" will be released in Hong Kong and the rest of Asia on December 13. http://news.sawf.org/Entertainment/45870.aspx

Smith Says Film Not Yet OK'd in China HONG KONG (AP) — Will Smith's new sci-fi thriller, "I Am Legend," is hitting movie theaters across Asia later this month — but not in China. The delay in the film's approval comes amid a report that China has issued a temporary ban on American movies to boost the country's domestic film industry — a move the country's regulator has denied. "We struggled very, very hard to try to get it to work out, but there are only a certain amount of foreign films that are allowed in," Smith told reporters in Hong Kong on Friday. Smith said he had met with China Film Group's chairman, Han Sanping, and is working with him to secure a release date for "I Am Legend." Smith said he has discussed other movie projects with Han and mentioned that he's exploring the idea of a remake of "The Karate Kid," possibly set in Hong Kong or Beijing. "I am Legend" has already received a green light for release in Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. Although Britain returned Hong Kong to China in 1997, the territory has maintained a certain amount of autonomy, with its own financial, legal and regulatory systems. Smith's comments came a day after Hollywood trade publication Variety reported that Chinese authorities have decided to ban American movies for three months to protect the local film industry. But an executive at the import and export arm of state-run China Film Group on Thursday denied there was a ban, saying the company is still reviewing Hollywood movies for release in the country. In the past, Chinese regulators have tried to maximize revenue for Chinese studios by banning foreign films from theaters during holidays and school vacations, when audiences are biggest. "I Am Legend," based on the Richard Matheson novel by the same name, is set in New York where Smith is one of the lone survivors of a deadly global epidemic. It has been adapted for the big screen on two previous occasions — first as "The Last Man on Earth" in 1964 and then as "The Omega Man" in 1971. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jlc94tb...N3PILwD8TCKVN00

Will Smith Visits Air Force Base YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — Stacey Thibodeaux had a birthday she’ll never forget. With her husband, Albert, away in Kyrgyzstan, the Yokota woman was among several spouses of deployed servicemembers invited on stage to meet Hollywood megastar Will Smith during his visit to the base. “He signed my birthday card,” said Thibodeaux, of New Orleans, who turned 28 on Tuesday. “Baby, thank you for getting deployed … I got a kiss from Will Smith on my birthday. This is the best birthday I’ve ever had.” Another smooch came on the fly — literally. “My husband is deployed to Afghanistan. He told me I can’t leave here without a kiss,” one woman said during a random question-and-answer session. Without hesitating, Smith leapt off the stage, raced toward the woman and kissed her on the cheek. “I love you. You’re so amazing,” she replied. The 39-year-old former “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and Grammy Award-winning rapper-turned-blockbuster movie star showed off his unabashed enthusiasm, trademark humility and unassuming nature during an hourlong appearance at Yokota’s outdoor Sakura Shell. After flying in on a Black Hawk helicopter from Hardy Barracks in Tokyo, Smith addressed fans and then headed into the audience to sign autographs and pose for photos with servicemembers, civilians and their families. He smiled, waved and blew kisses to the crowd, pausing for as many requests as he could cram in. “It was hugely important for me to come out and let you know we are thinking about you,” Smith said. “A lot of you are away from home and away from your loved ones for a long time. I wanted to come show you some love.” The two-time Oscar nominee is in Japan to plug the upcoming release of his long-awaited, post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller “I Am Legend.” The world premiere was set for Wednesday at the Tokyo International Forum. Staff Sgt. Christabell Hermsdorf, assigned to Yokota’s 374th Airlift Wing, arrived about 40 minutes late. “I ran up here,” said Hermsdorf, 23, of San Bernardino, Calif. “I’m a big fan. I just wanted to try to catch a glimpse. I got to see him on the stage, but I missed him speaking, unfortunately. “It’s real exciting. I get star-struck very easily. I’ll come out to see any A-lister. I love Hollywood and gossip.” Airman Kenneth Bailey of the 374th Maintenance Group got an autograph and a handshake from Smith. “I grew up watching the ‘Fresh Prince,’ so it was nice to get a picture taken with him,” said Bailey, 22, of Augusta, Ga. “On a scale of one to 10, it was a 10.” Handed a microphone, a young girl asked Smith to name the best movie he’s appeared in. “‘Pursuit of Happyness’ is probably one of the best films I’ve made,” he answered, drawing wide cheers. “The most fun was with Martin Lawrence in ‘Bad Boys.’ “We had a great time shooting in Miami. And Martin is an all-around total fool.” Laura Vargas, 25, a military spouse from Chicago, said she was thrilled to see a big star on base. “It’s wonderful they didn’t forget about us overseas,” she added. “It’s awesome Will Smith came to see us.” In a brief interview with Stars and Stripes, one of the planet’s biggest movie stars said he frequently travels the world promoting his films but felt a need to visit the troops during his three-day Japan stop. “It’s a tough time for a lot of American families with their loved ones being away,” Smith said. “I felt like it was my pleasure and duty to come out and say, ‘We’re thinking about you. Good work and good luck.’” Added Col. Jeff Newell, the 374th Airlift Wing commander: “What a day for Yokota Air Base.” Smith’s promotional visit for U.S. Forces Japan was sponsored by Stars and Stripes, in association with Access Television, Japan. http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,157620,00.html

