Hail to the chief: Mr Will Smith shall go to Washington

[Ale]

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

Edited December 8, 2007 by Ale

[VIsqo]

Wow, this is a great article man! gotta luv that picture!!!!!

[TopDawg14]

I guess if Will's not going to let anything get in the way of his acting, I guess that means no music. I've said it before that Will doesn't have anything else to prove musically but he does in terms of being an actor.

Good read. Very good article.