The Last Action Hero

[Hero1]

The last action hero
July 23, 2004

Will Smith in I, Robot.


There's more to Will Smith than his solar-powered smile and thermonuclear charm - he sees the need to bolster action with intellect.

Wary of the time when the physical strain of action films may force him to give up the action genre, he says he's adding subtext to his blockbusters.

"As I get older, it's going to be a necessity to have ideas in these films - you can only save the world so many times before people start saying 'All right buddy, we got it,"' he says.

"Audiences are going to reject action movies where you just blow stuff up and a guy looks cool. These films need to be intellectually stimulating."

Although Smith was Oscar-nominated for his performance as Muhammad Ali in 2001's Ali, and has given good performances in such serious movies as Six Degrees of Separation and The Legend of Bagger Vance, if he harbours unsatisfied creative yearnings, he's keeping them to himself. Sequels like Men in Black II and Bad Boys II further suggest Hollywood doesn't want the star to stray far from his successful formula.

"After Ali, I went back to (action films), back to that comfort. Some people, once they get an Oscar nomination, they get the bug to only do serious films. For me, I know I'll have time for that, so I didn't want to lose my connection to the youngster in me.



"I feel confident at this point that I can pretty much do what I want. I've found a comfortable creative freedom. It's my decision which side of myself to show."

The 35-year-old actor has starred in a bunch of big-budget action-adventure films from Independence Day in 1996 to his latest, I, Robot, which is now showing in Australia.

I, Robot, based loosely on Isaac Asimov's 1950 short-story collection, reflects Smith's desire to make an adventure that takes place in a murkier moral universe.

He plays a Chicago detective in 2035, who investigates a robot accused of murder. Like Blade Runner and Minority Report, the film touches on the idea of whether it's emotion, intelligence or violence that makes humans unique.

Smith was born in 1968 and reared in a suburb of Philadelphia. At 16, he and his friend Jeff Townes began performing as DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince - a high-school teacher gave Smith the nickname "Prince" because of his ability to charm himself out of trouble.

The duo released an album, Rock the House, in 1987; their second, 1989's He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper, contained the single Parents Just Don't Understand, which earned the first Best Rap Performance Grammy award.

Producer Quincy Jones and series creator Benny Medina tapped Smith for The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which aired on NBC from 1990 to 1996. Smith had a small role as a homeless teen in 1992's Where the Day Takes You, then got excellent reviews as a gay charlatan who smooth-talks a New York art world couple in Six Degrees of Separation.

In 1995's Bad Boys, he was second-billed behind comic Martin Lawrence, but by 1996, when he starred as a smart-aleck Army pilot who saves the world from aliens in Independence Day, Smith had found his game.

"I'm not a long-range kind of guy - I'm a one-step-at-a-time guy, making each step as perfect as I can," says Smith. "I have a sense of what direction I'm going in, and then I put my head down and barrel forward.

"The bottom line in this business is, the person who pays the most attention and studies the hardest wins. And I refuse to let someone work harder than me. When people in Hollywood said I couldn't star in Independence Day because black actors don't translate internationally, that spurred me on. I thought, 'I'll take that fight."'

In 1997, he released his first solo album, Big Willie Style, which won another Grammy, and co-starred with Tommy Lee Jones in the hit Men in Black.

On New Year's Eve that year, Smith married actress Jada Pinkett (The Matrix Reloaded, The Nutty Professor), whom he met when she auditioned for a role on Fresh Prince. The two were friends through Smith's three-year marriage to actress Sheree Zampino, whom he divorced in 1995 and with whom he has a son, Trey, now 11.

Smith had another hit with the techno-political thriller Enemy of the State in 1998. His ironic smile enabled him to transcend the action genre. An Everyman whose jokey bantering was an invitation to a good time, he became the coolest black actor around at a time when Chris Rock was mainly known for comedy, Wesley Snipes' action roles were becoming more specialised, Eddie Murphy was segueing into family fare, Denzel Washington and Samuel L Jackson were maturing, and Laurence Fishburne was attaining mythic stature in The Matrix.

But then in 1999, Smith reteamed with his Men In Black director, Barry Sonnenfeld, for the ill-conceived movie of the '60s TV show Wild Wild West. Its failure brought him back down to earth.

"Wild Wild West was bittersweet, because while I was disappointed the movie wasn't received the way I'd hoped, I was relieved that people had stopped viewing me as a magician, able to work magic anytime," says Smith. "And failures help you to judge your successes. Independence Day and Men in Black broke box-office records, but it was like having chocolate cake for every meal. So Wild Wild West hurt, but it relieved me of that burden."

Currently filming the romantic comedy The Last First Kiss, co-starring Eva Mendes, around New York, Smith will be heard but not seen in the animated Shark Tale, due in autumn in the US.

"That's one my younger kids can see," he says, referring to his children with Pinkett, son Jaden, 6, and daughter Willow, 4. He is also working on a new album.

Though he and Pinkett Smith are looked at as one of Hollywood's most successful couples, he says the onscreen romance of Last First Kiss is undiscovered territory.

"Young black couples will walk up to me and Jada on the street and say, 'Y'all got to stay together, because if you guys can't make it, none of us can!' We love that.

"But I've only recently gotten comfortable with movie romance. I've never wanted any woman to feel like I'm disrespecting her, and that's created a distance in my roles. I think there's a certain energy that you need in order to create (romance in movies)."

Smith's personal energy, though, has never been in doubt.

"There's real pleasure that I get out of being happy and getting people energised - that's when I'm at my best," he says. "I need that dynamic both selfishly and selflessly: I try to encourage everyone around me to go someplace different artistically, to think differently."

Does that ever get exhausting for his wife?

"Jada and I can (talk) about things for hours, but when other people are around, yeah, I can wear her out," Smith says, flashing his killer grin. "I think my energy can get a little oppressive for her. But she understands that it's a life-force for our relationship, as much as it might get on her nerves.

"It's like, we all love the sun, but the sun can burn you sometimes!"

- KRT

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