Legend's Smith Goes To Dog Will Smith, who shares the screen in I Am Legend with a German shepherd, told reporters that he quickly bonded with the dog. "Abbey is the dog's real name," Smith said in a news conference in Beverly Hills, Calif., last week. "And, yeah, when I was probably 9 years old, I had a dog, Trixie, a white golden retriever, that got hit by a car. So ... I refused [to have one since then]. ... And then [trainer] Steve [berens] brought that damn Abbey on the set." Abbey, a 3-year-old German shepherd rescued from an animal shelter, plays Sam, the constant companion to Smith's Robert Neville, the last man on Earth. "You say a smart dog? It's like, it got to the point with Abbey, she'd be playing, playing, playing, she'd hear 'Rolling!' and she'd run over to her mark and get ready," Smith said. "And I was like, 'What in the hell?' It's like she would know when I wasn't doing my lines right. If I would get lost in the scene, you know, she would just go [tilts his head]." To cement the bond between man and dog, director Francis Lawrence issued a directive: No one pets Abbey except Smith. (Though Smith's co-star, Brazilian actress Alice Braga, admitted that she snuck in a few scratches behind Lawrence's back.) "There was a rule on set that nobody could interact with her other than the trainer and Will," Lawrence said, adding: "Everybody was dying to pet her, because she was the most beautiful, friendly dog that I had ever seen, but nobody could touch her. Except Alice told me today that she touched her all the time. ... When she was finally wrapped, ... it was the one day that everybody could finally go and pet her, and she was very excited that she got all that attention from everybody that she had been dying for." At the end, Smith admitted that he wanted to take Abbey home. "It was the first time I had ... allowed myself to be fond of a dog since [Trixie], and I was like, ... 'Steve, please, Abbey has to live with me. Please.' And he was like, 'Well, this is how I make my living, man.' ... I experienced the pain again, because he was like, 'I'll bring her over every weekend, Will, but you know, she has to work.' It was painful, but, yeah, she was great." I Am Legend, based on Richard Matheson's novel of the same name, opens Dec. 14 http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?c...=3&id=45972

Smith wows fans at world premiere Will Smith was greeted by hundreds of screaming fans as he hit the red carpet in Japan for the world premiere of his new film. Smith stars in action thriller I Am Legend, the fourth big screen adaptation of Richard Matheson's sci-fi novel of the same name. The Hitch star plays scientist Robert Neville who is the only person left alive when a virus wipes out the population of New York City. The film comes highly recommended by its star: "It has wonderful action and really big scares. So you want to watch this movie with a big audience 'cause there's some terrifying parts in this movie and I think my performance is pretty good too." So it's no secret that Will is a fan of his own work but it seems producers were not so impressed with the Hollywood star when he accidentally gave away the ending of the film during the opening in Tokyo. I Am Legend is slated to hit cinemas on December 26. VIDEO

