Q and A with Will

[Jazzy Julie]

Actor Will Smith follows his Oscar-nominated turn in The Pursuit of Happyness with a sharp detour: zombie-flick I Am Legend, in which he plays scientist Robert Neville, possibly the last person left on Earth after a virus infects the populace and the only hope for a cure. And while he may not win awards for the role, Smith's bankability as an action star promises ample rewards just the same.

PREMIERE talked to Smith about I Am Legend and power.

You carry a pretty big acting burden in I Am Legend. You are mostly alone.

We essentially wanted to make something new. And I'm by myself with a dog for the first 60 pages [of the script], you know what I mean? So that's terrifying. My God, am I as interesting as Tom Hanks [in Cast Away]? Will people want to watch me by myself for [an hour]? But working with [screenwriter] Akiva [Goldsman], we're essentially trying to sneak a small character[-driven] art film into the body of a big summer blockbuster.

Did you shoot in a linear fashion so that you could get into the character?

Well, the structure of the script pops all over the place. There are essentially three sections. There's pre-disaster, there's Neville in current-time disaster, and then there's a story turn that I can't reveal, which is the last section of the script. But when you view it, there are parallel stories going on and flashbacks and fever dreams and all kinds of things happening. So we [shot] it in the order of the script, but the order of the script isn't the order of the story.

Do you think your character has lost hope?

That's interesting. We've been debating whether or not this character has lost hope. Is it just a routine that he wakes up every day, and here is this routine so programmed that he does it? Or does he actually hope that he finds the cure? Hope is actually the enemy. So probably in his deepest subconscious he has to hope to still wake up every day, but there's no conscious hope at all. There's an ego or super ego, whatever. There might be a little id hope going on.

If this happened to you in your own life, do you think you could survive?

Oh, no. You know, it's really interesting. I've been working on a family charter essentially, putting together family rules and how we function and what our purpose is and all of that. And one of the basic ideas of why human beings form groups is because you can't survive by yourself. Most of us don't know how to distill clean drinking water. The second we get an infected tooth, most of us couldn't do what Tom Hanks did in Cast Away. So we need other people for our very survival. So I can't imagine that I'd be that quick a learner if something like this were to happen, and there was no chance of folks coming back. I'd drive that thing right off the George Washington Bridge.

How do you describe this film to someone who has no idea what it is about? Because it is both sci-fi and horror.

Yeah. Well, the studio's not going like this description, but it is a character drama. It is a huge summer-blockbuster character drama. And there are science-fiction elements. We are genre-conscious — there are zombies in this movie — but this is absolutely straight down the middle a character study.

What do you think of the vampires in this film? Have you seen them?

Yeah. They're totally digital, so it's one of those things where you never — you don't really get a good look. There are concept drawings and ideas but you're actually working with nothing. So the concept drawings looked great, but I haven't seen [them in] motion.

Is there a lot of action in this movie?

We have the standard three action sequences, but we're concentrating aggressively on not having action sequences for the sake of action sequences. We're holding ourselves firmly to the idea that it has got to be driven by character. So we have stunning action sequences, but I feel like you'll connect to them emotionally, but you're not going to feel like you're being bombarded with an action sequence. That's our hope.

When was the last time you watched Charlton Heston in The Omega Man, which was also based on Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend?

Oh, God, we've been watching it every day. In the production office, we run all of the movies 24 hours a day so that we have a connection [to them]. I think that was [screenwriter] Akiva [Goldsman]'s idea. There are 16 monitors on throughout the production office. So Omega Man and 28 Days and Cast Away, all of those movies that are connected, that have similar themes [play constantly]. There are things that people do well that you want to avoid, and there's things that people do poorly that you want to avoid.

What's it like working with director Francis Lawrence?

He did the Men in Black II video, so we have worked together before. He's just extremely easy-going. He's smart and a huge researcher. And I love that. I'm so big on research. And we went to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. We went to San Francisco and met with a couple of the foremost virologists and epidemiologists in the world. I just love programming all of that stuff. I just feel like it gives it a texture of authenticity.

Did you work together with the screenwriter and director to develop the duality inherent in the script?

Akiva doesn't need much help from anybody else to find that type of stuff. It's very collaborative, and we build on ideas that are there. One of the early things that you see in the script is there are signs everywhere that says God still loves us.

Is he alive because he is a scientist?

Well, he's immune. He has a natural immunity. His assumption is there were 6 billion people on earth. The KV virus had a 90 percent kill rate. So that's 5.4 billion people dead immediately, which left 600 million people with a 2 percent immunity. And that 2 percent immunity was before the dark seekers started getting hungry. So he feels like the chances are really slim for there being other people.

