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No Oscar for Will Smith this year...


Ale

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Hi guys, I am a Will Smith Fan from Hong Kong (a city of China). Glad to find this site.

Reading this post, I think some of you are seriously under estimating Will's ability as an actor. Yes, it is easy to list many actors who are considered better actors than Will (Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Johnny Depp, Russel Crowe etc. etc... to name a few). However, please remember that all these actors have played many great roles in great movies, while Will has NEVER been in a great movie. Will's best role to date is his role in the Pursuit of Happyness in my opinion. That said, even this movie is only a decent one, far from a great one, and the script and his charactor lacked depth. However, given such limited material, Will was able to give a fine and nuanced performance which is very touching and memorable. This demonstrates that he is a very good actor and has much potential that has not yet been explored.

As already said by many of you in this forum, what Will lacks is a great movie with a great director and great script. As regards the possibility of being outshined by other members of the cast, I am confident that if the script is great and Will plays a well written and compelling main character, he would not be outshined.

As a side note, just want to share what I think about comments on Will on the Internet. While Will's older movies such as Independence Day, MIB were very popular in Hong Kong, he was not really popular here then (I think it is mostly due to the difficulty for black actors to break out in Asia). However, starting with the Pursuit of Happyness and I am Legend, audience here began to really like and appreciate Will, and he is now a box office draw here. May be because audience here started to get familiar with Will more recently when he has matured as an actor, most of us here see Will as a very good actor. Therefore, when I started to search for information about Will on the Internet, I was really shocked to find that so many people (especially the so called movie buffs) think that Will is not that good an actor (although it seems that many among the general movie going public have a different opinion and they like Will as an actor). One reason is probably Will's lack of good movies as mentioned above, but I think another reason is that Will's early comedic image in Fresh Prince, Bad Boys, MIB etc makes it difficult for some to accept that Will has given a good dramatic performance even when he has indeed give one.

Hope Will can soon find his great role.

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lol. best actor in hollywood? guess it's all a matter of opinion.

honestly I feel like he just stopped playing himself and doing that "Will Smith thing" in movies a couple years ago. he certainly has the potential if he wouldn't try so much to insert his own ideas into scripts and always come out on top with the good guy/savior image in films. I think people look at his transformation from him starting out on Fresh Prince to where he is now, and jump the gun a little, he's come a long way but he admitted himself that it's hard for him to shake the more serious roles ( 6 degrees, seven pounds) and it takes weeks for him to come out of a character, now maybe I don't know enough about it but I think a great actor should be able to turn that off a little easier. I think it's funny when he says he's in his prime as an actor and it's obvious he's still struggling with the craft. I haven't seen Seven Pounds, i've just read a lot about it, but it's obvious that this film was a vanity project Will did in hopes of getting another nomination, he's chasing that Oscar a little too hard.

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Miss Ash on point again! Janis :welcome4: We are all waiting for Will to find a great movie but he's responsible for the projects hes done lately because hes producing them himslef via Overbrook his own company.

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Ali was a great performance that deserved every bit of acclaim it got and then some. While Will is not the greatest dramatic actor out there or the best comedian, he is very good at both. Very few actors have his diversity in different genres.

Some of you guys are being a little too negative and harsh. Music fans need to accept he's done with it, and quite ragging on his films so much. Though, I'll give you Seven Pounds. Not nearly as bad as some said, but is not that good of a film.

Edited by Radewart
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I think Will's greatest strength is his ability to entertain, his amazing charisma.. The chemistry he can generate with his co-stars (Martin Lawrence, Tommy Lee Jones) He's basically forgotten to entertain lately or doesn't want to.. He certainly isn't playing to his strengths..

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i really wanna see the "Will Smith thing" again. Anyone can play roles like Ben Thomas but only Will can do that thing he does in MIB, Independance day etc. Im not saying he has to be funny every role, bcoz that would be boring and it is nice to see him do different things, but he hasnt been a fresh prince type character since Hitch.

Being himself doesnt make him a great actor but at the end of the day its what people like to see and its how i like to see him the most. Ive had enough of him playing depressing people. Ben Thomas, Hancock, Robert Neville and Chris Gardener are all messed up people. Hes spent to much effort getting rid of his charisma like Tim said.

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Well I didn't see any performance that deserved an oscar... If you set out to try and win an oscar you never will.. It's really a by-product of good work.. Will needs to start thinking, I need to work with great producers, great script writers and assemble a really good cast and a great director.. That should be his focus.

:yeahthat:

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Well I didn't see any performance that deserved an oscar... If you set out to try and win an oscar you never will.. It's really a by-product of good work.. Will needs to start thinking, I need to work with great producers, great script writers and assemble a really good cast and a great director.. That should be his focus.

a great cast would probably outshine him tho

Yes, just like he was outshined in Hancock by Theron, or in Ali, Enemy of the state, MIB or Six degrees.

Will is one of the best actors of his generation. The reason he's being downplayed a lot and underrated by many as an actor is (just like Tim mentioned) cause he surrounds himself with mediocre people which produce mediocre movies. How many actors are there that have the ability to play in almost ANY genre and deliver like he does ? The only ones that come to my mind are Johnny Depp...and even he doesn't have the same versatility as Will. His biggest problem as mentioned before is his lack of picking the right script or picking the right people to work on his projects.

Edited by Typhoon20
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Hi guys, I am a Will Smith Fan from Hong Kong (a city of China). Glad to find this site.

Reading this post, I think some of you are seriously under estimating Will's ability as an actor. Yes, it is easy to list many actors who are considered better actors than Will (Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Johnny Depp, Russel Crowe etc. etc... to name a few). However, please remember that all these actors have played many great roles in great movies, while Will has NEVER been in a great movie. Will's best role to date is his role in the Pursuit of Happyness in my opinion. That said, even this movie is only a decent one, far from a great one, and the script and his charactor lacked depth. However, given such limited material, Will was able to give a fine and nuanced performance which is very touching and memorable. This demonstrates that he is a very good actor and has much potential that has not yet been explored.

As already said by many of you in this forum, what Will lacks is a great movie with a great director and great script. As regards the possibility of being outshined by other members of the cast, I am confident that if the script is great and Will plays a well written and compelling main character, he would not be outshined.

As a side note, just want to share what I think about comments on Will on the Internet. While Will's older movies such as Independence Day, MIB were very popular in Hong Kong, he was not really popular here then (I think it is mostly due to the difficulty for black actors to break out in Asia). However, starting with the Pursuit of Happyness and I am Legend, audience here began to really like and appreciate Will, and he is now a box office draw here. May be because audience here started to get familiar with Will more recently when he has matured as an actor, most of us here see Will as a very good actor. Therefore, when I started to search for information about Will on the Internet, I was really shocked to find that so many people (especially the so called movie buffs) think that Will is not that good an actor (although it seems that many among the general movie going public have a different opinion and they like Will as an actor). One reason is probably Will's lack of good movies as mentioned above, but I think another reason is that Will's early comedic image in Fresh Prince, Bad Boys, MIB etc makes it difficult for some to accept that Will has given a good dramatic performance even when he has indeed give one.

Hope Will can soon find his great role.

Hi there, welcome to the boards.

That's one of the best posts I've ever read regarding this subject. And your English is excellent too.

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