From our ANI Correspondent Washington, Dec 6: Hollywood star Will Smith revealed that he is determined to become best pals with David Beckham as he finds the ace footballer and his wife Victoria "charming". Smith admits that he's impressed with Becks' energy and attitude, and says that he wants to spend more time with the couple. "I love his energy and his attitude, what he represents to the sport and we're just really getting to know them," Contactmusic quoted the 'Men in Black' star, as saying What he also loves about the couple is the fact that they are 'very, very funny'. "They're very, very funny and I keep telling them they should let people know how funny they are because they're hilarious," he said. "I'm interested in spending some time with them and getting to know them," he added. http://www.dailyindia.com/show/197496.php/...id-Beckhams-BFF

The 'Legend' of Will Smith continues . . . Thursday, December 06, 2007 By JOHN URBANCICH LOS ANGELES Ten questions for Will Smith, who takes command of the big screen as the last man on Earth with the Dec. 14 release of "I Am Legend." You've had a passion for this project since you were going to do it with Michael Bay about 12 years ago. Why has this Robert Neville character stayed with you all this time? When it comes to movies, I think I am really connecting to the Joseph Campbell idea of the collective unconscious. There are things we all dream, things that are beyond language, things that each one of us has thought which connect to life, death and sex. To me, this is one of those concepts. There are times you've been on the freeway and wished that everybody were dead (laughs). There've been times you just wish you were by yourself; you don't need anyone, you just want to be by yourself. In this movie, that couples with that kind of separation from people, of being ripped away and connected with the unknown. It's how we would fair against whatever is in that unknown that 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 4-year-old can understand. What about the loneliness of this character and also the madness? And, how about basically acting for half of this movie or more by yourself? It was such a wonderful exploration of myself. You get in a situation where you don't have people to create the stimulus for you to respond to. Instead, you start creating the stimulus and the response. You learn things about yourself that you would never even imagine. To prepare for that, we sat with former POWs and with people who had been in solitary confinement. They said, "The first thing is a schedule. You will not survive in solitary if you don't schedule everything." That even includes cleaning your nails or watching roaches, whatever, but making sure it's at the same time each day. For me, the thing was to get into the mental space where whatever the truth was for Robert Neville didn't matter. The only thing that mattered is what he saw and what he believed. It was such a great exploration of what happens to the human mind that is trying to defend itself. For me, I'm a better actor for having had to create both sides of the scene, with no dialogue. What was the experience of shooting in New York like? Shooting in New York is difficult, especially something on this level. Percentage-wise, it's the most amounts of middle fingers I've received in my career (laughs). I'm used to people liking me; when I come to town, it's fun. This time, I was starting to think my name started with "f" and ended with "you." But, hey, we shut down six blocks of Fifth Avenue on a Monday morning. That was probably poor planning. You realize you have never actually seen an empty shot of New York. When we were doing it, it's chilling to walk right down the middle of Fifth Avenue. I mean, there is never an opportunity to do that, even at 2 o'clock in the morning on Sunday. It created such a creepy energy. Logistically, it was a nightmare, but it absolutely created something that you can't do with green screen and you can't do shooting in any city other than New York. How significant do you think it is that the last man alive is African-American? First and last, baby (laughs). It's almost a metaphysical idea for me. I mean, I rarely think about that until someone brings it up. Then, I say, "Oh, wow! That never crossed my mind in that way." Acknowledgment of those kinds of ideas puts a weird boundary on my thoughts. I can't allow myself to be a part of it because it sort of makes me think smaller, if that makes any sense. I've never really thought about the significance of that with the film. A recent magazine article alluded to the idea that, like your wife Jada, you may have converted to Scientology. Any truth to that? 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 my connection, to my higher power, is separate from everybody's. I don't believe the Muslims have all the answers, or the Christians or the Jews, so I love my God, my higher power, mine and mine alone. I create my connection and I decide how my connection is going to be. Was that gray hair a special effect or is it really Will Smith? That was a special effect. We had the world's best gray hair people come in from . . . uh, from Europe. Yes, that is a European GH, or GHI, or Gray Hair International, and they just do that (laughs). What about working with your daughter, Willow? You kind of don't work with Willow, you work for Willow. Jada and I carry on the age-old debate of nature vs. 