Your daughter Willow is in I Am Legend and your son was in The Pursuit of Happyness. So is this the beginning of the Will Smith dynasty?

Well, you know, it's like it's the family business. And we shoot shorts around the house all the time. It's just what our family does. And it's what our kids know. And, you know, it's something that they love doing. So we're not asking them to do it or forcing them to do it. It's just a part of our life.

Is it your intention to delve into more character roles, ones that don't rely so much on the "Will Smith" character?

What I learned working with Michael Mann [on Ali] and what I learned also with The Pursuit of Happyness — people seem to appreciate when I turn the Will Smith off, you know? Flip that switch the other direction. People, whether they like it or not, there seems to be some admiration for the attempt. It's like being in a fight, and you know you have a punch that'll knock the guy out and when the fight starts to get hard, it's difficult not to throw that punch. But to know that you are training another punch, and you'll be a better fighter if you allow yourself to train your left hand instead of just knocking everybody out with your right hand — because eventually one day everybody's gonna learn that punch, and it's not gonna be effective anymore. So I wouldn't say it's fun, but I would say it's exciting.

Do you think that after Pursuit of Happyness and now this character drama, you'll do more character roles?

I'm insane right now about diving into the mind of a character. I've always loved story. I'm attracted to great stories. And the roles that I've chosen in the past have always been story-driven. And if I love the story, I'll figure out the character. And now working with Michael Mann, now Gabriele Muccino on Pursuit of Happyness, there are no frills, no thrills — they want none of that. It's all about the character. And I'm starting to enjoy creating from that standpoint. No matter how cool it is, if it's not real for the character, we're not doing it. And that's not like me.

Right after finishing The Pursuit of Happyness you jetted off to Rome to attend Tom Cruise's wedding and then you immediately jumped into I Am Legend — do you ever take any time off?

You know, I feed my family with this, but it's actually my hobby also. So it's not something that I need a break from. It's what my life is and what my life has been for 20 years. I pretty much work seven-day weeks, you know. But it's not work in my mind.

Do you remember when you realized you'd be performing in some aspect for the majority of your life?

That's interesting, there was a story I was just thinking about the other day. I went from grade school to high school, and it was my first day in a big high school. And I guess I'm one of those people — I guess my condition would be called counterphobia, right? If that's a word. Like when I'm scared of things, I feel like I have to attack it, right? So I was terrified going into this new school. And I walked into the lunch room — there were about 400 students in the lunch room — and I walked in and whistled as loud as I could whistle, and I said, "Hey, it's okay, he's here now. Everybody can relax, he's here!" And a guy looked up and said, "Don't nobody give a **** that you here." And I looked and I said, "Well, I just got here. Gimme a few minutes and your girlfriend is gonna care that I'm here."

How old were you?

I was probably 14. So three minutes later, he put a lock over his finger and punched me in the side of my head and knocked me unconscious. And I remember laying there on the steps, and I remember thinking, Wow, that's a lot of power to have. This guy just got himself kicked out of school and could potentially go to jail based on something that I was able to control. And in that moment I remember feeling endowed with power. And I thought to myself, If I have enough power to potentially make somebody throw their life away, the way the universe works, I probably have enough power to change somebody's life for the better. And then from that point I remember starting to think about how I could use that for good things in that one moment, in that one instant — what could I do, what could I say, what could I adjust to make that big a difference in somebody's life for good? And then from that moment I started really thinking and really concentrating, really focusing on that first impression, that first moment, that stepping in and making the right impact and singing the right thing and, you know, looking at people with good intentions versus all your insecurities and all of that. And so I would say, probably I had a handle on it by the time I was 21 or 22 years old, where I felt like I started to have a little command and control over that power that we all have.

Is that why you avoid playing bad guys?

Yeah, I just enjoy inspiring good feelings. Like that's fun for me. Comedy I would say is my most fun. How people react to Hitch and how people react to The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, like there's nothing that matches that. So I just haven't been inspired to play a bad guy. I'm sure there is a bad guy at some point that has the right message, you know? Scarface had the right message about power and drugs and all of that. He showed you exactly where the mess was going to end up. So even though it's a tragic story, there's a positive message in it.

Do you feel that, now, you have more power than other people?

That's funny. No, I feel like, because so many times you have a microphone and a camera in front of you, [what you say] will be pumped around the world — that definitely gives you power. Power is in the movement of people. How many people can you move determines how much power you have. So I would say I have a stronger magnifying glass for the same power, the same amount of power I had when I was 14. I feel like internally it's honed and crafted to be able to use it more specifically, but it's essentially the same amount of power. I just have this, you know, "Warner Brothers machinery" that will pump the message more aggressively.

http://www.premiere.com/features/4321/q-a-...will-smith.html

[VIsqo]

great interview!