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 believe that it has to be neither one of those. There has to be something else. She just knows and she just loves it. When we were shooting the bridge sequence, there was a building nearby with a temperature gauge on it. We started at sunset and it was probably 29 degrees or something. Then, we watched it go down to 1 and then to negative numbers. Willow is out there, and she's cold and 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 thought, "Wow!" I said, "That's good, baby, because Daddy is leaving if it goes any lower than that 1." Willow just wants it. She has a drive, an energy, and she just connects to human emotion. A big part of it is probably Jaden (Christopher Smith, Willow's brother). After "The Pursuit of Happyness" and she saw what Jaden did, she thought, "I want that." Now, we make our kids audition and all of that; we don't do the whole nepotism thing. We always call the family in and announce good things that happen so everybody shares in it. Well, we say, "Everybody, we just want to congratulate Willow. She got 'I Am Legend.' " She immediately turns around to Jaden and (posing aggressively) goes, "What's that? What was that?" Never had she talked about any feelings she was having, but it was like, "OK, I'm plotting on you, dude." When we look at Jaden and Willow, we say Jaden is Johnny Depp because he just wants to do good work. He doesn't care what money he gets, he doesn't care if people see it or don't see it. He just loves acting and wants to make good movies. Which child demands more money? Willow is Paris Hilton (laughs). She wants to be on TV. We are managing both of those in our household. Are you still in contact with DJ Jazzy Jeff? Jeff and I perform a couple of times a year. We're going to go out big in July, figuring out some places around the world to do some big shows. It's about that circle back to the golden age of hip-hop, starting to be a little resurgence, so we're planning some things. As far as the Fresh Prince, it's interesting. On July 6, 1996, the Fresh Prince stopped. After "Independence Day" came out on that Monday, it was the first time anyone called me Mr. Smith. I was like, "What the . . . ?" All through "The Fresh Prince" (on TV), all through the music, it was like, "Hey, Fresh Prince, Fresh Prince." That morning, when the box office numbers came out for "Independence Day," it was evryone saying, "Good morning, Mr. Smith." Just so bizarre. What is next for you in film? I'll be working with (director) Gabriele Muccino on something in March called "Seven Pounds." Gabriele has a wonderful insight on who I am and how to get the best out of me. Michael Mann and Gabriele Muccino you know how people can have X-ray vision on you? Like, how there are some people you can't pull tricks on, they know exactly what is going on? They see you, right to the heart of who you are, and what you are feeling. That's the relationship I have with those guys. I'm definitely looking forward to getting back in there with Gabriele. We've already completed "Hancock" for the Fourth of July, with Charlize Theron and Jason Bateman. Peter Berg directed; Akiva Goldsman, Michael Mann and myself are producing. If you can imagine, it's the Michael Mann version of an alcoholic superhero it is so bizarre. Jason Bateman plays a publicist and I save his life. Then, he begins to rehabilitate me in the eyes of the public. http://www.cleveland.com/sun/intermission/....xml&coll=4

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Will Smith in Tokyo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAE9JA63U2k (Watch the full video) :thumbsup:

NEW PICS! http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/16/87416500cl5.jpg http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/3503/11660659jl3.jpg http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/3663/14409147qp6.jpg http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/2526/89624339ae7.jpg

This Is Legend http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-osL31Zhn18

Will Smith Needs a "Spoiler Alert" Before Talking As prominent as his ears are, it looks like they're just for decoration, since Will Smith wasn't able to hear instructions not to spoil the ending of his movie by completely giving it away. In Tokyo at a press junket for his latest film, "I Am Legend," Will Smith got so carried away when talking about the film that he accidentally revealed the ending to the suspense thriller. It was during his enthused interaction with the press that co-screenwriter and co-producer Akiva Goldsman suddenly told Smith loudly, "Don't give away the ending!" and members of the press present were instructed to please keep the info under wraps for the sake of moviegoers. Oh Willie. There's a pretty funny picture of Will making a total "Oops, I messed up, huh?" face after the jump that you should check out. http://socialitelife.buzznet.com/2007/12/0...ore_talking.php